Surgeon – Chapter Twenty-Seven

NOT EDITED

Chapter Twenty-Seven

3:23 PM; CLINSTONE, HANNAH FROST’S APARTMENT, BEDROOM

“She’s only been dead for about half an hour,” Bo said. “Lips removed, but no mark on her arm. No blood was drawn.”

“Why not? I mean, why forgo that?” Jacob asked.

Bo shrugged, squatting down for a side angle of Hannah Frost’s face. “Well, you know, I haven’t done the autopsy on Rose Anderson yet. It’s possibly they took three pints from her, which would’ve given them two extra pints of blood so that they didn’t have to waste time getting any from Hannah Frost.”

“A time saver? Why does that matter now?” Jacob asked.

“His lunch break, I assume. Two o’clock to three o’clock, give or take a few.”

“So he’s at work, killing people on his break?”

“Why not?” Bo asked. “He goes to work, kills a couple girls on break, and returns to work like nothing happened. It’s a shady alibi, but it is an alibi, because who in their right mind would kill people during their lunch break?”

“That’s a… fair point,” Jacob said quietly.

“Mmhmm.” Bo sighed, pulling off one of his gloves. He scratched the side of his head before passing his fingers through his hair. “Well, let’s get her back to the morgue so I can start the autopsies, see what we can see.”

6:05 PM; MINNESOTA, THE SURGEON’S HOUSE, OFFICE

“Do you work tomorrow?”

Gordon nodded as he lowered himself into the chair in front of his father’s desk. “Mmhmm, seven to three.”

He sighed. “I’m pulling double tomorrow. Six AM to ten PM.”

“When will we work on Brooke?” Gordon asked.

He cleared his throat, running a hand through his brown hair. “Around eleven tomorrow night, if that works for you?”

“Yeah, I’ll… I’ll just tell Mish that there was an emergency at work or something,” Gordon said. “I’ll be here around ten-thirty, then. I’ll get her ready for surgery so she’s good to go when you get home.”

He smiled, his blue eyes softening ever so slightly. “Good. Thank you.”

“Sure, Dad. Anything to make Mom and Brooke whole again.”

His hand moved to the small vial of blood he wore around his neck, attached to a delicate, silver chain. His wife’s blood. Back in the day, it had been her idea. She had been wearing his blood the same way the day she died.

One of these days, Cleo Marshall would wear one around her neck too, and she would be complete.

6:30 PM; CLINSTONE, BO AUSTEN’S HOUSE, KITCHEN

Inviting the Mason family over to his house for supper had been odd for Bo, but he and Jacob hadn’t wanted to stop working on the case. Katie Mason, who was allergic to cats, had been on allergy shots for the last year and was finding that she enjoyed Acamas’s company slightly more than the small dog they had at home.

“What’s ‘N10 SK-slash-S’?” Jacob asked, his eyes skimming the sticky note at the top of the page in Bo’s notebook reserved for Rose Anderson.

“Number ten surgical knife-slash-scalpel.”

“Got it.” Jacob cleared his throat, flipping to the next page. “Okay, so Rose was missing three pints, and Hannah wasn’t missing any?”

“Right. Except the normal blood loss from the lips removal,” Bo said. He scratched at his hairline, clearing his throat. “Or… whatever you would consider ‘normal’ for that.”

“Right. Now what?” Jacob asked.

“I’m going to digitally add the features to Natalie’s face, smooth it all out, and compare it to the faces in the system. We find out who Natalie’s supposed to be, we find out all the possible people that would feel a need to recreate it,” Bo said.

“You can do that?” Jacob said, setting Bo’s notebook on the counter. “Actually, never mind. Why am I even surprised?”

Bo chuckled. “Good question.”

“Daddy?” Katie asked from her seat at the table.

“Yeah, baby?” Jacob asked.

“What’s two twenty-one minus one forty-six?” Katie asked.

Jacob snorted. “Baby, I haven’t done math without a calculator since—”

“Seventy-five,” Bo said. “It’s seventy-five.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot you were a calculator too,” Jacob said. Bo only chuckled.

Katie frowned. “I keep getting one eighty-five,” she said quietly.

“Stir this?” Bo asked, holding a spoon out to Jacob.

“Gladly.”

Bo walked over to Katie, pressing a hand to the table as he leaned over her shoulder. “Oh, here you go. When you turn the one into an eleven, you have to turn this two into a one. You left it as a two and turned it into twelve,” he said. “You just aren’t carrying it over. Otherwise, you got it down great, kiddo.”

“Oh. Our teacher just writes the instructions on the boards, and I… don’t follow written directions too well,” Katie said quietly.

“Dyslexia,” Jacob said from the stove.

Bo smiled faintly. “Well, keep it up, Katie. You’re doing great.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Good job, kiddo.”

8:07 PM; CLINSTONE, BO AUSTEN’S HOUSE, LIVING ROOM

“You’re really good with kids,” Jacob said.

Bo shrugged, his gaze focused on his laptop screen as he worked to soften Natalie Lambert’s features. “Dallas had kids,” he said offhandedly.

“And?”

“And… I helped sometimes. I always helped the oldest with his homework.”

“Do you ever want kids, Bo?” Alice asked, a sleeping Elijah cradled in her arms. Katie, sitting in the arm chair with her earphones in, was holding Charlotte.

“I’ve, uh, never thought about it, no.” That wasn’t quite true. In a fertility center somewhere in California, Bridget Decker’s fertilized eggs sat in a freezer, waiting for at least one of them to decide they wanted kids. At the time, when Bridget had needed chemotherapy, he hadn’t even considered saying ‘no’ an option, and saying ‘yes’ hadn’t even been a question. But they had been young, and Bo hadn’t been beaten down by Jamal Pitman, Kathy Baker, and the country-wide manhunt for his best friend-turned-serial-killer.

“I prefer to be alone,” Bo finally said. Acamas stepped onto his lap. She lay down, resting her head in the crook of his arm. He smiled softly, doing his best to move his arm just a little less than before.

Jacob reached over and scratched Acamas’s head. She purred, the sound vibrating against Bo’s arm. “Well, at least you’ve got a cat. She’s nice.”

“She broke into my home back in California,” Bo said. “She climbed up onto a shelf on my porch and turned the doorknob enough to get inside. I pick locks, she opens doors. I’d say we were a pretty good match.” Acamas rolled onto her back, batting lightly at the necklace charm hanging from Bo’s neck. Because she kept her claws retracted, Bo did nothing to stop her. It wasn’t like those soft little mittens were going to do any harm.

“Even your cat’s a genius,” Jacob said.

Bo chuckled. He leaned back against the couch, resting his free hand on Acamas’s stomach. “There. I’ve got it running through the system. It’ll take a while, as I didn’t change her actual facial structure or nose much.”

Jacob nodded, pushing himself to his feet. “Call me if it gets anything before work tomorrow. Otherwise, I’ll see you in the morning.” He smiled. “Thank you for supper, Bo. And for helping Katie. Math is very much not my strong suit.”

Bo offered a smile. “You’re welcome, Jake. I’ll see you in the morning.”

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