“The commander called you in,” she said.

“He did. I haven’t touched the body yet-visual only. I was waiting for you.”

She didn’t ask why. She understood she was meant to form her own conclusions without any outside data. “With us, Newkirk,” she ordered, and walked toward the lights.

It might have been a sheet of ice or snow. From a distance, it might appear to be. And from a distance, the body arranged on it might appear to be artful-a model for some edgy shoot.

But she knew what it was, even from a distance, and the line of cold up her spine took on teeth.

Her eyes met Morris’s. But they said nothing.

It wasn’t ice, or snow. She wasn’t a model or a piece of art.

Eve took a can of Seal-It from her kit, set the kit down.

“You’re still wearing your gloves,” Morris told her. “That stuff’s hell on gloves.”

“Right.” With her gaze steady on the body, she pulled the gloves off, stuffed them in her pocket. Sealed up. She hooked her recorder to her coat. “Record on.” The techs would be running one, as would Morris. She’d have her own.

“Victim is female, Caucasian. Did you ID her?” she asked Morris.

“No.”

“As yet unidentified. Mid-to late twenties, brown and blue. Small tat of a blue and yellow butterfly on left hip. The body is naked, posed on a white cloth, arms spread, palms up. There’s a silver ring on the third finger of her left hand. Various visible wounds indicating torture. Lacerations, bruising, punctures, burns. Crosshatch of slash wounds on both wrists, probable cause of death.” She looked at Morris.

“Yes. Probable.”

“There’s carving in the torso, reading eighty-five hours, twelve minutes, thirty-eight seconds.”

Eve let out a long, long breath. “He’s back.”