Read Online Rise of the Dunamy by James R. Landrum - Free Book Online

entered rooms before where nearly all of the occupants lay filleted open before her, but none was inviting like this. She had to work to hide her excitement each time she entered the room because there was Lucian who always had a very youthful air about him. It was infectious for Sofia. She always felt light and happy when she came into his presence, even when she couldn’t show it. He was her first real crush since Mateo, and it was far more intense with Lucian. Nonetheless, she always did her best to remain as professional as possible when she spoke to him in front of the others. She knew that if she acted any differently, it could ruin all the work she had put in with the other officers, so the flirting was put on hold until they were alone.
    Rounding the corner from the staircase to the hallway, she strained her ears to hear Lucian’s voice begin echoing through the corridor. She loved to hear him muttering to himself as he worked whenever she approached his room. Drawing closer to the morgue, she began to hear his incessant rambling right on schedule. The initial wave of smells always hit her about this time as well. The most overpowering of these was the various cleaning chemicals that were used to sterilize Lucian’s tools and tables. While a little strong, the smell always gave her a feeling of cleanliness; which was a welcome feeling when entering a room filled with death.
    As she entered the room she could see Lucian standing over the body of one of the victims from that morning; taking great care as always. He was carrying on a one-sided conversation with the corpse regarding something about his “ridiculously outdated sense of style”.
    Lucian’s faux-hawk was hidden by his favorite black scrub cap. His face covered with an intense, almost intimidating scowl as he focused on the cadaver that lay before him. A large empty bowl of what smelled like it once contained Chicken Parmesan sat near the sterilization sink, but Lucian had sense moved on to the partially eaten club sandwich that sat on a nearby preparation table. Sofia no longer saw the point in mentioning Lucian’s incessant eating. She had mocked him for a while once they had gotten comfortable with one another, but quickly grew tired of his sharp retorts. She imagined he had been defending his eating habits for quite some time, which had given him a response to anything she could dream of to say to him. Nowadays she was more concerned with keeping their conversations light and flirty.
    “Hey, sexy. Any news?” Lucian looked up from his work momentarily, somewhat startled. His face seemed to soften as he realized that she had come alone. Lucian understood why she acted so professional in the field, but greatly preferred their private interactions.
    “Well, hello beautiful. Actually, I got very little for you at the moment. I honestly didn’t expect to hear from you so soon, so I started with the other victim first; the guy that was stabbed and didn’t get eaten. I sent blood samples off to the lab so they could run ‘em against what you pulled from the knife, but it looks like he’s gonna be the match. The width of the blade is consistent with puncture wounds. Do you need me to hold off on him and get back to the others?” He asked as he pointed his scalpel towards the other bodies that were sprawled out on the other examination tables in the room.
    “Nah, no real hurry on that. I just came down to see where you were at on these so I didn’t have to rework the crime scenes with Bishop.” She playfully knocked out a little tune on one of the empty steel tables before hopping on top of it for a seat. “Anything interesting about that guy?”
    “Nah, nothing really. Looks like he was a smoker. Stomach contents were normal, looked like fast food. The cause of death was a puncture wound to his heart, and that looks like the only dent from the fight. From what I can tell, there was very little physical interaction with the exception of the