This is no two-year-old corpse. This body is recently dead. She was probably alive this morning while I went jogging.

I was sipping coffee and going through e-mails while she was being murdered.

The grave marker behind her is her own, showing her name, dates of her birth and her death. Yet in defiance of that, her apparently recently living body is thrust out of the earth, as if she climbed out of her own grave.

A heavyset young man with a ponytail kneels down beside her. He’s wearing thick rubber gloves up to his elbows. His ID says he’s a county forensic technician. “We did a gas chromatography examination of the soil immediately around the body. Its oxygen levels indicate it hasn’t been disturbed in over a year.” He points to the grass. “We haven’t found any evidence that the roots have been cut either. It would appear as it seems.”

That last sentence is a peculiar way to phrase things. It’s like an honest magician. “The box appears empty.” He doesn’t want to describe to the apparent truth that a dead girl came back to life and crawled out of her grave.

Words are scary. Spells and prayers are words we use to ask for magic. The technician, by all accounts an intelligent young man, is afraid to say what we all see, lest he make it real with an invocation. He can only affirm that we all see the same thing.

Danielle gives the girl a sad look and shakes her head. She’s not worried about the trick. She just sees the girl. I like Danielle for this. The emotion is gone from her face and she’s all business. She has purpose. “All right, then. Let’s take a look at what’s down there.” She and the other members of the team open their cases and begin taking out equipment.

I stand back and hand them cords and boxes when asked. Out of the corner of my eye I feel like I’m being watched. I turn around.

A few yards away a middle-aged woman with her arms folded is observing us with a cross expression from under a canopy. Her dark hair, streaked with silver, is pulled up into a bun. She looks like a professor in her lab coat. I’d bet anything she’s Gladys, the medical examiner.

I can tell she’s not thrilled with us near the body, even though we’re careful and trying to be mindful of jurisdiction and the chain of evidence. I keep my distance because I don’t even want to get into the reason for my presence. Her eyes still drift toward me as she notices that I’m not really helping set up the equipment. I get the feeling I’m about to be grilled by one of my professors. Smart and analytical, she’s trying to decide why I’m here.

I realize part of the look on her face is probably due to the fact that she did the original autopsy report on Chloe. I don’t think she buys the idea that the girl crawled her way out of her grave almost two years later. But the presence of this body in such a state suggests that she made a mistake somewhere. I don’t see how that could be. Yet the evidence is right in front of us.