“By my standards, this is a serial killer,” she argues. “And come on. He’s going to kill again.”

“Focus on the victims, not the killer right now,” I say, moving to the end of the counter to wait on my order. “How exactly did she get cut from the inside?”

“It’s really remarkable,” DD says. “It’s like a bunch of small globes made of sharp objects. They lodged on the inside of her throat, and cut her just enough to cause exterior ruptures. It’s advanced. It’s hard for me to even fathom as possible and yet I’m seeing it with my own eyes. This isn’t amateur level.”

“My question is how did that get ingested?”

“I have a theory. I think they are tiny when they are inserted into say a gel pill or whatever it was and then it explodes with some sort of trigger. When it explodes it lodges in the muscle and cuts. It doesn’t even go all the way through, but it ruptures the muscle. Have you seen those sponges that expand when you add water?”

I roll my eyes. “Metal is not a sponge.”

“I know that and my friend at the pharmaceutical company said the same. I’ll text you a photo of the devices.”

“Anything else worth mentioning?”

“This requires very specific skills of which I can’t even fully name. And Emma Wells was healthy until metal ripped her open. Photo coming. Let me know if you need me.”

“You’re still hitting on me, DD,” I say, and she gasps.

“I meant that professionally, Agent—”

“See that you do,” I say and hang up. She’s so gullible. If she’s a Society plant, she’s a soldier, not a leader. And sometimes soldiers can be useful. My coffee is set on the bar. I carry it to one of the tiny wooden tables all these Manhattan joints sport and sit down. The photo from DD arrives and she’s right. It almost looks like it could have been a tiny BB-like pellet that had sharp objects poking out from inside. It looks like she found about a dozen inside Emma’s body.

It’s evil.

And DD’s idea of a sponge-like device that explodes in your mouth is either foolish or brilliant.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

I shoot the photograph of the murder weapon to Andrew and Tic Tac via a group text and label it the obvious for me but perhaps not for them: Murder weapon. The medical examiner believes this starts as what I assume to be a ball the size of the head of a pin that expands with water. I’m not sure how metal expands with water, but that’s her theory.