“This is Violeta Williams. Fingerprints matched those in the system.” Dr. Morris flashed Kia and Nate a bright smile, but her eyes remained flat and dark. Another faker, like himself, Nate decided.

Violeta Williams’s body was swollen and blue, her face frozen in a bloated grimace, her skin loose and wrinkled. One eyelid had been torn off, exposing a bulging eyeball with a milky brown iris staring accusingly at the ceiling.

“Can you tell time of death?” Kia asked.

Dr. Morris carefully brushed a strand of dark hair off Violeta Williams’s forehead and straightened the white sheet draped over her chest. The action was so intensely compassionate and humane that Nate almost wanted to look away. “Hard to know for certain, as her body’s been submerged. But based on the temperature of the water and skin condition, I’d estimate anywhere from six to eight days. She had markedly heavy lung weight and frothy fluid in the lungs.”

“She drowned?” Nate asked.

Dr. Morris held up a finger. “Not exactly, no. She also had cerebral edema, fluid in the brain, and bladder distension. I’ve collected blood and urine specimens and I’m sending them out for toxicology testing. I need to corroborate with clinical evidence, but based on my findings, and the fact that I’m seeing this more frequently lately, I’d wager an educated guess on a drug overdose, before she went in the water.”

Nate’s mind flashed to Santiago Martinez’s neck. “Were there puncture marks anywhere on her body?”

“Unfortunately, the skin’s been compromised from being submerged for so long. It’s impossible to say.”

Nate looked at Kia. “We have two people, possibly linked, possibly both drug dealers, who’ve died in the last couple of weeks from overdoses. Santiago Martinez’s wasn’t an accident. What are the chances this one wasn’t either?”

Kia raised a dark eyebrow. “You think someone’s killing off drug dealers?”

“Possibly.”

Kia pointed to the bruising along Violeta Williams’s face. “Was she beaten?”

“No, that occurred after death,” Dr. Morris said.

“Her body must’ve been carried over the waterfall,” Kia said to Nate. “If there’s a crime scene, it’s up there.”

“There’s miles of river where she could’ve gone in. Or she could’ve been dumped.”

Kia’s phone buzzed, and she moved away to answer it.

“Any personal belongings?” Nate asked Dr. Morris.

She handed him a large plastic bag from under the gurney and turned away to jot some notes on a form. Nate rifled through a set of keys, a waterlogged wallet with a few credit cards, an empty baggie, what looked like a business card. He turned it over. The ink had been washed away from being in the water, but he could see the indentations of where the logo had been embossed.