Jack leaped back to avoid being splashed and let the shower door close. It all came back to him in a rush. He’d vaguely remembered snatches of the conversation in the middle of the night when he’d first awakened, but he’d thought it all had been a nightmare.

Jack had not seen Laurie so motivated since she and her mom had teamed up for planning their wedding. A little later Jack learned that Laurie had stayed up and essentially made all the travel and lodging arrangements, pending Calvin’s permission for the two of them to take a week off. They were to leave that evening, change planes in Paris, and arrive in New Delhi late the following night. As far as the hotel was concerned, they were booked in the same place Jennifer Hernandez was staying.

By seven a.m. Jack found himself staring into the lens of a digital camera in a shop on Columbus Avenue. When the flash went off, he jumped. A few minutes later he and Laurie were back on the street.

“Let me see your photo!” Laurie said, and giggled when she looked at it. Jack grabbed it back, miffed that she was making fun of it. “Want to see mine?” Laurie asked, but she extended it to Jack before he had a chance to respond. As he’d expected, hers looked better than his, with the flash catching the auburn highlights in her brunette hair as if the clerk was a professional photographer. The biggest difference was the eyes. Whereas Jack’s light brown, deeply set eyes looked like he was hungover, Laurie’s blue-green eyes were bright and sparkly.

When they got to the OCME at seven-thirty, Laurie thought things looked auspicious. She imagined that if it had been a particularly busy day, Calvin would be less inclined psychologically to let them both take a week. But it was not busy, at least not yet. When she and Jack walked into the ID office, where the day began for all the medical examiners, the medical examiner in charge of reviewing the cases that had come in during the night, Dr. Paul Plodget, was sitting at the ID desk reading The New York Times. In front of him was an unusually small stack of folders that had already been reviewed. Next to him in one of the brown vinyl club chairs sat Vinnie Amendola, one of the mortuary techs whose job it was to come in early to help with the transition from the night techs. He also made the communal coffee. At the moment he was reading the New York Post.

“A light day today?” Laurie questioned to be certain.

“One of the lightest,” Paul said, without appearing from behind his newspaper.

“Any interesting cases?” Jack asked as he started rummaging through the short stack.