“I’ll do it,” Archie said with a sigh, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed.

Chapter 32

CHAPTER

32

The crime scene investigator was named Gary. He was in his thirties, Archie guessed, with a slight build and thick dark hair that would have fallen just above his shoulders if it hadn’t been pulled back in a ponytail. A feathering of dark hair on his chin appeared to mark the early stages of a goatee.

Archie shifted his weight and the plastic sheeting under his bare feet crinkled.

“Will this take much longer?” Archie asked, clearing his throat.

“If you keep squirming,” Gary said.

On the other side of the bedroom door, Archie could hear the others having a hushed, heated discussion, but Gary seemed impervious. Archie couldn’t make out many words, but he recognized Sanchez’s voice as one of the loudest.

At first it had been a relief when Gary had shown up. At least Archie got to leave the room.

Gary ran a latex-clad finger over the back of Archie’s bare thigh and Archie felt his gluteal muscle reflexively tense.

He had been picked clean by CSU before. Just two months ago, after a bomb strapped to a man had gone off, splattering Archie with a pink soup of flesh and bone, Archie had spent an hour being culled for evidence.

But this was different.

He was naked, standing on a plastic sheet, while a fully clothed man knelt in front of him. It was, to put it mildly, a bit more invasive.

Gary touched a mole on Archie’s thigh and then peered at it through a magnifying glass like it might be a clue.

“That’s me,” Archie said with a sigh. “I’ve had that my whole life.”

Gary nodded. His prominent nose was offset with deep-set large dark eyes and eyelashes like Elizabeth Taylor’s. If he managed to grow the goatee, it would look good.

Archie stole a glance at his bedside clock. It was after nine. He shifted his weight again.

“I took a shower this morning,” Archie said.

“You already said that,” Gary said. “And then I said it was still worth harvesting evidence, and then you objected to my use of the word harvesting.”

Archie remembered that now.

“Are you uncomfortable?” Gary asked.

“I’m naked,” Archie said. He was finding himself in this situation a little too regularly for comfort.