She set her bag on the wooden platform at the front of her assigned stall and removed her safety glasses and a box of bullets. Her heartbeat thudded over the steady pop pop of gunfire as she readied her stance. Discomfort flooded her body as she lined up her sights with the paper target. Her position felt all wrong, as if she’d never shot a gun before. She rolled a shoulder, cracked her neck, and stretched her arm, but there was no convincing her body that she’d done this a million times.

Her phone buzzed on her hip. She welcomed the distraction, until she read Frank’s name on her phone screen. She read his text: Done. Get over here.

She holstered her weapon, returned her gear to her bag, and drove to the medical examiner’s office. Stella took a deep breath of fresh air in the parking lot, as if it were her last, and pushed inside. In the antechamber, she donned a gown, cap, and plastic face shield. Bracing herself, she tugged on a pair of gloves and went into the autopsy suite. Frank was leaning over a sink, his back to Stella.

The metallic, sweet smell of blood and cold decay hit her through the face shield. The rubber-edged doors swished shut behind her as she focused on shallow breaths.

Frank glanced over his shoulder. “Stella, perfect timing.”

Perfect timing would be accidentally missing the whole thing.

“You said it was urgent,” Stella said, her face mask fogging up.

With a snort, Frank turned back to the sink. “We both know I wasn’t that polite.”

Frank stepped away from the sink. His face mask was tilted up onto his head. “You can come closer. I’ve finished with her.”

The sight of Missy, naked on the table, assaulted Stella’s senses, but she refused to turn away. The small surge of relief she’d felt that Frank had completed the autopsy faded almost as quickly as it hit.

“Oh, my God.”

Dozens of cuts lined Missy’s arms and legs. The lines were arranged in groups of five. Each had four vertical lines and one cross-wise cut, like tally marks.

Frank crossed his arms over his chest. “Each of these wounds is approximately two inches long and a quarter-inch deep.”

“How many are there?” Stella stared at the bloodless, raw-looking wounds.

“Forty.” Frank looked grim. “Plus this single stroke in the center of her belly.”

“Have you seen anything like this before?” Stella asked.

“Not quite. I’ve run into cutters before but nothing quite like this,” Frank said.

“Missy was a cutter?”

Frank pointed to a thin scar below the new wounds. “She has old scars on her forearms, so she probably cut herself at some point in the past.”

Stella could see healed track marks on Missy’s arms as well. All those old scars explained why she’d been wearing long sleeves in the heat of summer.