Freeing my hand, I smiled at Grimes. He smiled back, looking like a silo in blue velour.

Emma had already wheeled the skeleton from the cooler. It lay on the same gurney it had occupied on Saturday, a large brown envelope covering the ribs. The dental X-rays were again spread on the light box.

Grimes led us through a point-by-point description of the morphological characteristics, oral hygiene, and entire dental history of CCC-2006020277. Smoker. Negligent brusher. Nonflosser. Fillings. Untreated cavities and massive tartar buildup, hadn't seen a dentist in several years preceding death. I hardly listened. I was anxious to get to the bones.

Finally, Grimes finished, and he and Emma left to begin filling out an NCIC case form. One by one, I examined the full-body films. Skull. Upper limbs. Lower limbs. Pelvis.

Zip. That didn't surprise me. I'd noticed nothing obvious while handling the bones.

I moved on to the torso.

Since no flesh remained to hold the ribs in place, the technician had spread them flat and shot from above. I saw nothing suspicious in the right arcade. I was finishing with the left when I spotted a dark crescent near the vertebral end of the twelfth rib.

Moving to the gurney, I selected that rib and took it to a scope. Under magnification the imperfection appeared as a tiny gash bordered by a curl of bone on the rib's lower edge. Though small, the defect was real.

Had the gash been caused by a knife blade? Had our unknown been stabbed? Or was the nick a postmortem artifact? From a trowel? A snail or crustacean? No matter how much I angled and reangled the rib, no matter how high I kicked the magnification or adjusted the fiber optic light, I just couldn't tell.

Returning to the X-rays, I inspected the breast- and collarbones, the shoulder blades, then the rest of the ribs. Nothing looked amiss.

I moved on to the spine. The vertebrae had been filmed separated and placed flat, like the ribs, then articulated and lying on their sides.

In a stabbing, it's often the posterior arch or the back of the vertebral body that takes the hit. I moved through the vertebral films. None gave a clear view of these surfaces.

Returning to the skeleton, I began a bone-by-bone inspection, rotating and scrutinizing every element under a magnifying lens surrounded by a fluorescent bulb.

I found nothing until I started on the spine.

Every one's a specialist. Even the vertebrae. The seven cervicals support the head and allow for neck mobility. The twelve thoracics anchor the rib cage. The five lumbars throw in a lower-back curve. The five sacrals form the tail side of the pelvic girdle. Different jobs. Different shapes.

It was the sixth cervical that got my attention.

But I oversimplify. The neck vertebrae have tasks other than head support. One of their jobs is to provide safe passage for arteries traveling to the back of the brain. The transit route involves a small hole, or foramen, in the transverse process, a tiny bone platform between the body of the vertebra and its arch. CCC-2006020277 had a vertical hinge fracture snaking across the left transverse process, on the body side of the hole.

I brought the bone closer to the lens. And found a hairline fracture on the arch side of the hole.

No signs of healing. Hinging. No question here. Both fractures had involved trauma to fresh bone. The injury had occurred around the time of death.

I sat back, considering.

C-6. Lower neck.

Fall? Falls cause sudden excessive impaction. Such impaction can lead to vertebral fracture. But fractures due to falls are generally compressive in nature, and usually involve the vertebral body. This was a hinge fracture. Of the transverse process.

Strangulation? Strangulation most often affects the hyoid, a small bone in the front of the throat.

Whiplash? Not likely.

Blow to the chin? Head?

I could think of no scenario that fit the pattern I was seeing.

Frustrated, I moved on.

And found more.

The twelfth thoracic vertebra sported a pair of nicks similar to the one I'd spotted on the twelfth rib. The first and third lumbar vertebrae had a single nick each.

Like the neck fracture, the pattern of the nicks was confusing. All were located on the belly side.

Knife marks? To penetrate to the front of a lumbar vertebra you'd have to thrust hard enough to pass through the entire abdomen. That's a mighty big thrust.

And these were very small nicks. Made with a very sharp tool.

What the hell had gone on?

I was still speculating when Emma returned.

"Grimes gone?" I asked.

Emma nodded. What color she'd shown earlier had ebbed from her face, accentuating the dark circles under her eyes. "Form's done. Now it will be up to the sheriff."

Though NCIC is operational 24/7, year-round, only members of federal, state, and local law enforcement can input data.

"Gullet will shoot it through right away?"

Emma raised both hands in a "who knows" gesture. Pulling a chair from the wall, she dropped and leaned her elbows on her thighs.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

Emma shrugged. "Sometimes it just seems so hopeless."

I waited.

"Gullett's not going to slap this case with a priority sticker. And when he does enter our guy into the system, what are the chances we'll get a hit? To submit a missing adult into the database under the new regs, the person's got to be disabled, a disaster victim, abducted or kidnapped, endangered-"

"What does that mean?"

"Missing in the company of another under circumstances suggesting his or her physical safety is in danger."

"So a lot of MP's never get entered? Our guy may not have made it into the computer when he vanished?"

"The thinking is that most missing adults take off on their own. Husbands skipping town with their mistresses. Smothered wives looking for something more. Deadbeats cutting out on debt."

"The runaway bride." I referred to a case wrung dry in a recent media frenzy.

"It's head cases like that one that nurture the mind-set." Emma threw out her feet and leaned back. "But it's true. The vast majority of missing adults are people just trying to escape their lives. There's no law against that, and entering them all overloads the system."

Emma closed her eyes and tipped her head back against the wall.

"I doubt this guy simply went missing," I said, turning back to the gurney. "Take a look at this."

I was lining up the vertebrae when I heard movement, then a heart-stopping crack.

I whipped around.

Emma lay crumpled on the tile floor.

8

EMMA HAD LANDED ON THE CROWN OF HER HEAD. HER BACK was humped and her neck and limbs were in-kinked like the legs of a sun-fried spider.

I rushed over and pressed two fingers to her throat. The pulse was steady, but weak.

"Emma!"

She didn't respond.

Lowering Emma, I gently eased her cheek to the tile. Then I bolted to the corridor.

"Help! I need medical help!"

A door opened and a face appeared.

"Emma Rousseau's collapsed. Call the ER."

The brows rocketed and the mouth went round.

"Now!"

The face withdrew. I raced back to Emma. Seconds later two paramedics blasted into the room. They fired questions as they loaded Emma onto a gurney.

"What happened?"

"She collapsed."

"Did you move her?"

"I rolled her to clear the windpipe."

"Medical problems?"

I blinked and looked at him.

"Was she taking medication?"

I felt helpless. I hadn't a clue.

"Out of the way, please."

I heard the whine of rubber wheels on tile. A soft squeaking.

Then the autopsy room door clicked shut.