The doors of the county morgue swung open at 3:47 AM.
Dr. Ingrid Vance led the procession — Chief Forensic Pathologist, twenty-three years in the field, a woman who had seen more dead bodies than most people saw living ones.
Behind her came the team: two forensic technicians carrying equipment cases, a toxicologist still rubbing sleep from his eyes, a forensic photographer checking her camera settings, and a sexual assault examiner whose expression had gone hard and cold the moment she'd heard the preliminary report.
Rape. Murder. A seventeen-year-old girl thrown from a rooftop at an elite academy.
This was the kind of case that made careers, demanded thoroughness, precision, absolute dedication to uncovering the truth and could put names in textbooks, secure grants for decades, and earn quiet respect at conferences.
They were halfway to the examination room when the second group arrived.
