The Scum of All Fears: Squeaky Clean Mysteries, Book 5 Read Free

the lights off before spraying the chemical. Any fluid detected wouldn’t be as bright with the brief time lapse, but I’d still be able to get my point across.
    She stared at me blankly.
    I shrugged. “Yeah, so it makes the blood—or other bodily fluids—glow.”
    I continued to spray it on a wall of the bedroom where the crime had occurred, watching as the liquid appeared in patches. I hadn’t actually used Luminol in my job with the Medical Examiner, but I’d learned to use it when I got my degree in forensics.
    Just a couple of weeks ago, I’d ordered some of the solution because I’d been asked to do a little talk with the teens at church. I’d decided to use the Luminol to demonstrate how Christ’s blood—shed on the cross—gave us even more reason to shine bright for Him. The talk had gone well, but I had some of the chemical left over. Now, I realized my over-order was like fate.
    Clarice continued to stare at me. “Why are you doing that exactly?”
    “I’m trying to find the blood so I’ll know what to clean up.”
    “But if you can’t see it, does it really matter?”
    Normally, I’d just wipe all the surfaces down. But I wanted to make a point. Luminol would help me to do that. “When I do a job, I like to be thorough.”
    Guilt pressed in on me. That hadn’t been totally honest. After I proved my point, I’d own up to what I’d done, I decided.
    She shrugged and daintily began scrubbing another baseboard. We were going to be here all day if she kept cleaning at that pace. And she absolutely had to stop talking. I knew way more about the newest shows on MTV than I ever cared to.
    I sprayed more furiously. Finally, I was satisfied that I’d soaked the wall. I closed the shades, pleased that they were room-darkening variety. They made my job easier.
    Then I stepped back, feeling a little too giddy for my own good. “Check this out.”
    I flipped the lights, smugly thinking that I was about to shock her socks off.
    Instead, w hat I saw made my blood go cold.
    It wasn’t just the amount of blood glowing on the wall. No, it was also the message written there.
    One, Two
    I’m Coming for You
    Clarice screamed.
    I almost joined her.

Chapter 2
    “Why in the world were you carrying Luminol?” Riley turned away from the stove for long enough to give me a questioning look.
    I paused from making a salad in order to face him better. “Because . . . well, why not? That’s why. But that’s not the point.” I crossed my arms and watched as he flipped chicken thighs on his stovetop griddle. “The point is that there was a message on the wall of the home.”
    He turned to face me, letting the chicken sizzle for a moment. “So the police missed something. Or maybe they didn’t miss it. Maybe they just didn’t tell the homeowner the message was there and the homeowner, then in turn, couldn’t tell you.”
    “It wasn’t there when the crime scene unit left,” I insisted. The police had just questioned me for an hour or so. They’d made no mention of that. Not that they had to tell me everything—or anything. And they usually didn’t offer any information. I was flying solo when it came to gathering information on crime scenes.
    Still, t he detectives with the Norfolk Police Department didn’t look at me with the same disdain that they used to, back when I’d first started out. I’d solved a couple of cases and then been hired by the Medical Examiner for a whole month, so that had gained me some credibility.
    Despite that , it had been a little hard to explain why I’d brought Luminol to a crime scene. It wasn’t my usual M.O., but I’d just happened to have some on hand. And then there had been Clarice . . . one thing had led to another.
    I tapped my finger against my cheek, the crime scene igniting something in me, a kind of primal need I had for answers to life’s pressing questions. Thankfully, most of the time those questions went deeper than the “Which came first, the chicken