Salem's Cipher Read Online Free Page A

she commanded respect. Salem saw it in the way the officers stood, their heads cocked, hands relaxed near their guns. It had always been this way for Bel. It wasn’t her height, though she was almost six feet, or her looks. She had a presence .
    Still, Bel seemed to be talking too slowly.
    â€œWe’re here to see her,” Salem blurted. The cool of the morning air turned her breath into white plumes. The sun hadn’t yet risen, its promise of light barely agitating the horizon. “To see Grace Odegaard.”
    The uniform’s eyes slid sideways to his partner. Salem suddenly felt like throwing up. “We’ll get the officer in charge,” he said. “Wait here.”
    Salem bobbed her head, jittery. She tucked her arm around Bel’s waist. Her friend was so stiff she felt corded with steel. The crowd of gawkers kept a respectable distance, milling behind the police tape in their track pants and work suits and dog-walking clothes. Salem counted five women, seven men, two pair of glasses, one hat. Behind them, the water of Lake Harriet was as black as a grave. The proximity to water tightened her throat like it always did, but she went through the mantra her therapist had taught her: I’m safe on land, I’m safe on land . She inhaled the smoky, earthy smell of a Minnesota fall. She measured her heartbeats. Finally, a man in his early thirties and wearing a well-cut suit stepped out the main door of the yellow brick apartment building.
    The other officers stood straighter when he appeared. He was tall, muscled, clean-shaven, his skin so dark it reflected a deep purple in the walkway lights. He glanced in Bel and Salem’s direction as the first officer leaned toward him to speak near his ear. Nodding once, sharply, he began walking toward the two women. Salem’s chest grew tighter the closer he came.
    â€œAgent Lucan Stone,” he said, extending his hand toward Bel. “FBI.”

    The elevator slid open onto the third-floor landing.
    Salem gasped.
    She’d been up here hundreds of times, but the crime had morphed it into a stage set. Grace’s open apartment door stood directly across the wide hallway, fifteen feet from the elevator. A deep carmine painted the far wall, a firehose-wash of ghoulish spray. The air smelled strongly of urine and something metallic, like wet pennies. A corpse lay to the right of Grace’s door, face up. Salem was reminded of the Resusci Annie doll they’d learned CPR on in high school, except this body wore a slipper on one foot and the other was bare, her upper torso shielded from Salem’s view by an examiner wearing white.
    A second person was taking instructions from the examiner, snapping photos with a flash camera as she pointed. A man and a woman peered at the wall to the right of Grace’s door. Everyone wore white latex gloves and shoe covers. Same with the three uniformed police officers standing to the left of the door, and a fourth officer who crossed in front of Grace’s open doorway from inside her apartment. A handful of dark yellow evidence markers were stacked across the floor. The foyer, the size of a large room, thrummed with the murmurs of quiet, intense activity.
    Salem concentrated on these details to calm her jagged heartbeat.
    The authorities are here. They’ll take care of everything.
    Though she’d never been to church in her life, she fought the urge to cross herself.
    Agent Stone nodded toward the technician bent over the corpse. “Forensics is still on scene.”
    Bel stood taller, touching her hip for a gun that wasn’t there. “Four hours in?”
    Agent Stone glanced at his wristwatch, its silver thickness a bright contrast to his skin. “Four hours and thirty-seven minutes since the initial 911 call. You made good time from Chicago.”
    â€œI got in on standby. It’s a short flight.” Bel hesitated a moment before stepping off the elevator, followed