Gavan balanced the pizza on his fingertips as the heat seeped from the box to burn them. He’d rung Val’s doorbell once but there was no answer, he rang again and waited. Just when he was starting to think that maybe Val really was out, the door cracked open.

“Val?”

“Hey.”

He tried to peer around the cracked door but Val was effectively hiding behind hit. “Pizza, pizza!”

“I’m sorry Gavan, I’m really not up to company.”

A lifetime dealing with Trist’s random moods had made Gavan pretty well in touch with people around him. He didn’t need to see Val clearly to know the other man had been weeping. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing, I’m just, I…”

“I’m coming in.” That was all the warning Gavan gave before pushing the door open and letting himself in. As soon as the door swung out of the way, all doubts as to whether Val had been crying fled. The man’s eyes were red, his nose too and his shoulders sagged under an unseen weight.

Val stumbled back and let Gavan in, shutting the door behind him. The younger man didn’t pause, he moved right to the kitchen and dropped the pizza box down before turning and coming to face where Val stood, hands folded over his chest, wishing he were invisible.

“Now, what’s happened?”

Val shrugged. “Nothing, I just…I’m tired.”

Gavan dragged Val over and nudged at him until he sat down at the kitchen counter. “Not buying it, what’s going on?” He dug in cabinets he was almost used to rummaging through to find plates.

“I don’t know, I just started crying and couldn’t stop.” He dropped his head into his hands and pushed the tears down. He refused to cry in front of anyone.

“What’d you do today?”

“I’ve been going over my sister’s family’s autopsy reports.”

Gavan slid a plate of food in front of Val. “No wonder you’ve been upset.”

“I didn’t cry like this when it happened. I don’t know why I’m crying now.” But he did, he knew, he’d been okay until he’d seen Trist.

On the counter was the stack of papers that could only be the autopsy results. Gavan put his hand on them and slid them away. “You shouldn’t be looking at these but I guess if it’s let you grieve, it’s okay.”

“I found something odd in them.” It was easier to push the tears away if he could force himself to think logically.

“Oh? Did you show Trist yet?”

That brought the grief right back up to choke him. “No, he suggested I make an appointment.” And even Val could hear the bitterness in his voice.

“That’s odd, not at all like him either.” Gavan frowned and tried to figure out what it was he was missing. “He’s normally willing to help anyone we know, he almost feels he has to most times.”

“Well, he might feel differently about me. This weekend, he and I, well…” Val knew he was going to blush and suddenly wished he was crying again. “We did some things.”

Gavan nearly choked on his crust of pizza. “What kind of things?”

Val did blush. “It doesn’t matter it’s just, you can’t expect things to not change. I can understand that he doesn’t want to see me again.”

“Wow, okay, well, tell you what, I’ll talk to him. I’ll try to figure out where his head is. You might have just caught him at a bad moment.”

“It’s okay, it really is.”

“No, it’s not. I don’t care what he was thinking, it’s unforgivable that he made you cry.”

“He didn’t, I just…”

Gavan waved it off. “Don’t worry, I know how to be subtle. Don’t you worry about Trist, I’ll straighten him out.” It seemed impossible that Trist had been nearly distraught at having to see Val with him only a handful of hours before and now somehow was harsh enough to snap Val’s control and make him cry today. It would take a lot of looking into and Gavan didn’t plan on backing down.

“Gavan, I,”

“Stop it, eat. When you’re done, show me what you found. I may not be a doctor but I’m no slouch either.”

Val eyed the pizza slice with concern, uncertain if his stomach would accept food but he did need to eat. “Thanks.”

“Welcome.”

Once Val had forced a slice of the pizza into his stomach and made sure it stayed there, he was pretty sure his spat of weeping was over. He just felt exhausted now, like an old cloth wrung out and over used. It was too much, it really was all too much. Even he knew it wasn’t Trist’s rejection that made him cry, but the combination of everything. Trist had just been the final straw.

“How did you get this file?” Gavan asked, sorting out the reports and amazed at the detail.

Val glanced over from where he sat on the sofa, banished now by Gavan’s orders. He was unable to see the papers being spread across his counter top and for once, he was grateful. “I’ve a friend who’s a Medical Examiner. She owed me a favor.”

“Did she sign off on this report?”

“No, she was on vacation when,” it was still difficult to say. “When the accident happened.”

“Do I even want to know what you did to get an ME to owe you a favor?” Gavan asked as he scanned the reports and the pages Val had marked.

“It’s no real secret. Edward, Maria’s husband, is an artist. He did some freelance work for the firm Kelly works for, they became casual friends. When they had a cocktail party we got invited.”

“And you got dragged along.”

Val nodded. “Surprised that I’m not the cocktail party sort?”

“Completely.”

“Anyway, when I made an escape to the bathroom I heard their daughter crying. She’d had a nightmare so I offered to get her mother, she said not to.”

“How old was she?”

“Seven.”

“Huh, didn’t picture you as the sort good with kids.”

“I do well enough. I don’t talk down to them, most kids respond to that. Anyway, I stayed with her until she’d settled down, listened to her talk, read her a story, the works but she got back to sleep. Only, when I turned to leave, Maria was in the doorway. Apparently, she’d been listening for a while. Missy had been having night terrors, not wanting to sleep, the works. Maria called me the next day, after talking to me, Missy had slept the entire night through, asked if I’d come by again. So I did and we eventually got it cleared up. Wasn’t a big deal, but Maria made it into one and I’m not to proud to call on that.”

“Hmmm well, I’m glad she wasn’t the one to sign off on this. They really did a half assed job here, Val.”

He stood up to join Gavan. “What do you mean?”

“Stay there!” He frowned until Val sat back down. “Good, you’ve been staring at these pages too long, let me do it.”

“Fine, what do you mean?”

“Well, they did everything right, they just didn’t follow through. Here, what you’ve tagged, you’re right. They did the tests on the water samples from their lungs, but they sent the adults in first and got the results back first so I’m guessing they didn’t even look over the results from the kids. Most likely, the police didn’t either.”

“I’m right though, aren’t I?”

“Fluoride? Chlorine? Whoo, yeah, not found in river water. I’m sorry Val but it looks like your niece and nephew were already dead before they hit the river but they did drown.”

Val was glad he was sitting down. “Someone murdered them, that’s tap water.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why would they? Why?” Val shook his head. “Violet and Navef loved their kids, they were happy together. Not just pretend happy, really happy together. She used to say that every year got better and better. Why would they drown their own kids?”

“I don’t think they did.” Gavan started carefully.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the volume of river water found in Navef’s lungs is really low, really low but they ruled his death drowning. He was found behind the wheel but it doesn’t look like he was alive when the car went into the water.”

“So, maybe he had a stroke or heart attack, something sudden?”

“No signs of it here. There’s trauma, most of which occurred before death but other wise he appears in good health. I’d want a doctor to look over this, because I’m not a forensic nurse at all, but I see a lot of trauma. I think it’s a fair bet he was suffocated but there wasn’t enough water in his lungs to indicate drowning.”

“Both him and the kids were dead before the car went off the road?”

Gavan shrugged. “I’m not a doctor.”

“What about Violet?”

“Val.”

“What about her?”

“She drowned. It’s pretty obvious.”

“If she was alive when they went in the water why didn’t she get out?”

“Well, Val, these wounds, they’re pretty severe. Both hands broken, both legs? Even if she’d been conscious, I doubt she’d have been able to free herself.”

Val fell forward, his arms rested heavily on his knees and he rubbed at the back of his neck. He doubted he’d ever be able to remove the mental image of Violet trapped in a car, helpless, slowly drowning. “God, the wounds, from the crash?”

“Maybe.” Gavan said softly.

“Or maybe not?”

“Or maybe not. Either way, Val, things don’t add up here. There’s burn marks on both her and Navef that I can’t tell you what from.”

“The small round spots?” He’d seen them in the report, two or three sets of paired round burn marks on their sides, their necks.

“Yeah. You should take this back to the police and get them to look into it again. Something’s not adding up.”

“Maybe it’s just a poorly done report?”

“Maybe but even if they didn’t tie it together properly, the cops should have caught it. It looks like they saw, river water in lungs, car off road, and rubber stamped it as accidental. Maybe it is, but well, if it’s going to bug you, can’t hurt to ask them to look into it again.” Gavan started stacking the papers back together and he slid them into their envelope. “Until then, don’t look at this again. You’re not doing yourself any favors.”

“Well, I won’t look at it again until I talk to someone else about it. Deal?”

“Deal.” He came around and dropped on the sofa next to Val. “Now, distractions are in order, let’s see how much of a blow out the game is tonight.”

Val agreed and they watched the game but his mind wasn’t on it and he was pretty sure neither was Gavan’s. The more he learned about how Violet died, the more questions it seemed to raise. Not the least of which was why something obvious to a therapist and OR nurse would be so easily missed by people that did this sort of thing for a living.