Killing Time

Ethan Branch reached down and pulled the blanket back.

The man on the floor, on his side, knees slightly drawn up, was obviously dead. There was a substantial blood pool, shiny in the flashlight beam, beneath his head. Nick could see the gaping wound where the man’s throat had been cut. The knife had been dropped and left in the blood and was now partially covered by the dead man’s arm. He had probably convulsed in his final second of life, and his arm had jerked over the blade that the killer had instantly dropped.

Well, Nick thought, that might explain some of the tension in the other room.

Nick also could see that, like his new companion, the dead man was Native American.