Vincent kept his voice controlled. “Postmortem muscle activity can happen. The body does not always become still all at once.”
“No.” Kristina shook her head. “This was not that. Please check her.”
There was a moment when pride could have made him dismiss her. Experience can become its own kind of blindness. Vincent knew that, and because he knew it, he stepped closer.
He checked the child’s pupils. He looked for breath at the mouth. He placed his palm on the center of her chest and waited.
At first, there was nothing.
Then there was something so faint he thought his own pulse might be fooling him. He leaned down and pressed his ear carefully to the child’s chest.
A heartbeat answered him.
Weak. Distant. Almost swallowed by the overhead hum. But it was there, and once he heard it, every part of the room changed around him.
Kristina pressed her hand over her mouth. “She’s alive.”
Before Vincent could answer, the second twin’s fingers curled slowly inward. Not a spasm. Not the random twitch of a body already gone. A small, deliberate closing of the hand.
Vincent tore the toe tag from the first girl’s foot and crossed the room to the red wall phone. His voice turned sharp in a way Kristina had not heard before.
