It was hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to believe. Inara was dead - murdered. There was no other explanation. Her ribs had been pried apart, splayed, and her heart removed. After a few minutes he found it shoved in her teapot.
Though this was not as hard to explain as Jerry's death, it remained mysterious. Who did it? Of the remaining crew he had trouble believing anyone but Mal, Zoe or Jayne had the strength to do this and the only one that seemed even the slightest bit likely was Jayne.
The Captain liked her too much and Zoe simply had no reason to kill her. Jayne was a wild card but this would be stupid even for him. Would he really be dumb enough to provoke the Captain so far from the safety of a planet? Jayne only killed for money or convenience from what he'd seen and it would take an insane amount of money for him to do this right now.
A little voice in the back of his head 'helpfully' reminded him of the passenger's words. Dreams came to life. He died in an impossible way. Zoe was bruised by a dream and Inara died clearly while attempting to get to sleep. She was wearing a nightgown and drinking non-caffeinated tea. He sighed heavily and slid down the door to sit and stare at the gruesome scene. What was he supposed to do about this? She was unquestionably dead and Mal was not going to handle it well. No one was but he would be worse off than most.
Cause of death? Removal of heart. Who did it? No one. Even though it seemed most likely to be Jayne and he had a very low opinion of that glorified neanderthal, he couldn't quite believe he would do something like this. There just wasn't enough money in it. Either there was a murderous stowaway or Jerry had been right.
The cuts required to open her chest had been clean. A sharp knife - sharp enough to sever bone. Just like Jerry's spine. The precision ruled out even Jayne - he preferred guns and it would shock Simon if they found a knife on board capable of what he had seen. But how was it possible? A dream Reaver killing people? It was insanity to even consider believing this… but perhaps advising people to avoid sleep…
He sighed, not wanting to think about the way River had kept him awake all night. She had found a way to wake him up every time he started to drift off. When he protected himself from the soda she had thrown things, when he accounted for that she kept up such an interesting commentary that he simply couldn't not listen. He was exhausted but what was he supposed to do? He had to sleep some time and River never would explain why she was doing this. She just looked worried and laughed nervously.
Finally he wrapped Inara in a blanket to take to the infirmary, retrieved her heart, cleaned what he could and hoped to find a way to hide everything from the Captain as he worked to learn anything he could that might implicate someone not in a dream for what happened to Inara.