“I don’t like morgues,” I said. “You got my back on this?” I reached out for her, offering a hand. She stared at me for a long time before taking it.
“Sure,” she said, leaning against my side. We fit together pretty well. “I’ve got your back.”
I’d like to say that was just a smooth line to get her inside, but not so much. Never been a fan of morgues. Bodies give me the heebie jeebies.
Suzy held the door until we passed through. Then she closed it, punched a few numbers in the keypad by the handle, reactivated the alarm sensors by pressing a red button.
We were in a sterile hallway. The night crew wasn’t in this part of the building, so only the emergency signs over the doors gave us any light.
Suzy clicked on a penlight and traced it along the wall. “Rob said he’d leave me alone to check the bodies, but I didn’t tell him that I’d have company. Be quiet.”
“What excuse did you give him for wanting a little one-on-one time with cadavers?” I asked in a whisper.
“I didn’t give him an excuse. I gave him money.” Suzy led us down an adjacent hall. Isobel had pulled back from me, hugging her arms around herself, walking slowly. She was shivering in her shorts and tee.
Shucking my jacket, I dropped it over her shoulders. I had long sleeves underneath. It didn’t make a difference to me. But she looked startled and kind of pleased. “Thanks,” she said, pulling the lapels closed over her chest.
“I looked up Peter’s case file,” Suzy said, walking backward so that she could address me directly. She talked like Isobel wasn’t with us. “Our last necrocog.”
“I remember Peter.”
“They scanned his personal notes and put them in the database. Good reading. Did you know the dead can’t lie?”
“Of course they can’t,” Isobel said, picking up her pace to walk alongside me. “Souls move on after the bodies are gone. All that they leave is residue. An imprint. Memories don’t have the motivation to lie. The testimony of the dead is inviolable.”#p#分页标题#e#
Suzy nodded. “If the victim’s body is still here, and if Stonecrow can talk to her, you’ll have your answer.” She stopped in front of the door to the refrigerator and gave me a hard look. “You sure you want that? It’s not too late for you to hop a bus to Mexico.”
I answered by pushing the door open.
It was even colder inside. One wall was nothing but silver drawers. There was a steel table in the middle, some jars and cabinets to the wall on the right. Chills rolled down my spine at the sight of them.
Suzy grabbed a clipboard off the wall. “Karwell, Karwell…” she muttered, tracing her flashlight down the page.
While she searched for Erin’s name, Isobel moved to stand in front of the drawers. She’d been reluctant to enter the building, but she didn’t look reluctant now. She looked…drunk. Intoxicated. Her eyes were lidded and she was breathing heavy.
“Isobel?”
She didn’t respond to me. She lifted her hands in front of her like she was trying to push curtains apart.
That glazed look was starting to freak me out. Way creepier than tribal drums and raccoon bones and shit.
Suzy hung the clipboard up on the wall again and faced me. Her features were pinched. Bad sign. “Erin Karwell is here.”
“Where?”
She didn’t move toward the drawers. She went to the cabinets on the opposite wall, grabbed keys hanging from a hook, and unlocked them. There were several white boxes inside, each a bit smaller than a banker’s box. Isobel recoiled at the sight of them.
Suzy grabbed one. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take a few steps back when she carried it over and set it on the steel table.
She lifted the top. There was a bag of gray dust inside.
Cremains.
“Erin Karwell,” she said.
Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, Magic
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I’d flirted with Erin for months, so you’d think that I would know more about her. Or at least be able to put together a memory of her face and hold it clear in my mind, as crisp as the grayscale photograph in my pocket. Like, what color were her eyes? Were her ears pierced? Did she wear jewelry?
I couldn’t remember any of that without checking the picture Domingo had printed up. I couldn’t remember Erin’s smile or laugh or even her black eye all that well. Months of heavy tipping and one trip sneaking into the kitchen to find her name, and I couldn’t even tell you how long her hair had been when she wasn’t wearing a ponytail.