But I remembered what her body looked like in my bathtub. I remembered her cracked fingernail and the hole between her breasts. I remembered the bruised shape of a hand imprinted on her unbreathing throat.
Now even that was gone.
Erin Karwell had been cremated. Body vaporized.
“Shit,” I said. “I’m fucked.” Probably an understatement.
Suzy seemed to deflate. It didn’t look like disappointment, but relief. “Guess that’s it,” she said, moving to put the lid back onto the box.
Isobel stopped her by reaching in to grab the plastic bag. “I can try. I’ve never done ash before, but I’ve worked with some rotted bodies. It can’t be that different.”
“A lot of cremains are just bone and whatever the victim was burned inside,” Suzy said, her voice hard-edged as she tried to pull the box out of Isobel’s reach. “There’s probably barely any of the body left.”
Isobel dragged the bag toward her anyway. “We can at least attempt it.”
They were playing tug of war with the box. I settled it by grabbing Erin’s cremains and placing them in front of Isobel. She pulled the rubber band off, folded down the edges of the bag.
“Cèsar,” Suzy said warningly.
“The worst thing that can happen is nothing,” I said. “Stop worrying so much.”
“It can be so much worse than that,” she whispered. I ignored her.
Isobel had her hands stretched out over the cremains and her eyes had gone blank. She stared at the wall without seeming to see it. “Erin Karwell? Erin…come on…” Her cheeks flushed. The muscles in her hands strained.
I felt her voice all the way down in my stomach.
Erin Karwell…
Magic built around us, pressing tight inside my chest as silvery mist lifted from the cremains. I smothered my nose and mouth with a hand, fighting not to sneeze at the force of magic.
Erin didn’t appear as quickly as the man in the temple had. I glimpsed ghostly legs, but they faded to nothing within moments. Then I glimpsed a sliver of face. Eyes without irises. A bald scalp.
The body formed slowly, painstakingly, blurred around the edges.
There she was. Erin.
Suzy stepped back, reflexively reaching for the pistol she wasn’t carrying again.
Erin looked down at herself, running ghostly hands over her breasts. They looked smaller than I thought I remembered. Maybe she’d had implants and plastic surgery hadn’t translated to her ghost. The hair wasn’t there either, just like it hadn’t been on the man Isobel had raised. She looked bald.
The ghost flickered. Her legs had never fully formed. When I stepped to the left, I could see that she didn’t have a back either, more like a flat picture than an entire body.
Guess cremains were enough to summon her soul, but only barely.
Her mouth moved. Isobel spoke for her.
“What’s going on?” she asked softly.
It was quiet in the morgue. Dead quiet. No pun intended. Isobel was whispering, but I didn’t have to strain my ears to hear her at all.
“Erin?” I said.
Isobel grimaced, pressed a hand to her forehead. The ghost vanished for a full second before reappearing. “Where am I?” Erin asked through Isobel. “What happened?”
“My name is Agent Takeuchi. I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” Suzy sounded hoarse, kind of freaked out, but I still almost laughed at her introducing herself as a member of the FBI. Like a dead woman was really going to ruin our cover. “I need to ask you a few questions. Can you hear me?”
Erin nodded. Her gaze drifted over the room, but just like Isobel, she didn’t seem to see any of it.
“What’s the last thing you remember, Miss Karwell?” Suzy asked.
Isobel spoke. “I went to work. I was running late.” She flinched, mouth twisting and brow furrowing. “I went to work. I was running late. I’ve been running late a lot, so Thandy chewed me out.” She groaned and bent over at the waist as if someone had struck her. At the same time, Erin faded out of view then faded back. “I went to work,” Isobel whimpered. “I was running late.”
Damn. Erin was barely there. I wanted to grab Isobel, shake her free of the connection, but stood frozen at the end of the table. I needed to hear this. I needed to get past Thandy to what happened after that.
The door opened. An out-of-breath morgue tech rushed in, and stopped short at the sight of the ghost. “Praise Allah,” he breathed.
“Rob,” Suzy said, stepping toward him, trying to block his view. It was too late. He’d already seen her. “Get out of here. I told you to leave us alone. I fucking paid you.”
His mouth worked soundlessly. “It’s—the—what is that?”