She pulled out a chart and started flipping pages. She didn’t even question his lack of information.
“Only patient we admitted by ambulance in the last hour is up on second floor. Room 233.” Then she shook her head and looked back up at him. “Poor thing. Hopefully she won’t be sick all night long.”
“You and me both,” he told her and she smiled at him before turning back to her charts.
He headed back for the elevators, a kick of adrenaline making it difficult to keep his pace slow and the bucket from sloshing over its rim.
This was almost too easy.
Chapter 12
Maggie could smell ashes, something burning – no, the fire was already out. It wasn’t smoke she smelled but singed hair and burnt flesh.
She searched but couldn’t see through the fog. Where was the smell coming from?
Then she saw it.
Another boat was floating on the river. She kept her eyes fixed on the boat while she pointed at it.
“Row up a little closer,” she told Cunningham without looking back at him.
He didn’t say a word but obeyed.
Closer, just a little bit closer.
The fog grew thicker. Now she wasn’t sure if it fog. Or was the air filled with ashes?
Suddenly the boat appeared right in front of them. Too late to stop. Their rowboat crashed into it. Only it wasn’t another boat.
It was a casket.
Smooth, dark wood, polished with brass rails and soft, tufted fabric peeking over the edges. The lid was gone but Maggie hesitated to look inside. Her stomach felt sick again. She was shivering from the cold, damp air. She could hardly breathe without sucking in the thick ashes.
She didn’t want to look. Suddenly she felt like she was twelve years old again. She already knew what she would find inside. It was the same every time, and she didn’t want to see her father lying there in a crisply pressed brown suit that she’d never seen him in before.
She couldn’t bear to see the side of his face where the mortician had painted over his burned flesh in an attempt to salvage what skin remained. She remembered the crinkle of plastic under his sleeve when she touched him. She remembered how his hair was combed all wrong. She had reached up to brush it off his forehead and snapped her hand back when she saw the blisters and the Frankenstein scar that the flap of hair had been hiding.
“I told you not to touch him,” her mother scolded her.
But how could she not touch her father?
And now this casket was floating here in the river. It couldn’t be her father’s. That was ridiculous.
Maggie stood up in the rowboat. She braced herself and leaned over the edge of the casket to see inside.
Empty.
“It’s empty,” she told Cunningham, relieved and able to breathe again.
Then she turned to look at him. But Cunningham was gone. Her father sat in his place. He smiled at her, dressed in the brown suit with his plastic-wrapped hands gripping the oars.
Maggie jolted back so suddenly that her feet slipped. She fell backwards over the side of the boat.
Falling with arms flailing.
Falling and falling.
Where was the water?
She jerked awake. Sat up and searched the dark surroundings. Her heart pounded in her ears. Her breathing came in gasps. Sweat drenched her body. In the shadows she searched for the boat, searched for her father.
Then finally she recognized her own small living room. She heard the familiar hum of the refrigerator behind her. Smelled the air freshener Greg insisted they use. She eased herself back down on their worn but comfortable sofa. The afghan she had covered herself with was in a tangled ball at her feet, and she pulled it up now that she was shivering.
Her pulse still raced as she tried to calm her breathing, as she tried to remember.
She had gotten home late last night. All she wanted to do was wash the smell of that trailer full of death off her body. She wanted the water and the steam to return some warmth deep inside her. She wanted the smell gone. After a hot shower she snuggled down on the sofa under the afghan, not wanting to wake Greg.
Truth was she didn’t want to talk to him about any of it last night. She was too exhausted. And he’d have questions, which he’d be sure to follow up with a lecture. She already knew he wouldn’t be happy that Cunningham had taken her to such a bloodbath for her first real crime scene.
She was so tired and wanted to give in to the exhaustion. Closed her eyes. Tried to think about something other than the crime scene – of the body hanging from the ceiling, of Katie’s father bobbing just under the surface. But her dream hadn’t included any of those images. Instead it had been her father, his casket…Her father replacing Cunningham in the boat.
She needed to just shut off her mind? She could do that. She used to dream about her father inside his casket.
Used to. It had been a while.
Had Cunningham’s questions about him prompted the nightmare’s return?
Or was it Katie?