Cindy was known to be more pit bull than pussycat. She and Lindsay were still snickering about it when Claire Washburn arrived.
Claire emphatically endorsed Lindsay’s upcoming week of R & R. She slid into the booth next to her, saying, “I know I’m going to miss you to death, but I’m not going to call you. And I mean, no way, no how, not for any reason. Seriously. This week, nothing but radio silence, okay?”
Before Lindsay could answer, Rich Conklin arrived tableside, stepping on Claire’s laugh line. He said hey to his friends and bent down to give Cindy a kiss as Yuki danced into the room, singing along with the Caribbean tune. Rich gave her the seat next to Cindy and pulled up a chair for himself.
Yuki ordered her first margarita of the evening, and the dinner orders went in after that. Even though the upbeat music was plinking loudly and laughter and applause made conversation challenging, Cindy felt a tremendous pleasure in this gathering of close friends. The gang was all here and the evening felt like a group hug. It was the kind of night out that she wanted to soak up and remember forever.
She wouldn’t change a thing.
Chapter 2
On Monday morning, Claire arrived at the medical examiner’s office—her office—at ten before eight.
As she walked through the reception room, she was still transitioning from her home to her work mindset. Her thoughts hopscotched from the pressure of back-to-school week with her youngest kiddo, her grumpy husband, who was looking toward early retirement, and the transmission fluid she needed for her car. Not to mention the strong coffee and donut she needed to help her shift her own gears.
She had just hung her coat behind her door when Dr. Harrison, the on-call ME handling the night shift, knocked on the door frame to her office.
“Morning, Bernard. What’s the latest?” she asked her number two.
“First, we had a bad accident on the freeway at around midnight last night,” he told her. “A car jumped the median and T-boned a family that was coming home from grandma’s house. There were three fatalities. One of the children is in the emergency room.”
“Oh, damn.”
“Fifteen minutes after we’d admitted the car crash victims, two more fatalities came in. It’s all in here,” he said, waggling a folder containing a sheaf of notes. “I was able to get through two of the freeway postmortems and left the rest for you.”
“So you’ve left three patients for me, you’re saying?”
“You don’t get paid the big bucks for the easy jobs.”
She smiled at their inside joke. There were no big bucks to be found in civil service, but Claire loved what she did. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
Dr. H. kept filling her in. “Bunny’s here, and so is Mallory. Greg is running late, and I have a headache the size of a beach ball.”
“Go home,” she told him. “Take an aspirin and get some sleep.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice, Doc,” he said. “Watch out for my vapor trail.”
He handed his notes to Claire. She took them with her to the kitchenette, where she poured coffee, snagged the one chocolate donut in the box, and ate her second breakfast at the small square table. Her two assistants, Bunny Ellis and Mallory Keane, came in and took turns filling her in on the horrible car crash.
Bunny’s eyes were welling up as she said, “One’s just a little kid, Doctor. He’s only eight.”
Claire said, “I know, I know, Bunny. We never get used to the kids.”
Then Claire gowned up and went into the cool room with Bunny at her elbow. Mallory trailed close behind them. Claire opened the refrigerator drawer that contained the remains of the young boy. He should have been getting on a school bus next week.
“I’m so sorry, Sean Morrison,” Claire said to the dead child. “I know a lot of people are going to miss you terribly.”
She turned to Bunny and asked, “Are his parents here?”
“Dr. H. did the posts on his mom and dad. His sister is at Metro in serious condition.”
“And the driver?” Claire asked.
“Drunk, and texting while driving. He just walked away. From what I heard, there was hardly a scratch on him.”
Bunny wheeled a stretcher over to young Sean’s drawer. As she helped Claire lift the child’s body, they heard a sound that was part moan, part shriek.
“Bunny? What the hell was that?”
“It wasn’t me. Could it have been the wheels squeaking, maybe?”
Claire turned around and asked, “Mallory? Was that you?”
“What? No. I didn’t hear nothing, and I didn’t say nothing either.”
The three women stood very still. When they were sure they heard only the sounds of their own breathing, they resumed moving the little boy’s body to the gurney.
But then there was another moan, and this time it was followed by a fit of coughing. Together, Claire and Bunny converged on the second level of shelves, four feet off the floor. Mallory pointed to the drawer at the far end. Claire pulled on the handle—and jumped back.
The body bag inside the drawer was moving.
Claire screamed, surprising herself, and after that, she stepped up and pulled down the body bag zipper. A bloody arm protruded from the bag. A body stirred within and then spoke.
“What kind of nightmare is this?”
Chapter 3
That morning, Cindy opened the front door to Lindsay and Joe’s airy three-bedroom apartment on Lake Street.
Martha was lying in the living room next to Joe’s big chair, where she had a clear view of the doorway. As soon as she saw Cindy, she got to her feet and, with her tail wagging, trotted over to her. It took a couple of tries for Martha to get up onto her hind legs, so Cindy bent down to hug her and hold her up.
“Hey, Sweet Martha. Howsa good girl? Wanna go for a walk?”
Cindy grabbed a paper bag from the counter, found the collar and leash on a hook by the door, and took Martha for a slow but productive stroll on 12th Street. She knew there wasn’t very much traffic there, so it’d be a safe route for the two of them.
While they were walking, Cindy talked to Martha, reciting two headlines for a story she had to turn in in the next hour. She asked her which one she liked better, but Martha was noncommittal. After Martha did her business and Cindy bagged it, the duo returned to Lindsay’s apartment.
Cindy was pouring dog chow into Martha’s bowl, concentrating so she didn’t get kibble all over the floor, when the phone rang. She knew it was going to be Lindsay, checking on her. Ha! She reached for the phone.
“Linds?”
“No, it’s Claire. Oh, damn it to hell! Sorry, Cindy. I just speed-dialed Lindsay. I forgot. Force of habit.”
Cindy kept the phone to her ear as she filled Martha’s water bowl in the sink. When Claire explained why she had called, Cindy almost dropped the phone. She shut off the water to make sure that she’d heard her friend correctly.
“Say that again?”
Then Cindy said, “What? Ha. Good one, Claire.”
Claire’s voice came over the earpiece—loud. “I’m not making this up. Look, I’ve got to go.”
Cindy said, “I’m on my way. Jesus, Claire. I’m coming.”
“No, Cindy.”
“Yes, Claire. I’m ten minutes away.”
Chapter 4