Working Stiff tr-1

by Rachel Caine

  “Well, I have a dog.” That was just about the only normal thing in her life anymore. “Mr. French.”

  “Dogs are good. Pets are good. People will let you down.” Riley shook her head and put her mask back on. “That’s good work on Mrs. Jacoby, by the way.”

  “It’s easy.”

  “Nothing’s easy here. Just delicate.”

  As Bryn warmed the tinted wax in the palm of her hand and gently, gently applied it to Mrs. Jacoby’s pale, lifeless lips, she had to agree.

  Joe Fideli gave her shots every day. She didn’t see McCallister at all, although she knew Fideli was in contact with him. By special arrangement, she and Fideli carpooled; he didn’t like having her on the road alone, unprotected. So she had a bodyguard from the minute she left the fortress of her apartment until she arrived at the funeral home, with was always buzzing with activity until closing time.

  And still, she felt very alone when the phone rang in her office, and the distorted voice said, “I got your good-faith money, Bryn. Very nice.”

  Him. Bryn sat very still in her leather chair. She was suddenly hyperaware of the paperwork sitting in front of her, the crooked angle of the pen beside it, the way light from the desk lamp fell across things in shadows and glares. She’d closed the door to work on files, and in here, it was so silent it might have been on another planet.

  She spun the chair to look out the window. That was better. There was normal life out there: sun, trees moving gently in the breeze, clouds passing. Joe Fideli pulled up in the mortuary van and backed down the ramp that led to the downstairs loading dock, delivering more clients. She felt obscurely glad to have him here, somewhere close.

  “Bryn?”

  “I’m listening,” she said. She cleared her throat. “Are you ready to do business?”

  “How are your Returné customers doing?”

  “They’re dead,” she said. “What did you expect? You know how quickly the drug wears off.”

  “They were already dead. Now they’re just … normalizing their state.”

  She felt her free hand clench into a fist, and forced herself to stay calm. Don’t take it personally. But it was tough, when all that stood between you and that awful future was a shot controlled by someone else. “Like you said before, I can always get new customers.”

  “Hmmm, any prospects?”

  “I have a thirtysomething man downstairs with lots of money,” she said. “He should be good for a few months of profit.”

  “Family?”

  “He was single; no next of kin to speak of.”

  “Excellent. You don’t have to worry about conscience nibbling away at you for robbing the wife and kids. See, I know something about you, Bryn. You’re softhearted.”

  “I’m practical. You don’t get into the death business if you’re softhearted.”

  “You do if you inherit it.” It was hard to pinpoint, but Bryn thought his tone had been sounding lazily amused, but now it changed. “Enough chat. You want to do business, bring another hundred thousand to the address you’ll get in your e-mail. I pick up the money, and I e-mail you another address where the goods will be waiting for you.”

  “No way. I’m not leaving money and walking away. What do you take me for?”

  “Bryn, I had a good working relationship with Uncle Lincoln, but I don’t know you. And I don’t trust you.”

  “Why not?”

  He laughed. It sounded horrible and mechanical through the voice filter. “Because I don’t have any hold on you. Fear is the basis of any good relationship, and you’re not afraid enough of me. Not yet.”

  He hung up. Bryn stared at the receiver for a moment, then slowly replaced it in the cradle. She looked mindlessly at the paperwork for a moment more, then stood and walked out of her office, down the hall. There was a viewing in progress in the Lincoln Suite—the boy, Jake Hernandez, who’d been shot in a drive-by. She drifted through the people talking outside the room in hushed tones; some nibbled the cookies; some used the tissues. There were a few family members and friends who had that hardened, dead-eyed look; nobody had said Jake had been in a gang, but then, nobody had needed to. She’d seen the tattoos and the knife and gun scars.

  Bryn passed through the door that led to the other world, the Formica-and steel-world, with a sense of actual relief. She came down the stairs just as the loading-dock door slid up, and Joe Fideli, standing in the back of the van with two sheeted gurneys, looked back at her.

  “Hey,” she said. “Need a hand?” She didn’t wait for his answer. The metal ramp was off to the side, and she brought it over and put it in place to bridge the gap between the van and the concrete.

  “What’s up?” he asked her as he maneuvered the first gurney in line with the ramp.

  “Our friend called,” she said. “He wants another hundred thousand. He’s sending me an e-mail with the address of where to leave it. Then he’ll send another e-mail with the location of the drugs.”

  “Smart,” Joe said. “Low risk for him, high profit. If we do anything out of line, he can cut and run and never contact us again.” He pushed the gurney out, and Bryn grasped her end and pulled it over the ramp onto the dock’s clean, firm surface. They repeated the process with the second body. “I’ll run it by Pat, but it sounds like we need to play along a little more. Once he starts trusting you, it’ll be easier to set this guy up for a personal meet. Once he shows himself, we’ve got him.”

  “Can’t you just pick him up when he gets the money?”

  “He’s not stupid. He won’t get it himself. We could spend all day chasing down handoffs.”

  Bryn concentrated on the logistics as they wheeled the gurneys down the hall and into the prep room; Riley was washing a body, and waved to them without speaking as the gurneys went into refrigeration. Each body had an ID tag and a plastic envelope of paperwork, which Bryn clipped to hanging boards above the appropriate stations.

  “You look spooked,” Joe said.

  She laughed. “I’m standing in a cooler full of bodies, Joe.”

  “That doesn’t bother you. Was it the call?”

  Fear is the basis of any good relationship. “No,” she said, but the lie wasn’t very good, and she knew he’d see right through it, so she changed it. “Yes. He’s … There’s something about him. Something that really scares me. He’s not just in this for the money. He actually enjoys it.”

  “I know the type,” Fideli said. “Look, we’re doing everything we can to keep you safe. You’re armed; you’ve got escorts to and from work; you’re secured when you’re here and when you’re home. We’ve got remote surveillance working. You’re covered, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said. She really didn’t have any reason to feel so scared. Maybe it was the chill of the air, or the stale, never-quite-right smell of the refrigerator. Maybe it was her own inevitable end pressing down on her. She wanted warmth, suddenly, and remembered the man with Hawaii airline tickets in his pocket. I could do that. Just … go somewhere.

  No, she couldn’t. Not without permission. Not without an escort carrying her shots.

  She wasn’t free, and she’d never be free again. She was owned by the ultimate corporate loyalty program.

  “Hey,” Joe said. He took her hand in his. “Look at me.”

  She did, and his earnest concern made her try for a smile. “I’m just having a hard day,” she said. “No reason. You ever have days like that?”

  “All the damn time,” he said. “I get too involved. So Pat tells me. Come on. Let’s get some coffee. I’ve got to move the van and—”

  The pager on his hip went off. Ten seconds later, so did Bryn’s cell phone, ringing a text alarm.

  Both of them checked devices, and then looked at each other. “My apartment,” Bryn said. He nodded. “Someone tried to get in.”

  “I’ll drive.”

  The police were already on the scene when Joe parked the mortuary van—a cruiser, light bars strobing, and a curious bunch of her neighbors
dawdling and gawking. Bryn jumped down from the passenger seat and dashed up the stairs, with Joe right behind her. Her front door was open, and the alarm was still going off in wild shrieks.

  A uniformed officer held out his hand to stop her from going in. “Sorry, miss—”

  “I’m Bryn Davis,” she blurted. “This is my place. Is my dog okay?”

  Mr. French barked furiously from somewhere inside— full-throated roars of outrage.

  “He’s fine,” the policeman said, sounding resigned. “We had to put him in the bathroom. Good little guard dog you’ve got there.”

  That eased the knot in Bryn’s chest. “Thank God. What happened?”

  The cop started to reply, but before he could, a slender hand grabbed the door and pulled it all the way open.

  Bryn’s sister Annalie stood there looking tired, stressed, and bedraggled. She was shorter than Bryn, and curvy in ways that men seemed to much admire, but right now she didn’t look bouncy or sexy. Just shocked and frustrated. “Would you turn this damn thing off?” she shouted over the racket. “God, you could have told me you had an alarm!”

  “Annie?” Bryn pushed past the cop and entered her code on the keypad. The pounding noise shut off, to the relief of Bryn’s ears, and probably everyone else in a five-block radius. “Annie, Jesus Christ, what are you doing here?” There was a flower-patterned suitcase sitting on the floor next to a bright aqua purse that had to be her sister’s. “How did you get in?”

  “It wasn’t easy. Do you know, the key you gave me last time doesn’t work? What did you do, change the locks?”

  “Annie—how did you get in?”

  Annie grinned and shrugged. “I called a locksmith and got him to open it for me. I paid him triple. He wouldn’t do anything about the alarm, though, and he took off.”

  Bryn rubbed her forehead. There was no system sophisticated enough that her sister couldn’t find a perfectly obvious way around it, apparently. “He’s supposed to check ID.”

  “Well—I paid extra.”

  “Don’t take this wrong but … why are you here?”

  “Well … I know. It was kind of supposed to be a surprise. I brought you a present to celebrate your new job,” Annie said, and tried for a grin. “Surprised?”

  “Bowled over.” Now that her heart was slowing down to a more normal pace, Bryn hugged her sister, then looked at the waiting policeman. “Uh … it’s okay; I’m so sorry. I didn’t know she was coming, that’s all. She’s all right. Everything’s all right.”

  The policeman had been joined by his partner, a woman. She seemed more amused than angry. “Happens all the time,” she said. “Maybe you ought to let anyone with keys know that you’ve put in a new alarm system.”

  “Nobody else has keys.” Well, Bryn imagined McCallister did, and Fideli, because that would be par for the course, but she’d never given out any other keys. “I am really very sorry about the bother.”

  “That’s okay; you’ll get the bill,” the male policeman said, and nodded to her on the way out, followed by his partner.

  Joe Fideli stepped in, shut the door, and leaned against it, looking much more amused than Bryn felt. “So?” he asked. “Going to introduce me?”

  “I hope so,” Annie said, and gave him a smile. “Bryn, you didn’t tell me you had a cutie for a boyfriend. Holdout.”

  Bryn rolled her eyes. “Annalie, this is Joe Fideli. He works with me at the mortuary. He’s a funeral director. Not my boyfriend.”

  “You’re kidding. Really?”

  “Tongue in mouth, please. He’s taken, and not by me.”

  “Permanently?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Joe said. “Afraid so, darlin’.”

  “That is just Bryn’s luck.” Annie sighed dramatically and sank down on Bryn’s couch. “Since when did you need an alarm system, sis? Scared ten years of life out of me!”

  “Since I got robbed,” Bryn said. “There’s such a thing as crime, you know.”

  “Yeah, I bartend, doofus. I know all about it.”

  “It’s really good to see you, Annie, but … why? What happened?”

  Annalie shrugged and looked down. She seemed casual, but Bryn wasn’t fooled; there was a subtle tension about her that only someone well versed in Annie-speak would recognize. “I just wanted to get away for a while. You know how it is. Mom was driving me nuts.” Mom, it seemed, had always been hardest on Annie, but then, Annie had needed it. Bryn had skated by as the example against which everyone else was measured. It was a miracle, she thought, that she hadn’t been shivved by her siblings by now. Annie came out of it and gave her a bright, sweet smile. “You want your present now?”

  “You shouldn’t be buying me things.”

  “I didn’t. Well, I contributed, but Mom and Tate went in on it with me. I even got Grace to put in, believe it or not.”

  “Wow. How’d you manage that?”

  Annie opened up her suitcase and took out a small, neatly wrapped box with curly ribbons dangling from the top. It looked very festive. “I twisted arms,” she said. “You deserve a present, Bryn. You do a lot for us. Especially for me. I know I’m kind of a burden sometimes.” A cloud came across her smile, dimming it. “And I should have called—I know that. I’m sorry.”

  That was typical of Annie—doing something thoughtful and thoughtless at the same time. The present, when Bryn unwrapped it, proved to be a beautiful, delicate watch, probably way too expensive; she put it on and loved it immediately. She hugged her sister, and Annalie hugged her back with fierce intensity. “There’s a card, too,” she said. “We all signed it. Even Kyle, if you can believe that.”

  “Kyle?”

  “I sent it through his lawyer. It took a week to get it back. Which is why I’m late, by the way; it was supposed to be a first-day-on-the-job kind of thing.”

  Well, thank God for small favors. Having Annie involved in all that … Bryn didn’t even want to consider it. “I’m surprised Kyle even remembers who I am.”

  Annie gave her a wide-eyed look. “He’s your brother. Of course he remembers!”

  There were times, Bryn thought, when Annie could be kind of hopelessly naive. Not that it wasn’t a little endearing, but she conveniently forgot what Kyle was like. Family first—that was Annie’s motto.

  Bryn felt a little guilty that she couldn’t see it quite that simply.

  “You want a Coke?” she asked, to cover the awkward moment. That was Annie’s drink of choice, even at the bar. She nodded, and Bryn went into the kitchen to pour. “Joe? Would you like anything?”

  “I’m okay,” he said. “Rain check on coffee for later, though.”

  Bryn carried back two glasses, one for her, one for Annie. “All right. What’s Mom done to make you come running out here? Because you could have just mailed the present, you know.”

  “I missed you!”

  “I know, but come on. What happened?”

  “She … Well, you know. She’s being Mom.” Annie drank, and fiddled with the glass. “She doesn’t like me working at the bar. She keeps trying to get me to quit and go to college. I just got tired of the lectures. I needed a break.”

  “You weren’t arguing about money?”

  “What?” Annie choked on her Coke. “No. No, don’t look at me like that! I swear, I didn’t ask her for a dime.” She sounded wounded. “I wouldn’t do that. Besides, you bailed me out—I know. I remember.”

  “I’ve never been able to figure out where you spend it all. You don’t drink; you don’t, you know …” Bryn made a smoking gesture.

  “Do drugs? Jesus, Bryn, we’re not twelve; you can say it. No, I don’t!”

  “Then—”

  Annie sighed. “I just like to buy things. I try, I really do, but I just … lose track. And then the banks make it worse. Did you know they process the biggest charges first, so you bounce the most checks and get hit with the most fees? It’s awful.”

  “You know what solves that? Not spending so much.”

&nbs
p; “You sound just like her.” Meaning Mom. Of course. “Look, I know, okay? I’m trying really hard to get better with money.”

  “Annie …” Bryn shook her head. “You say that, but you just spent too much on this present, and don’t tell me Tate and Mom and Grace pitched in; I know you paid for most of it, right? And then you flew all this way to deliver it.” The fresh airline tag was still on the handle of Annie’s bag. And she must have gotten a taxi, which cost a fortune from the airport. “Well, you’re here now, so it doesn’t matter.”

  Annie seized the moment. “Yes! I’ve missed you, you know. We can go out—do you know I’ve never been to Sea-World? Or the zoo. I hear the zoo is amazing. We can go! And we can have so much fun. It’ll be like when we used to share a room— Oh, it’s okay if I stay, right? I didn’t get a motel.”

  Joe gave Bryn a wide-eyed look of very clear warning. “Well … actually, there’s not much room. How about if I get you a hotel room? We can do things at night if you want. I do have to work during the day” That clearly wasn’t good enough; Joe gave her a tiny shake of his head. She glared back, trying to send the silent message of, She’s family, damn it! He finally shrugged. Surrender.

  “Oh,” Annie said, subdued. “I didn’t think … Okay. Right, a hotel is fine, I guess. And I can just do things on my own.”

  “Annie—”

  “Maybe I should just see if I can get on standby and go home. I don’t want to bother you. I just thought … I wanted to spend time with you.”

  Annie didn’t exactly mean to make it a guilt trip; she really did feel abandoned and sad, and didn’t cover it well. She never had. In some ways, Annalie was still a child, and Bryn sometimes forgot that. Everybody had always indulged her. Protected her.

  And Bryn was no different, because she gave up at the sight of Annie’s sad, almost teary eyes. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. You can stay here during the day. I’ll give you the codes to get in and out. Mr. French needs someone to play with, anyway….” Oh, crap. Bryn felt a guilty shock. Mr. French—she’d left him in the bathroom. She jumped up and hurried into the bedroom, embarrassed by the fact that she hadn’t made her bed or picked up the clothes on the floor, and the police had been in here staring at it. Too late now. She opened the bathroom door.