by Rachel Caine
Mr. French was lying in a pile of snow, looking somehow supremely grumpy and self-satisfied. He let out a whuff of disapproval when she opened the door, and stood up to waddle regally past her.
No … that pile wasn’t snow.
It was the shredded remains of her full roll of toilet paper. He’d ripped it apart. Also, the towels were off the racks, although she couldn’t imagine how he’d bounced that high. And the back of the door was gouged with scratches.
“Damn,” Annie said from behind her. “Your dog knows how to party.”
“You know what? You really should stay here,” Bryn said, and shut the bathroom door. “He needs a walk right now. When you come back, you can pick up all that and clean it up.”
“Me? He’s your dog!”
“He was locked in because of your mistake. You clean it up.” Bryn handed her the key, took a piece of paper, and scribbled down the code for the alarm, which she thrust on her sister before Joe could tell her what an awful idea that was. “Memorize it and destroy the paper, and I mean destroy it; don’t just crumple it up, okay? Shred and flush.”
“Seriously? Bryn, are you mad at me? I had a key; I didn’t know it was going to be a problem. I mean, I know he made a mess, but I didn’t think—”
“I know,” Bryn said, and took a deep breath. Annie never meant to cause chaos. It just followed her around in a dark cloud. “It’s okay. You stay here today. I’ll see you tonight, and then we’ll figure things out.”
Annie brightened up into a smile immediately. “Cool. See you tonight. And I promise the house will be clean, your bed will be made, and I’ll have dinner for you.” Annie, bless her, could cook. And Bryn had just been thinking about how damn lonely life was becoming. Having family to come home to might be a blessing … just for a little while.
She hugged Annie, impulsively, and her sister hugged her back, then tenderly smoothed Bryn’s hair back. “You smell like dead people,” she said. “Confidentially, it’s probably why you don’t have a boyfriend.”
“You are such a bitch.”
Annie grinned. She had perfect white teeth, the achievement of years of dentist visits, rigorous brushing, flossing, and bleaching. She had a nice tan, too. “I’m not judging. I smell like airplane,” she said. “I’m going to shower and lie out by the pool for a while.”
“After you clean the place.”
“Oh, absolutely. After.” Annie assumed a saintly expression and crossed her heart, which made Bryn laugh; it was Annie’s giveaway for lying. They exchanged another hug, a quick one, and Annie waved as she and Joe descended the steps.
“Lock the door!” Bryn called back. “And turn on the alarm!”
“Yes, Mom.”
Joe held his tongue until they were in the van, buckled in, and driving away. “Do I even need to tell you what a terrible idea this is?” he asked. “Or how incredibly pissed off McCallister will be?”
“Nope,” she said. She felt oddly very much steadier now. Annie might be a doofus sometimes, but she was an anchor to her past, to her family, and Bryn needed one right now.
Joe was a good guy, but there was no substitute for that.
Chapter 9
The day passed. Bryn kept her e-mail in-box active, waiting for something, anything from her mysterious would-be supplier; nothing arrived. She’d fielded about twelve calls, eight of them certainly pranks, three legitimate customers, and one from her sister about dinner.
She was checking out a suspicious e-mail message when her phone rang again; the e-mail, it turned out, was legitimate, but trash.
The phone call was odd.
At first, Bryn thought it was a prank call; she’d gotten used to those fast. Lucy called them their sex-chat clients, and joked that they needed to start charging $9.95 a minute to make some extra money off of it; they usually started out with breathing and vague noises, and that was exactly what this was. Some kind of labored, wet gasp, and undefined sounds.
“Hello?” Bryn said, just to be sure. “Not funny. I’m hanging up now.”
Usually, that either brought some kind of obscene proposal, or a hang-up. She got neither, just more of the breathing. On reflection, it didn’t sound sexual. It sounded slow and tortured.
“Hello?” Bryn glanced at her phone. Caller ID had brought up a name, which was unusual for a sex caller.
And the name seemed familiar.
Bryn felt a sinking sensation, listening to that whispering breath. She tried again, but got no response to her questions.
She hung up and called Lucy on the intercom. “Lucy, can you look up a contact for a customer for me?”
“Sure. Which one?”
“Sammons, first initial V. I think someone was trying to call from her number and got cut off.”
“We get a lot of hang-ups, you know.”
“I know. But look it up, would you?”
“Just a sec.” Lucy put the phone down, and Bryn listened to keys clicking. “System’s always so slow— Oh, there it is. Sammons, Violetta. She wasn’t a customer, though. She was a client.”
“A client.” The difference, in Fairview terminology, was that customers wrote checks; clients filled coffins. “You’re sure about that?”
“Maybe somebody kept the number switched on? Could have been a relative; she had a husband who made arrangements. She only passed a couple of weeks ago, right before you arrived here. One of Mr. Fairview’s last personal preps, poor man.”
Personal prep. Fairview seemed to do personal prep only on his special clients.
The ones who kept on paying.
She couldn’t talk, Bryn realized. Violetta Sammons was too far gone to talk, but she was trying to ask for help. My God. She’s been without a shot for … how long? Why didn’t her husband try to call us?
The implications made her sick and light-headed. “Thanks. Can you read me the address?”
“Sure.” Lucy recited it, and Bryn wrote it down. “You need anything else?”
“No,” Bryn said. Her knuckles had tightened around the phone. “No, thank you, Lucy.” She hung up and rang Joe’s extension. He didn’t answer at once; when he did, it was clear the call had switched to his cell. “Joe? Where are you?”
“At Atlantic Memorial, waiting on a pickup with Doreen.” Doreen was the latest in this week’s parade of assistants. “She’s still with us.”
“The pickup?”
“Doreen. What’s going on?”
Her throat felt tight with panic. “I had a weird phone call. I think it was someone Fairview … you know. She’s in trouble.”
“All right, give me the address; I’ll send people.”
“No. Joe … Joe, she called me. She needs help. We’ve got supplies, right? I want to give her the shot.”
“Bryn, you can‘t. The syringes are ID coded. You know that.”
“Then come back and go with me.”
“You want me to leave Doreen here alone to do the pickup? Even if I did, I’m a couple of hours away.”
“This can’t wait, Joe. It can’t.”
“She’s not going anywhere, right?”
Her eyes were burning now with unshed tears. She couldn’t explain why she felt so oppressed by this; she couldn’t understand it herself. “She needs help now. I’m going.”
“Tell me where you’re going first.” She read him the address. “Seriously, wait for me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I can’t leave her like that.”
He was silent for a second, then said, “You know what you might have to do. She’s probably too far gone to dose.”
“I know,” she said. “I can’t let her suffer, Joe. That’s why I have to go.”
“As long as you know what you’re getting into. I’ll get Pat to meet you there; he’s not far. No arguments, boss. This is how it’s done.” The boss was ironic; Bryn was almost sure. She was no one’s boss, not even her own. He hung up before she could tell him not to call McCallister—not that he would have listened.
She hadn’t spoken directly to McCallister since they’d parted ways in that uncomfortable fashion at the mansion, and she wasn’t looking forward to it now. But mostly what she dreaded was what she was going to find at Violetta Sammons’s house. Where was Violetta’s husband? McCallister will have the shot, she thought. We can do this. We can make it right and figure it out from there.
I have to make it right.
She grabbed her preloaded removal bag from the locker room, added a few things, and took one of the mortuary vans—freshly cleaned out and smelling astringently of bleach. Either I smell like dead people, or I smell like cleaning products. Annie was right: boyfriends were probably out of the question at this point—presuming, of course, that she had any right to think about such real-life issues anymore.
She tried not to think about that, or anything, as she followed the navigation system’s directions to Violetta’s address up in the La Jolla hills. It was in a very posh neighborhood, with big, expansive houses and a breathtaking view. Not Patrick McCallister’s price range, but even the smallest of these properties must have gone for a couple of million.
No wonder Fairview had chosen Sammons for his scam.
Bryn parked the van and got out, carrying her black canvas bag, just as Patrick McCallister’s tinted black sedan closed in behind like a shark. He stepped out, and they looked at each other for a few seconds. His bruised cheek had mostly healed, and his suit looked clean and impeccable, as always.
He had a black bag, too. She didn’t think his held the same things hers did.
“Bryn,” he said, in a very careful, neutral tone. “What’s the emergency?”
“I think she’s one of Fairview’s,” Bryn said. “And I think she’s been without a shot all this time. I couldn’t just … I have to help. I have to. You understand?”
McCallister hesitated, then nodded. “Let me go first.”
“No,” she said. “I have to do this.”
“Not alone,” he said. “We do it together, then.”
That felt better, because she was terrified and trying not to show it. The house looked completely normal, nothing to sound alarms. Bryn rang the doorbell, then tried the front door, but it was locked.
“What now?” she asked. McCallister led her around to the side, to a kitchen door. She tried that one. “It’s locked, too.”
He stepped up and did something with a set of tiny tools—lock picks, she guessed. She expected an alarm, but when the door swung open, she didn’t hear a thing. A house like this, there had to be an alarm….
McCallister stepped inside and checked a keypad next to the door. “It’s off,” he said. “Come in.” He closed and locked it behind her.
She immediately caught the unmistakable smell of decomposition—ripe, sickly sweet, and dense. She wavered, and exchanged a wordless look with him.
“Bryn,” he said. “Let me do this. You don’t need to—”
She shook her head, waited to let her senses adjust, then went forward through a spotlessly kept white tile kitchen, down a hallway. The stench got more intense. She was achingly aware of McCallister sticking close beside her, silent now.
No turning back.
She expected a horror show, but there was nothing in the large, gracious living room, although a big-screen TV was still playing with the sound turned down. There was a glass of what looked like Scotch sitting on a coaster on the coffee table, and a book spread open, facedown, as if someone had put it away for just a moment.
McCallister touched her shoulder and pointed. She followed him out into the marble-tiled foyer. A curving staircase led upstairs.
The smell was worse here, and increased as they ascended. Halfway up, Bryn heard the first hum of insect activity. She hesitated just for a breath on the last step, gathered herself, and stepped over a busy line of ants that marked a trail right to where she had to go.
McCallister was right behind her, silent and solid. He was the only thing that gave her the necessary strength to keep going.
The bedroom door was shut, and Bryn touched the knob gingerly first, as if it might be hot. Instinct, trying to stop her from doing this. Seeing this.
She took a deep breath and opened the door.
The noise exploded in an angry buzz, and flies whizzed past her, heading out into the open air. She ducked. So did McCallister. He coughed and put his hand over his mouth; it was the first sign of weakness she’d seen from him.
Bryn stepped into hell.
The first thing she saw was the dead man, sitting in a deep armchair at the end of the bed. There was a bullet hole in one temple, and a giant exit wound on the opposite side. The gun still lay on the carpet next to his feet.
He’d been gone for days.
The woman lying on the bed wasn’t much of a human being anymore. She was covered in a moving blanket of flies, wriggling pale maggots popping through the slipping, discolored stretch of skin, and ants busily carrying away pieces for the good of the colony.
Her eyes were open. Clouded, discolored, decomposed, but alive.
Oh, God, still alive. They moved, very slightly, toward Bryn. The lipless mouth moved, but there was no sound, could be none. The phone receiver lay on the pillow next to her, and one desiccated finger was still resting on the redial button.
“Mother of God,” McCallister whispered behind her. He sounded shaken, stunned, more human than he’d ever seemed. Bryn, on the other hand, felt … remote. Unte-thered. That was shock, she guessed. Useful thing, shock, at moments like these.
“Give her the shot,” she said.
“Bryn—it won’t work.”
“Give her the shot.”
He shook his head, but he opened his bag and took out the syringe. She saw him hesitate, trying to find enough muscle to inject, and watched as he did his best.
The liquid oozed back out through her skin and soaked into the bedding.
They waited for long moments, and Bryn finally turned to McCallister.
“She’s too far gone,” he whispered. “End stages. The drug won’t help.”
Then there was only one thing to do.
Bryn dropped her canvas bag, opened it, and took out a gown, a mask, surgical gloves. She handed those to McCallister, then took a second set for herself. They dressed in silence. The mask didn’t block the eye-watering stench. There were ants crawling on her feet, over her legs, but Bryn didn’t think about that. Couldn’t think about that.
She took out a surgical saw.
McCallister took a step back. “What are you—”
Bryn didn’t answer, because she couldn’t. Talking required some kind of cognition she didn’t think she was capable of at this point. There was only one thing that was important, one thing that had to be done.
She had to stop the woman’s pain. There was no walking away from this, no choice. It had to be done.
She had to be the one to do it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to what was left of Violetta Sammons, and stared into those clouded, desperate, terrified eyes for a second before she put one hand on the mandible of her jaw, pushed up, and exposed the rotten column of her throat.
It didn’t take more than three strokes. The saw was very sharp. As the head rolled free, Bryn saw the life desperately continue in those filmed eyes, and then dim … and then, finally, mercifully, depart.
Byrne dropped the saw, staggered, and put her back against the wall.
That’s me. That’s me on the bed. That’s me.
Not yet, but it was coming, as inevitable as death itself.
Across the bed, Patrick McCallister stood frozen, watching her. He finally reached down and grabbed the canvas bag, retrieved the saw, and took her arm. “Out,” he said. “Come on.”
Leaving that room was like walking out of a grave, and Bryn ripped the mask away from her face and gulped in deep breaths. She’d thought the air out here tainted before, but it smelled sweet now. Sweet as roses.
Her legs had gone numb, but McCallist
er helped her down the steps, past the line of ants, past the silent living room with its TV still playing, Scotch waiting.
Outside, into the clean breeze, and the sun.
Bryn collapsed against him, put her arms around his neck, and wept as if her heart were breaking. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Oh, my God. I had to do it; I had to. I had to.”
And Patrick McCallister held on just as fiercely. “I know,” he whispered back. “It’s all right. It’s over.”
“No.” She gasped, and fisted her hands in the collar of his suit. “That was me. Going to be me.”
“No. Bryn, you’re alive; hear me? And I won’t let that happen to you. I won‘t. I swear it.”
“What if—”
“Don’t.”
“You saw; she could still feel—”
His voice turned fierce. “I won’t let it happen. I will never let you suffer, Bryn. Believe that, even if you never believe anything else about me.”
She did believe him. She believed that if he had to, Patrick McCallister would take up that saw and end things for her, once and for all. He had the strength of will.
She’d never thought she did. Not until the moment when she’d had to choose.
That terrified her, the fact that something like that was hiding inside her—something so strong, so cold, so capable. She didn’t want to know that about herself.
She didn’t want to know what it was going to be like in the end, either. She’d looked into her future, into the ruined, screaming eyes of Violetta Sammons.
McCallister held her until his security team arrived to sanitize the scene of the crime, and she was glad he did.
Fifteen minutes after they’d started the … removal proceedings, McCallister stepped back into the house. He donned an extra pair of coveralls stored in Bryn’s go bag, a ball cap, a thin Windbreaker that had the Fairview Mortuary logo on the front, and said, “I’m going with you. You shouldn’t be alone.” His team had their orders. They also had come in disguise as renovation workers, with their own van, tools, coveralls—they even put a sign out by the curb. Anyone looking out would see nothing but normal life, although what was going on was far, far from sanity in there. “We need to get the van out of here. It’ll raise questions.”