“That’s because you two are so much alike.”
“Oh, god. Not you too,” Corey groaned. “Thayer just said the same thing to me.”
“She’s a smart woman.” Steph paused. “And, I have to say, positively stunning.”
Cory grinned. “You noticed.”
“Does anyone not?”
“Nope.”
Steph turned to look at her. “And how does that work out for you?”
She shrugged. “As long as she’s okay with it, I am too.”
“Are you really?”
“Well, I kind of have to be.”
“Mmm. Thayer doesn’t really strike me as the kind of woman who would suffer the jealous girlfriend well. And if she’s not okay with it? What then?”
Corey arched a brow at her. “Then the gloves come off.”
“Has that happened?” Steph asked.
Corey pulled into a fifteen-minute pickup and drop-off spot outside the ED main entrance. “Not yet.”
She took the tray and coffee from Steph’s lap and balanced the still mostly full box of coffee on top. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”
“I’ll come in with you.” Steph hopped from the truck. “Can I carry something?”
“Nah, I got it.” Corey glanced back at her as she headed toward the entrance. “Your job is to protect me if I get mobbed by starving nurses and residents.”
“Corey, get back.” Steph grabbed her arm and hauled her backward several steps as a black Hummer H2 roared into the accessible parking spot right where she was about to cross.
Corey staggered, the box of coffee sliding off its perch and exploding on the ground at their feet, showering them both from the knees down. “What the fuck, man?” Corey shouted at the driver.
A tall, perfectly groomed and coiffed man jumped down, whipped on his white coat and shot Corey and Steph a satisfied smirk over his shoulder. “Watch where you’re walking, Glasses.”
Corey seethed, her teeth grinding together. “Oh, that’s gotta be him.”
“Who?” Steph picked up the coffee box and held it up carefully to stop the spill as she eyed the obnoxious SUV.
“The ‘not yet’ from your question about Thayer.”
“Do you know him?” Her brow furrowed as she studied the rear of the truck.
“Not formally, no.” Corey took a deep breath. “He’s Watson Gregory III, a fourth-year resident Thayer was mentoring as part of her fellowship and his orientation.”
Her eyes widened. “Any relation to the senator?”
“Yup.” She pushed through the main doors and headed to the nurses’ station.
“Corey.” Jules Archer, a young nurse and friend of Corey and Thayer’s, practically squealed. “And you have treats? Those are for us, right? I’ll just go stash this in the lounge.” She snatched the tray from Corey’s hands and skipped away.
“Maybe today won’t suck after all,” Dana said as Jules disappeared. “Hey, why aren’t you at work, anyway? And why the police escort?”
“Oh, right.” Corey turned to Steph. “Steph Austin this is Dana Fowler, Thayer’s BFF.”
Dana extended her hand over the counter and greeted Steph. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too. Corey and I are going to the same place. She’s consulting on a case for us.”
Dana glanced at Corey. “Do tell.”
“Another time. I promise.” Corey eyed the Hummer she could see through the glass doors. “Hey, does that Gregory dude always park like an asshole?”
Dana followed her gaze, her face darkening. “He does everything like an asshole if he thinks he can get away with it.”
“We’ll fucking see about that,” Corey muttered and reached for the phone over the counter, jamming in a number and waiting for the line to connect. “Good morning. Is Kim Stewart on today? Great. Can you radio her and let her know Corey Curtis needs her in the ED? Yes, now. Thank you.” She hung up and turned to the other women, her mouth twisting into a wicked grin.
A few minutes later Kim strode in, her security uniform crisp and polished, and her long legs carrying her across the floor in half the time of an average-sized woman. “Corey, what’s up?” She nodded a greeting to Dana, who was watching gleefully, and to Steph. “Hey, Steph.”
Corey looked between them. “You two know each other?”
Steph replied. “It’s a small city, and when you’re one of only a handful of women on the job, you tend to stick together.”
“Also, we play hoops in the same women’s rec league Wednesday nights,” Kim added. “So, you rang?”
“Yeah.” Corey nodded toward the parking lot. “That douchey, black H2 right there was driving recklessly and is parked illegally in an accessible space.”
Kim nodded. “Did you see the driver?”
“Um, yes,” Corey admitted. “He works here.”
“So, you called me up here to ask him to move his car?”
“No.” Corey shook her head. “I kind of hoped you’d make a call and have it moved for him.”
Kim frowned, considering. “He deserve it?”
Dana piped up. “He deserves to be kicked in the balls twice daily.”
Three sets of eyes flashed to her with no small amount of amusement and surprise.
“I’m sorry,” Dana said dryly. “Did I say that out loud?”
“Did you get the plate?” Kim asked. She unclipped the radio from her belt as Steph scribbled down the plate number for her. “This is Stewart. I need Rick’s Tow and Stow to the ED main entrance for a black Hummer H2 plate sierra-india-zulu-mike-tango-tango-romeo-sierra.” Kim stared at the paper then rolled her eyes. The radio voice reply crackled unintelligibly to anyone but Kim, and apparently Steph, who smiled. “Copy. Out.”
“What’s that about his plate?” Corey asked. Kim handed her the paper and she studied it for a moment. “Size matters. God, what a dickhead.”
“They should be here momentarily since they were close by. Anything else?”
“Oh, yeah.” Corey pulled the pink papers from her back pocket. “Rachel’s place got its liquor license and is doing concerts showcasing local artists.” She handed them each a paper. “VIP passes for Friday night if you can make it. Here’s one for Jules.” She handed Dana an extra.
The rumble of an engine and clank of chains signaled the arrival of the tow truck and they all turned to watch right as Thayer strolled through the sliding doors.
Kim blurted. “Oh, my, god, who is that?”
“Corey?” Thayer called to her as she approached, her eyes flicking to the others in acknowledgment. “What are you still doing here? Is everything all right?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s fine. We were just leaving.”
“Hi.” Kim stuck her hand in front of Thayer. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Kim Stewart.”
“Oh, right, Corey’s talked about you. Congratulations on your new little one.” Thayer shook her hand. “Thayer Reynolds.”
Before anyone else could speak Watson Gregory III came sprinting down the hallway, bellowing in rage as he tore out the doors. “Hey. Stop. That’s my car, damn it!”
Thayer’s mouth quirked in amusement. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”
Kim smirked. “Yeah, well, you can thank Corey for—”
Corey shook her head frantically behind Thayer.
“—letting us know about the show on Friday.” Kim waved her pink paper. She turned at the shouting from the parking lot. “I better go handle this.” She jabbed a finger at Corey. “You owe me.”
Thayer looked between the three remaining women. “Why do I get the sense I’m not in on the joke here?”
Steph covered her mouth with her hand and coughed a noise that sounded very much like a laugh. “I’ll be outside.”
Dana gathered up a pile of charts. “Thanks for the snacks, Corey,” she called as she hurried away.
“Well?” Thayer eyed Corey.
Corey shrugged and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “I gotta r
un, babe.”
Chapter Twelve
“Down here.” Corey headed down the hallway in which two students hurried past in the opposite direction covering their mouths and noses. It was still summer so most of the offices were closed and dark but still a handful of students and staff milled about. The stench was not quite as overpowering as yesterday, but it was strong and took on a disturbing cooked quality.
Steph cleared her throat. “Yes, I guessed that.” She glanced around the hallway housing the anthropology department. “Have you done this kind of thing before?”
“I have, once.” Corey led them down another hallway. “The summer of my junior year. A badly decomposed man was found in his home, so Audrey was called in. It wasn’t overly suspicious but there was some concern. He was found dead in his bed, but there was blood on the stairs and at the bottom landing. The door was locked from the inside.”
“Who found him?”
“His local bartender. You’d have to be in a pretty committed relationship with booze for that to be the person who misses you first.” She stopped outside the door to the lab to finish the story. “Anyway, it was determined the most likely scenario was that he was drunk and fell down the stairs. He had a documented history of falls and there was plenty of skeletal evidence to support that with previous healed injuries. It was assumed he made it back to his room after the fall and died there. It was ruled an accident, but there was really no way to prove if he died from a head injury or acute alcohol intoxication or something else entirely.”
“This is it?” Steph gestured to the door with an ‘Authorized Entry Only’ sign and a dated, push button code lock on the door.
“Yeah.” Corey punched in the combination.
“You know the code?”
“I picked the code. It was installed the same time we were analyzing the drunk guy.” They entered the main classroom with windows that looked into a small courtyard along the opposite wall. At the front of the room was an old-school chalkboard and a large projector screen pulled down in front. Along the wall adjacent to the door were locked glass and wood, floor-to-ceiling cabinets filled with skeletons of varying sizes, ages, and ethnic origins. The floor was evenly spaced with six-foot lab tables and chairs.
Steph wandered along the cases, her face close to the glass as she studied the contents with interest. “Why did you need the extra security?”
“One night a couple of frat boys dared each other to break in and steal a bone.”
“Oh, no.” Steph looked at her. “Did they do any damage?”
“Only if you count puking on the floor.” Corey snickered. “It was pretty funny, actually. They saw the rotten remains and hightailed out pretty quick.”
“You were here?”
“Yup.” Corey nodded. “Undergrads draw the overnights for these kinds of projects.” She gestured toward the back of the classroom. “The lab’s back here.”
“You know, Dr. Marsh should really change the code once in a while.”
“No one really wants to get in here that badly.” She held the door for Steph as they entered the lab that spanned the width of the classroom. The air was hot and humid as two long fume hoods on each side of the room held four electric chafing dishes each and one large pot. They were all filled with steaming, muddy-brown, foul-smelling water. Between them was a large lab table covered in plastic sheeting with a few chairs around it.
Steph nodded at Officer Warren, the only other person in the room at the moment, who was leaning against the wall at the back of the room, away from the hoods. “Warren, how’s it going?”
“Interesting. And boring and unpleasant. And I don’t think I’ll ever look at a buffet table the same again.”
“I bet.” Steph looked closer at the trays of human bones simmering away. “I’ll take over for a while. You’re to catch up with Sergeant Collier. He wants to knock on the doors of the other lake residents.”
“Thanks, Austin.” Warren nodded to her and Corey and then ducked out.
“Now what?” Steph asked.
A loud timer went off, startling them both.
“Time to change the water baths.”
A moment later Audrey and Cin came in. “Excellent.” Audrey grinned. “This will go faster.”
Corey realized she was going to be put to work. “Where are all your students?”
“There’s a summer seminar series. This is the last day before the semester starts. They’ll be here later,” Audrey explained.
“In the meantime…” Cin held out a box of latex gloves and a set of rubber tongs. “…you know the drill.”
For the next several hours they removed the bones from one pan at a time with rubber tongs to avoid damaging them. The bones went onto towels over the plastic sheeting on the table and Cin worked to peel off the loosened tissue with fingertips and wood tongue depressors.
Corey helped Audrey carry each pan to the industrial biohazard sink and dump the water.
With clean water heating in the pan, Audrey went from pan to pan, adding ingredients to the water.
“What is all that?” Steph asked.
“Dish soap to degrease and meat tenderizer to break down the tissues,” Audrey explained.
“And boiling water?” Steph asked surprised. “That’s it?”
“That’s it. But hot, not boiling. If the water boils, the bones can bounce around and break.”
“How long does it take?”
“A few days.” Audrey shook her head. “You don’t get pristine bones over a commercial break like you see on TV. And it takes several weeks if you want them to stop stinking.”
“Is there a way to do it faster?”
“Several. It all depends on what you want the bones for. There is laundry detergent that will get it done faster but it doesn’t degrease. Bleach gets them nice and white. You can microwave them or boil the water like soup. That’s all fine if all you want are clean bones for a museum display, for example. If you want a good trauma analysis with potential DNA extraction for identification later, you need to take greater care not to degrade them or do anything to introduce artifact and that takes time and a soft touch.”
“What about a bug box?” Steph asked.
“It is a thing. But then what do you do with hundreds of biohazard bugs? It’s the same reason we can’t even have a window open and risk contaminating the environment.”
“I understand,” Steph said. “I’m hoping we don’t need DNA to identify.”
“I wouldn’t expect so. We have a complete skeleton, and presumably, you have some idea of the possibilities for an ID. At most we’ll have to use medical or dental records if necessary. Having said that, we may do an extraction anyway. It’s good practice for the students.”
“I see,” Steph replied.
“All that slowness aside, by tomorrow morning the bones should be clean enough to lay out for a preliminary analysis. I’ll be starting at nine.”
Steph nodded. “I’ll let Sergeant Collier know.”
Corey was ready for a change when Collier came by with Kelly Warren close to dinnertime. Aside from helping to change the water baths two more times, she had sent an email to Dr. Webster updating him on the progress and letting him know of the preliminary analysis.
“How did the door-to-door go?” Steph asked.
“It was more a door, get back in the car and drive for miles and then another door. In any case the results were pretty much all the same. Don’t know who lives there. Black bass boat with glitter finish. Why that’s the only thing folks notice, I have no idea. We did have more luck at Jake’s Bait and Tackle. Jake Butler played dumb but not very well. His name is going to come up again, I’m goddamn certain of it. A couple of the regulars confirmed it sounded like Harold Crandall’s boat. Claim they haven’t seen him in a while and didn’t know his nephew. How’s it going here?”
Steph said, “Dr. Marsh—”
“Audrey,” she called from across the room.
“Audrey is going to st
art on a preliminary analysis tomorrow at nine.”
“Good.” Collier turned to Corey. “Hey, Curtis, is Doc working tomorrow?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Lillian Thayer invited me out for lunch to speak with her. I thought she’d be more comfortable with her granddaughter there.”
“I’ll go with you,” Corey offered.
“I’m trying to put her at ease, not make her skin crawl.”
“Holy shit, you should take that on the road.”
“Be here all week.”
“I’ll have you know that Lil thinks I’m so amazing she’s practically convinced I can get Thayer pregnant.”
Steph laughed out loud—a lovely sound—and judging by the uncharacteristically charmed expression on Collier’s face, he had never heard it and seemed to like it. He cleared his throat and stared at Corey hard. “Fine. We’ll leave from here.”
Chapter Thirteen
Thayer leaned against the counter at the desk, finishing the transfer orders for her last patient, discharging him to surgery. A glance at the clock told her it was nearly six and if Corey showed up within the next five minutes, she might actually be able to steal twenty minutes away to grab a sandwich and take a quick walk outside for some fresh air. She smiled to herself, feeling a flush of pleasure at the thought.
“What are you thinking about, Reynolds?” Watson Gregory sidled up next to her waggling his eyebrows lewdly.
Thayer sighed heavily and moved away from him only for him to move with her. “I bet I can guess.” His voice dropped low and he put his face close enough to her ear that she could feel his breath. “It was that testicular torsion from earlier wasn’t it? That got you all heated up?”
Thayer’s head jerked up, and for a moment she was unsure who she was more disgusted by, him or herself for allowing it to go on. In the end she swallowed her rage and moved as far away from him as she could get and still be using the counter. “I appreciate your concern, Dr. Gregory, but I’m quite busy now.” She tensed when she felt his hand slide around her waist.
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