It Happens

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “Some people don’t like butt stuff, either,” Turner said, startling us all. “But butt stuff might be liked by other people. You can’t judge.”

  There was a long pause as we all soaked in her words.

  Then Zee shook his head.

  “On that note, I’ll leave you,” he said softly, his hand coming up to curl around my chin. “You need me, you call. No hesitation.”

  I looked him in the eyes. “It’s going to be okay.”

  He frowned. “I just have a really bad feeling.” He looked down at the dead person we were standing next to. “You can fix this?”

  The man on my table was definitely fucked up. He’d been one of the ones that’d gotten hurt because of me, and it just fucking figured that they’d bring him to my funeral home to make pretty again.

  “I’m going to do my best,” I admitted. “They want me to try. If I can’t fix it up enough for them to do open casket, they’re just going to close it.”

  Zee poked the man’s arm. “He almost looks fake.”

  “The embalming preserves them,” I said. “And Turner has already started to do a little fixing on her own. I’m just making it perfect.”

  He shrugged. “I guess so.”

  I shooed him away. “Go. I’ll make sure to get the pizza you like.”

  “Not any butt stuff…right?” he teased before he let me go, placing a chaste kiss onto my lips.

  I rolled my eyes. “Pineapple? No. Butt stuff? That’s never off the table for me.”

  His jaw clenched as he shook his head and walked away taking Castiel with him. “Jesus Christ, woman.”

  Laughing, I went to work on the man, doing my best with the massive wound that was in the middle of the man’s throat.

  Apparently, keeping up with the same axe motive, my stalker had decided to go and axe everybody that had seemingly hurt me in some way.

  I actually had two of them in my fucking coolers right now.

  Way to make a girl feel guilty.

  Luckily the other person that’d fallen victim, a guy that I’d once had a spat with outside of the supermarket over him not putting a cart away about two months ago, wasn’t interested in being viewed. He’d wanted to be cremated, according to his ex-wife, so after he was released by the police, I’d be sending him in to be cremated.

  “This guy probably died with one blow of his axe,” Turner surmised. “I asked Castiel to give me the details, but he wouldn’t.”

  “That’s because I’m fairly sure that Castiel hates you,” I told her honestly. “What the hell did you do to him while I was away?”

  She sneered at me.

  “He was such an ass.” She rolled her eyes. “We went to your house and started to go through some things. Then he brought me here and asked me to walk him through our day. Then he found out that I walked alone to and from work sometimes, and it just degraded from there. Now he’s insisting he bring me to and from work if I ever don’t feel like driving.”

  I sighed.

  “Hey, what’s that?” Turner asked, pointing to something.

  I frowned and looked at the gaping hole in the neck of the man I was working on.

  They’d done an autopsy on him, I’d fixed him up, and was in the process of fixing the wound up on his throat with wire mesh.

  “That’s…I don’t know,” I admitted when I looked at the little black mechanical looking thing that was sticking out of the bag partially. “That looks weird. Why is it even here in the first place?”

  “Open it and find out,” she suggested.

  When autopsies were done, their internal organs were placed into a bag and returned to their abdomens once they were done. Meaning seeing bags wasn’t a new thing for me.

  I shook my head. “I normally just dispose of them. If I open these, it means that I have to smell them.”

  Turner walked over to the bag and started to work the device-like thing out of the bag, stopping when it finally popped free.

  “It looks like a pen,” she said.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  She pulled it apart and blinked when the cap separated from the shaft of the pen, revealing a flash drive.

  “Shit,” she said, looking at it. “You know we have to look at this, right?”

  I shook my head. “We’re not putting that in my computer. Not only is it gross, but I’m not sure why it’s in there in the first place. It’s not happening on any computer of mine.”

  “Isn’t that computer chick upstairs working?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “She was earlier. I don’t know if she’s still there.”

  She tucked the pen into her lab coat. “I have a few more curls to do on this dead chick, and I’ll go up there and see if she can help me.”

  I went back to work and didn’t notice when she left.

  In fact, I was so entranced with my work that it took me a second to realize that someone was once again in the room with me.

  “What?” I asked without turning around.

  “It’s nice that they finally left you alone.”

  I felt everything inside of me start to seize with fear.

  That voice.

  Where had I heard that voice before?

  God.

  I turned around slowly, not recognizing the man that was standing there.

  My hand closed around the phone at my tableside, and uncaring of the body fluids and other gunk on my hand, I wrapped it around the device and pulled it into my side.

  He smiled. “I have a jammer on, anyway. No signal will leave this room as long as I’m within twenty feet of you. You may have your phone.”

  I felt sick to my stomach.

  God.

  That voice.

  Why was his voice so scary to me?

  He wasn’t tall. Not short. Not anything.

  Just basic.

  Nothing scary about him at all, really. Just that goddamn voice.

  “It’s good to finally see you again,” he said gently.

  I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you are.”

  He grinned. “You don’t remember me because you were in a lot of pain the day that we first met.”

  And then it hit me.

  The day that I was released from the hospital.

  He’d been the one to give me the news that I would never again bear children.

  He’d been the doctor that had saved my life.

  He’d been there when everything that could go wrong with me, did go wrong.

  What. The. Hell.

  “H-how did you get in?” I asked, licking my lips.

  “A body bag.” He grinned widely. “Funny how y’all don’t check that stuff when they’re delivered. Though, saying that, I nearly died on the way in here because you employ dumbasses who don’t know how to drive.”

  He was right.

  I really should.

  And I would.

  From now fucking on.

  I fisted my hand on the only thing that could possibly help defend me—a scalpel—and prepared to defend my life.

  Because I had a feeling I was going to need to kick some ass.

  “What are you doing with that?” He smiled, looking at the metal object in my hand.

  I squeezed it even tighter.

  “You need to leave,” I ordered, trying to sound authoritative.

  He laughed.

  “You’re so funny.” He grinned. “You actually think that after all the work I had to put into this that I’m just going to leave? Do you know how long I was in that body bag for?” he asked. “And look what happened to my elbow when they dropped me off that gurney.”

  When he looked down, I struck.

  Taking a quick swipe with my outstretched arm, I sliced him across the face.

  Or tried to.

  His arm came up seconds before I made contact, and all I was able to do was cut him from elbow to hand.

  L
uckily it was on the inside of his wrist. If I was lucky, he’d bleed out.

  “You…son of a bitch, that hurts!” he cried out, looking at his arm in horror.

  I should’ve stabbed him in the heart.

  That would’ve been better, wouldn’t it have?

  I wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t have blocked it, though.

  “You really turn me on, you know that?”

  That’s when I really started fighting in earnest.

  There was no way in hell I was going down without a fight.

  Chapter 22

  I’d wish you the best, but you’ve already had it.

  -Jubilee to Zee’s ex-wife.

  Zee

  I looked at the sheriff and shook my head. “I have to go. There’s something wrong. Something that I’m missing.”

  He looked at his watch. “I can cover the office for two hours by myself. Go eat lunch with your girl. Get this feeling fixed up, and then get back here. I’m dying a slow death over here.”

  The sheriff was the first one to come down with the flu, and the first one back.

  He was likely still needing his bed, but he’d come in since we were literally down to three sheriff’s deputies and one secretary to keep this place running.

  “I’ll come back after lunch,” I promised. “Do you want me to bring you anything?”

  “Some chicken soup if you happen to find any,” he said. “If you don’t mind, thank you.”

  I gave him a thumb up and sidled out of the office and to my cruiser.

  When I got into the cruiser, I drove straight to the funeral home which took me less than five minutes.

  When I arrived, it was to see Castiel staring at the front door strangely.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “The light’s blinking,” my father, who was at the edge of the building, said. “But every three seconds or so, it goes out and then starts blinking again. It shouldn’t be blinking at all. It should be a solid red light.”

  “Did you check on the girls?” I asked.

  “I did,” Dad confirmed. “Turner and Janie are in Jubilee’s office. Jubilee is still with the dead man that’s got the axe throat wound.”

  I frowned. “Is the feed on?”

  “Yes,” Jubilee’s father turned his phone to show me. “And it’s showing us, too. Not a loop.”

  I frowned harder.

  “I can go look.” I paused. “But I’m not good enough with these. It’d be easier if you…”

  Dad started nodding his head almost immediately. “I’d feel better if that was what we did.”

  I pushed past them all. “Is the pizza here?”

  “It was delivered about five minutes ago,” Castiel said. “The pizza guy delivered it into my hands, and then walked to the car and left.” He grinned then. “And then the pizza guy almost ran over a dead body that was being delivered. It was epic. The body fell to the ground and everything.”

  I rolled my eyes at his use of ‘epic.’ “I’ll go get her and we can eat out here on the steps.”

  As I moved through the hallways, I studied each and every room we passed.

  It wasn’t until I got to the part of the hallway that led to the basement that my heart started to race. Because I could hear raised voices.

  And that’s about when the truth slammed into me.

  I was running before I had the conscious urge to do more than take a step. And I found myself standing in front of the room Jubilee used to ‘fix’ her clientele before I drew more than two breaths.

  But common sense crashed into me before I so much as barreled inside, and I had my phone out in my hand just as the door opened and someone started out.

  I processed it all at once.

  The door opened.

  The nondescript man with the dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and honey gold skin was holding onto Jubilee’s wrist.

  Jubilee, on the other hand, looked downright pissed, but there was a gun pointed at her and she was moving despite not wanting to.

  She had a cut on her lip as if she was punched or slapped, and her clothes were disheveled as if she fought him.

  My left hand went to the gun as my right one curled into a fist.

  I had a split second of inaction as if I was trying to decide whether I was going to react or not, then I barreled forward.

  Jubilee, seeing my move, wrenched her arm backward.

  She didn’t get it away from the man, but she succeeded in diverting his attention for long enough that I could punch him. Straight in the goddamn jaw.

  My fist hit him so hard that he was knocked off his feet.

  One second he was standing, and the next he was on the ground, staring blankly at the ceiling.

  It was the few seconds that I took to get Jubilee up and off the floor that he recovered enough to go for his gun.

  That was when Jubilee kicked him in the face.

  He rolled, and kept rolling until he was a few feet from us.

  Closer to the gun.

  I reacted before I could stop myself.

  I was straddling him with my thighs, hand fisted in his shirt for optimal distance.

  I punched the man, over and over again, in the face, relishing the way my knuckles cracked hard against his cheekbone.

  The audible crunch of his nose breaking wasn’t any less satisfying now as it was when I’d broken it five minutes ago.

  It was a while later when the man stopped struggling, that I finally got my shit under control enough to ask questions instead of just beat the shit out of him.

  “Why?” I growled, teeth gleaming white and bright in the sunlight.

  I could see myself in the mirror, and I saw with clarity that I looked just as much the lunatic as the man I was currently beating to a pulp.

  “Why not?” The man laughed through the blood that was quickly filling his mouth.

  His teeth were stained dark red, and his eyes were watering.

  I wasn’t sure if they were watering due to the fact that his pain had hit a level that he couldn’t deal with, or because he found this entire situation humorous.

  I was going with the latter over the former.

  I picked him up by the stupid tie, then slammed him back down so hard that his head cracked against the stained concrete floor.

  “Answer me, or I make it really start to hurt,” I growled.

  “Zee, you’re starting to get blood on your uniform shirt,” Jubilee whispered.

  I ignored her, but apparently hearing her voice was enough to get the man talking, so I wouldn’t complain…yet.

  “Had to watch over her. Protect her,” the man informed me. “The best way to do that was stay with her. Make sure nothing happened to her.”

  I sat back on my haunches and stared at the man in disgust.

  “You’re telling me, that for over ten years now, you’ve ‘watched’ over her like a sick fuck?” I asked. “Do I have that right?”

  The man grinned, and I hit him again just to wipe that smile off his face.

  “That’s enough.” I was hauled to my feet by two strong hands, one belonging to Castiel, and another to my future father-in-law. “Step back so we can bring him in.”

  I pulled free of both of their holds. “You’re not bringing this sick fuck in. You’re going to let me get more information out of him.”

  Castiel stepped in front of me, keeping his back to the sick little fucker who was still on the floor, and stared me straight in the eyes when he said, “Trust me when I say that I’m going to get every piece of information that he has out of him before the day is through.”

  Staring into his eyes, I believed him. One hundred percent.

  “Okay,” I growled. “But I get to be there.”

  Castiel grinned then.

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  ***

  “Crest DeLoe,” I said to my father, but keeping my eyes on Pete as I ascertai
ned whether he was about to lose his shit or not. “That’s the man that’s been living in her house since she moved in.”

  Pete’s eyes narrowed. “There’s more.”

  This was the part that I knew he wasn’t going to like. Not at all.

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “There’s a lot more.”

  “How much more?” he pushed.

  I pulled out a stack of photos that I’d been able to pilfer from the hotel room that Crest had been using since his unexpected eviction from Jubilee’s attic.

  Pete took one look at the first one and blanched.

  By the second one, he was looking green around the gills.

  By the last, the worst one, he bent over the nearest trash can and lost his lunch.

  “These are of her and Annmarie. When they were fifteen.” He gasped, looking once again at the photo.

  I nodded once. “That was the night before junior prom. I remember because Jubilee and Annmarie bought the same dress.”

  That had been such a big fight over that stupid fuckin’ dress. When Annmarie’s had ended up shredded into a million tiny pieces, everyone had blamed Jubilee for the mess.

  But, seeing that photo, I had no doubt in my mind that it’d been Crest having made the move.

  “That dress had been so revealing that I’d been happy that the dress had been destroyed and I could tell Jubilee that she wasn’t allowed to wear hers,” he said, devastation clear in his voice.

  “Crest didn’t like them in the dresses, either,” I confirmed. “Here’s the playback.”

  Pete had chosen to stay with his daughter—something I should’ve probably done myself—when the questioning had gone on.

  I was now giving him a play by play of everything that had gone down.

  “Why did he confess?” Pete shook his head.

  “Jubilee asked him to,” I ground through gritted teeth. “As we were leaving, she stopped Castiel and looked at Crest. Told him he needed to confess his sins. So he did.”

  “What else?” Pete croaked.

  “Crest DeLoe was the doctor that the two girls saw for an emergency flu situation when they were both fifteen. From then on, he was there when he could be. Whether it was by chance or purposefulness that DeLoe was Jubilee’s and my doctor when we were struck by lightning? We don’t know. He doesn’t remember. But from that point on, DeLoe took it upon himself to always ‘watch over her’ and by doing that he was there every step of the way. He owns the house beside y’all’s. When Jubilee moved, DeLoe did, too.”