a PowerPoint animation. “That is, if we can find them.”
Chapter 32
Thunder woke me out of a dead sleep, and I sat straight up in bed to turn on the bed table lamp. Breathing deep, I leaned back against the headboard and listened to the storm. Harsh rain splattered down, pinging off the roof while the angry wind threw pine needles against the windows.
I exhaled and calmed my body. Truth be told, I loved spring storms. There was something about being safe and cozy inside while nature roared a protest to the end of winter.
Even so, I grasped the .380 auto off my bed table and padded barefoot through the bungalow to peer through the window by my front door. My relief was complete at seeing the squad car still parked by the garage.
Having a police guard really did lead to a decent night’s sleep. The unregistered weapon in my hand that I’d purchased at a garage sale years ago didn’t hurt, either. Yeah, I had a registered gun in my car and a concealed permit to carry. But I had a few more around for protection. Someday Jareth Davey was coming for me, and I wanted to be ready.
I kept the gun at my thigh while walking back to bed just as my cell phone rang. My chest compressed. Phone calls in the middle of the night were always bad.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Hey. It’s Detective Pierce.” The sound of rain echoed all around him.
“This can’t be good,” I muttered, setting the gun in my drawer and reaching for the discarded jeans on the chair.
“Nope. Not at all.” Indiscernible voices came across the line. “Meet me at the morgue in fifteen minutes.”
I paused in pulling my jeans up. “No way. Uh, uh. I am not going to the morgue in the middle of the night.”
He sighed. “Just wait in your car for me. I promise I won’t let the ghosts get you.”
“Wait—” But he’d hung up. Who was in the morgue? It wasn’t family or anybody I was close with, or he would’ve done the notification in person. But why me? Or had he called Nick, too? Grumbling, I zipped my jeans and threw on a blue sweater before brushing my teeth and yanking my mass of hair into a ponytail.
I ran out to my car, somewhat mollified that the cop car followed me all the way to town and to the morgue, where Pierce was already waiting, leaning against the wall by the back door and smoking a cigarette. The sight of him doing so caught me off guard. Pierce had a vice? My tennis shoes splashed up water, but it had stopped raining, so I didn’t bother with a jacket. “Those things will kill you,” I said when I approached him.
He dropped the butt into a puddle of water. “I know. I quit months ago, but this case…”
It was oddly gratifying to see that the cranky detective wasn’t so perfect. Even now, in the middle of the night, his dark blond hair was perfectly in place, the gray at his temples giving him a look of sophistication. Or maybe experience. I followed him inside the silent building. “Who is dead, Pierce?”
“How about you call me Grant after midnight?” He pressed the button for the elevator.
Right. Was he flirting? If so, he sucked at it. I lifted an eyebrow.
He lifted his right back.
Okay. Now he was getting annoying. With a huff, I followed him onto the elevator, down a floor, and onto the morgue level. Sheets covered two bodies on the examination tables. Bile rose in my throat.
Dr. Bay Mandi looked up, his eyes huge through goggles and his frame wiry beneath the white lab coat. He lifted the goggles. “Hi, Anna. Detective Pierce.”
We both said hi.
Pierce tugged a sheet off the face of the first body, showing a huge flat nose. A clear bullet hole was visible in the center of his forehead. “Know this guy?”
I gulped. “Yes,” I croaked. “He’s one of the two guys who shot at us the other day in front of the courthouse and then chased me away from Melvin’s and up into that tree.” When Pierce pulled the other sheet free, the room swam around me. Another bullet hole in the middle of the forehead. “That’s the other guy. The one with acne.”
My knees buckled, and Pierce grabbed my arm, steering me out into the hallway. I took several deep breaths.
Pierce pushed me onto one of several plastic orange chairs lining the hallway. “I