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The afternoon was the gang funeral, which she’d assigned to Joe. Bryn stayed in the office, doing paperwork, then went downstairs to see if there was a backlog of work in the prep room. Their principal embalmer, William, was finishing the last stitches in the mouth of Mrs. Gilbert. She’d passed in her eighties, and the infusions had given her back a faint flush of color through the crepe-soft skin. She looked peaceful. “Hey,” he said, and clipped the thread neatly. If you didn’t know the thread was there, you’d never even suspect it. “Want to put the caps in for me? It’d be a big help. ”
She nodded, gloved and gowned up, and slipped rounded plastic caps under Mrs. Gilbert’s eyelids. It was one of the few things that bothered her, this cosmetic touch that kept the face looking more like someone sleeping than deceased, as the eyes were the first thing to start drying and losing their firm shape. Bryn did it quickly, and tried not to think about it.
William added a few finishing touches, gently adjusting the skin on Mrs. Gilbert’s lips for best possible effect. “I hear you added another green funeral option. ”
“It’s popular,” she said. “No embalming, simple winding-sheet, burial in a biodegradable coffin. ”
“Ah, hell, no. I’m not rotting in some recycled cardboard crate; that’s just not dignified. Just stick me in a wood chipper and blow me over the flower beds. Does the same thing,” William said. “Okay, Mrs. Gilbert, you look fabulous. Time to put on your clothes. ”
Together, they dressed the body, which was harder to do than it looked—living bodies cooperated, even unconscious, but the dead had no such consideration. Bryn was always struck, when it came to this, how careful William was, how gentle his touch. He treated the dead like his own—no hesitation, fear, or callousness. It was one of the things she liked best about him. He took the time to get it ex
actly right, straightening the woman’s dark blue dress until it fell just so around her body.
“Did you have time to finish the reconstruction on the Lindells? The husband and wife?” Bryn asked, as he settled the sheet back over Mrs. Gilbert.
“Yeah. It’s not going to look as good as I’d like, but there’s only so much you can do when the bone structure’s broken like that. You can take a look if you want—they’re in the cooler. Hey, I heard there was some kind of robbery last night. Broken window, right? Was anything taken?”
“They never got inside,” Bryn said. “The cops were here in minutes. Nothing to worry about. ”
“Good. I hate those assholes who come in to steal body parts and shit. Drunken jerks. My buddy took classes at the body farm on situational decomposition, and he said that kind of thing happened all the time out there. Had to have guards patrolling. Imagine that, armed guys to look after fields full of dead people. What’s the world coming to, eh?” He rolled Mrs. Gilbert back toward the large walk-in refrigerator. “Would you get the door?”
“Sure. ” She held it back for him, then went inside with him and inspected the reconstruction work on the Lindells. It was solid work, but there was no way it could look completely natural; still, she thought the kids would appreciate the opportunity to see their parents one more time. “This looks good, William. Thanks for the extra effort. ”
“I think that’s the last for today,” he said. “The service for the Lindells is tomorrow afternoon. Mrs. Gilbert is in the morning. I’ve got nothing much until they start bringing in today’s customers—I heard there’s four coming, so OT in the near future. Mind if I take an early day?”
“Not at all,” Bryn said. He smiled sunnily. “Got plans?”
“Movies,” he said. “And pizza with my buds. Maybe some beers, try to meet a girl. The usual. You know. ”
She realized that she really, really didn’t. Normal life had passed her by, at light speed; she’d cashiered out of the military and hadn’t had time to form casual friendships before she’d taken the job at Fairview…and then her life had ended. Well, maybe not ended, but certainly morphed into something that was not normal even if it was sometimes amazing. When had she last had a simple, glorious evening of movies, pizza, and beer with friends? Or even had one of those by herself?
William stripped off his lab gear and grabbed his motorcycle helmet—despite the statistics, he insisted on playing the odds—and was gone before she finished clipping all the paperwork together for the morning. She carried the packet upstairs and dropped it off with Lucy, then sat down at her desk to check her e-mail.
Her phone rang, and she picked it up, only half-focused on it. “Davis Funeral Home, Bryn Davis speaking. ”
“Are you at your computer?” It was a female voice—brisk, unfamiliar, and cheerful.
“Excuse me?”
“Are you at your computer right now?”
“Yes, who is this?”
“Just bear with me. I want you to open your e-mail. ”
She just had. There were six new messages—two from Lucy about various office things; one from Gertrude Kleiman whose header was, surprisingly, I quit (and hallelujah about that one); two spam offers; and…one e-mail with no sender name.
“You see the anonymous one with the subject line of Play me?”
“Yes,” Bryn said. She pulled out her cell phone and began texting on it to McCallister. Trace office phone call right now.
“I sincerely urge you to click that file, Bryn. ”
She switched her cell to silent mode and put it on the desk before her, then clicked the file attached to the e-mail. She expected—braced herself for it—to see another of those creepy execution videos, but this was very different. It was taken with night vision, in the dark, and it was a close-up on…
On a child’s face. A little boy with thick blond hair and wide, scared eyes. A boy with a gag over his mouth.
The camera pulled back, showing Bryn that he was tied hand and foot, and sitting on a wooden box, in the dark.
