Page 113 of Bone’s Choice

“Next one,” I ordered.

Dave pulled up another.

April.

Same thing. Different shipment.

One casket scanned away from the Grave Casket load in the middle of the night returned two hours later, then shipped normally.

Third happened in June.

Fourth was last week.

My stomach tightened. “Last week,” I repeated.

“Yeah.”

“When Mercer was there?”

Dave nodded.

Myth leaned back. “Son of a bitch.”

“Which coffin?” I asked.

Dave didn’t answer immediately.

“Dave.”

“That’s where it gets fucked up.”

Taco snorted. “Because everything before this was completely fucking normal.”

Nobody laughed.

Dave pulled another document onto the screen. “The coffin that got separated from your shipment last week wasn’t the coffin Jackson brought back.”

I frowned. “What?”

“Different serial number.”

“Then where the fuck did this one come from?”

“I don’t know.”

I pushed back from the table and stood. I walked a few feet away. Turned and came back.

Someone had been pulling our coffins out of shipments for months. They disappeared for a couple of hours, came back, and then continued on as if nothing happened.

Nobody at Grave Casket knew.

Nobody receiving them knew.

And now Owen Mercer was dead, delivered to us in a strange casket.

“What about the serial number?” Bull asked. “The damn thing looked like ours, too.”

Dave looked straight into the camera. “It doesn’t exist.”