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There’s no air.
Judy Jinx strikes again, but at least she gives me Drake. His words. His touch.
“No!” He’s rough. Mean. Jerking and not careful. “No! Rory! No baby. Open your eyes.”
Epilogue
THREE MONTHS LATER
“You can sit here when you’re spending time with us.” Doctor Aubree Emeri is far friendlier than her boss. Significantly more welcoming than the Chief Medical Examiner.
Minka Mayet is a solid, dependable, professional woman… but she has no interest in babysitting—her words—a medical school student wanting to follow her around for eight hours a day.
She’s anti-intern.
Anti-free labor.
And most important of all—to her—she’s anti-slowing-down and spending her time teaching someone who hasn’t even finished medical school yet, who—again, her words—will probably traipse off in four years to pursue a career in surgery. Or nursing. Or something other than finding justice for the dead.
But hey, this is where my heart yearns to be.
Not because I was hung from a noose. Or because I could have sworn I’d died and woken up in heaven—or wherever it is we go once the lights are out. It’s not because gangsters wanted me dead, or because we staged an unsuccessful assassination live on television. And it’s not because a drunk crashed into my car last year, toppling me over the side of a cliff and putting my femur through my skin.
Those were all the doings of Judy Jinx. That nasty, horrible bitch, hellbent on punishing me for crimes I never committed.
No, I’m here now because of the kindness I was shown when I was at my lowest.
When my mother’s body was transported in-house, even against regulations, and I was allowed a chance to say goodbye to the one and only parent who ever loved me unconditionally. I was given a bracelet, a talisman I swear warms some days for no reason except for,the sweet hope swelling in a young, orphaned woman’s heart, that wherever my mom is now, maybe she’s rubbing hers and thinking of me, too.
I want to work, not only with the dead to bring justice when the world has already taken everything from them, but I want to learn from the very best.
I want to dedicate my life and education to the deceased, and I yearn to always be as compassionate and kind as the good doctors were that day I last saw my mom.
“The zero temperature fridges are on the second floor,” Aubree yammers, drawing me back to the present. Away from a dusty warehouse, and out of the memories from a lifetime ago. From the way my heart aches, missing a certain detective who was once an agent. Too noble to touch, too stubborn to let me die.
I bring my hand up to touch the rough scarring on my throat from where the rope cut in that day.
I lived to tell the tale. Spent more long days and lonely nights inside a hospital. Took time to think about what I wanted. And I wished for Drake.
Every single morning when I woke, I wished for him.
Every night while I lie in bed and prayed for sleep, I wished for him.
Every day, while I played with my bracelet and caught snatches of what happened to us on the news, the Special Agent Henry Banks, who lived, and the former, disgraced, Special Agent Gordon Fuller, who didn’t, I wished for Drake.
And when I saw him on the news, on the doorstep of another woman’s home, protecting her and her child from the media when word spread and they came looking for her, I nursed my aching heart.
And I wished for him.
“Coffee machine,” Aubree continues, “is this way.” She pushes my new chair in at the side of her desk, located on the other side of a glass doorway that leads to Mayet’s office, then with a beautiful smile, she leads me through halls, past other medical examiners and ridiculously smart people, then into a small lunchroom I’m not sure anyone actually eats in.
But the coffee machine is fancy. Its huge, and well used.
“We have nine autopsy rooms.” In the throes of the tour, Aubree circles out of the small room that smells deliciously of caffeine. “Most people have claimed their favorite. But you’ll spend most of your time in Autopsy Room One, with me and Chief Mayet.” She flashes a taunting grin as a man, handsome as the devil himself, wanders by. “Doctor Campbell.”
He turns on his heels, smiling for us both. “Doctor Emeri.” Then he looks to me.
So Aubree clears her throat and announces, “future Doctor Swanson. She’s still in school. But she’s the chief’s newest pet.”
