Corpse Whisperer (24 page)

***

Mark’s lawyer was coming from Newark, so Grace had to wait, but the detectives let her stay in the interrogation room. Otherwise she would have walked out. And they’d let her go the bathroom.

She wondered where Zach was. Probably mourning his ex-wife. Would she get into see Dolores before it was too late.

Never before had she ever wanted to rewind. Her life was in a shambles and she had to work tonight. Would the lawyer get there in time?

Maybe she should just a walk out.

Then the door opened and Zach walked through looking like he’d lost his best friend.

Her heart leapt at the sight of him, but she didn’t move from her spot. Pulling out the chair across from her he sighed before setting his lanky frame onto the unpadded seat.

“Thanks for calling Mark.”

“I think he’s on his way here.”

“He should be in California.”

“Didn’t sound that way.” He raked a hand through his hair. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine since I didn’t do anything. You believe me.”

“I want to. I don’t believe you would have any reason to kill Dolores.”

His lack of faith in her cut, but he didn’t get to know her well enough this time to trust her. “I think I know what the problem is.”

“What?”

“Each time I’ve rewound, things have been different.”

“Okay.”

He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms.

“Just listen for a minute,” she said, sensing his distrust.

“Go ahead.”

She motioned to the mirror. “Is there anyone in that room?”

He moved towards a switch on the wall then flicked it. “No one can hear us.”

“Someone is doing things differently every time.”

“Do you realize how nuts this sounds?”

Her eyes widened. She pulled her hair away from her face. “Zach, I thought you believed me.”

He looked at the table his hands raking through his hair. “I want to, Grace, but I can’t.”

She reached out to him, but stopped before she actually made contact. “What can I do to prove to you?”

“I’m not sure you can.”

Her arms crossed. “So you’ve been humoring me all along?”

He frowned at the floor, but didn’t speak. Her heart pumped, but was heavier in her chest.

“Anyway, I don’t know who else can rewind. Whoever it is must be screwing things up. I need to rewind. I need to see Dolores.”

“You can walk out of here.”

“Yes, but I cannot see Dolores. aShe’s part of a murder investigation. They won’t let just anyone view the body.”

“You work at the hospital, can’t you get in?”

“I can get to the morgue, but not to Dolores.”

His gaze met hers. “I can’t help you.”

***

Zach met Mark on his way out of the interrogation room. The guy reminded him of a weasel, beady eyes, pointy nose and scruffy beard. Did he know what a razor looked like?

“Mark Handon,” he said and held out a hand with short fingers.

“Detective Zach Holten.”

“Yes, I figured.”

“Your friend on the way?”

“Yeah, can I see Grace?”

“You related?”

“No.”

“I’ll have to talk to the detectives on the case.”

He did and they agreed Mark could go in. Zach didn’t look at Grace as he led the man to her.

Shutting the door, he wished he’d turned on the intercom. He’d be curious what Mark’s relationship was to Grace.

She’d been happy to see him.

Zach settled into a hard plastic chair on the other side of the mirror. He couldn’t hear, but he could watch.

Grace didn’t hug her friend. He seemed to expect it. Instead, she turned away from him towards the mirror.

Mark had his hands out as if pleading with her on some point. Lover’s spat?

He didn’t think so. Grace had more class in her little finger than this guy had in his whole body. His sense of privacy getting the best of him, he left to let them talk without observation.

***

Grace knew as soon as she saw him, Mark had done something wrong. She didn’t know what, but she could sense it.

But he wouldn’t tell her.

Then the odd thought struck her. Could he rewind?

“Why aren’t you in California?”

“I didn’t get the job and I heard about some auditions in Manhattan.”

“Were you going to let me know you were in town?”

His gaze slipped away from hers, a sure sign he was lying. “I wasn’t in town.”

“Right. When will your friend be here?”

“Any minute.”

“I have a favor to ask.” His eyes lit up as if he was now in her good graces. “I need to get into the morgue.”

“You work at the hospital, why can’t you get into it yourself.”

“No one’s going to let me into see Dolores.”

“Oh, you want to rewind again.”

“Again?”

Before she could call him on that, the door opened. The two grim detectives strode into the room. “We’re letting you go.”

“Just like that.”

“We don’t have enough to keep you.”

The threat of a lawyer was too much. “Then I’m out of here.” She brushed past Mark. “Tell your uncle I don’t need him.”

“Right.”

He followed her out, past the two cheap suited men. “So what’s the game plan?”

“Let’s get some coffee and I’ll tell you.”

Chapter Twenty Nine

Zach couldn’t focus on his yoga.

He’d let down Grace. Some part of him, not his rational brain, but some part of him knew she was right. She wasn’t a killer and what she’d said about rewinding did ring true.

“But how could it,” he said to his rice and beans dinner.

The meal, one of his favorites, tasted like melted plastic. He shoved it away from him while grabbing for the phone. He had to make good with her.

Her phone went straight to voicemail. “It’s Grace, leave a message.”

“Grace, its’ Zach. Call me. I’m sorry.”

***

Grace managed to get herself and Mark through the hospital and to the morgue, despite tight security that had been implemented since 9/11.

Now she stood before the door to where Dolores’ body would be stored until the Medical Examiner came down from Newark. She shouldn’t be here.

“You ready?”

Mark showed no trace of fear. She figured he was used to nefarious goings on so, but that was only a theory. He didn’t talk to her about major portions of his life.

Like why he was passing through New Jersey and not stopping to see her.

“Ready as I’ll ever be. You got your story straight, Mark?”

“Yes, Dolores was my sister. I’ll ask to see her alone and then let you in the back door.”

She left him to his tale and walked out onto a loading dock. After five and no one there expecting deliveries, she made it to the outside door of the morgue, unaccosted.

Looking through the window she saw Mark by the drawer that must have held Dolores.

“Miss Harmony?”

A security guard had sneaked up behind her. Did she know him?

“You need to come with me?”

“Why?”

She couldn’t imagine where he’d come from and how he knew her name.

“Don’t make it worse. You aren’t supposed to be at the morgue. The tech called and said you were trying to break in.”

He tugged at her arm as a police car rolled onto the scene. She stared at them wide eyed. What had gone wrong? Who knew she was here?

“I wasn’t. I didn’t even see the attendant,” she said.

“Come now, Miss Harmony, we know you’re distraught.”

Distraught? Who would have said that?

“We can get you help.”

She realized, all of a sudden, that she was being arrested for something she didn’t do. If they succeeded then she wouldn’t get into see Dolores. She’d be stuck in this version of the scenario.

With a yank, she retrieved her arm from the security guard then sprinted away from him. The only person who knew she was here must be the one person who could rewind.

One name came to her lips as she ran breathless from the shouting men.

Mark.

***

Not one to drive aimlessly, Zach couldn’t stay in his apartment. He’d called Grace back with his cell phone number.

But she still hadn’t called him.

Some force sent him towards his office. As he turned onto Main Street, he spotted Grace out jogging, but not in running clothes.

He slammed on the brakes and rolled down the window. “Grace,” he shouted.

She turned towards him, her step faltering, but she recovered and changed direction. Her breath took minutes to return as he sat in the car next to him. “Go,” she gasped out.

Making a u-turn he opted to go to a coffee shop. They needed to talk.

“What were you running from?”

She bit her lip. “Something spooked me.”

“Dead people talk to you, but other things spook you?”

She chuckled, a nervous twitter at best. “Odd, I know.”

The lie hung between them like crepe paper in the rain. Should he call her on it? He hadn’t given her any reason to trust him.

“What’s going on?”

“Zach you have to get me in to see Dolores. I know who is rewinding.”

“Who?”

“Mark.”

“How do you know?”

He parked diagonally in front of Bean There Drank That. His gaze studied her.

“He called the cops on my when I was trying to get into the morgue.”

“You’re running from the cops?”

“Yes.”

“Grace, we need to go back and straighten this out.”

“No, they’ll arrest me.”

“Won’t Mark explain?”

Bitterness tinged her voice. “I’m sure Mark’s long gone.”

He put a hand on hers. “Sucks to trust the wrong person.”

“Yeah, guess you know all about that with Dolores.”

A stab of pain went through him, not so much for what she’d been, but what she could have been. “Yep. Now let’s get back to the cops and explain everything.”

“No,” she said, then leapt out of the car.

***

Grace ran to her hotel, hoping she was ahead of the cops. A patrol car sat in the parking lot. Her frazzled brain searched for an alternate route inside the building.

Maybe the cops hadn’t gone to her room, yet.

Circling the building she found three guys sitting on a dock smoking cigarettes. After some cajoling and a little flirting she had on a set of kitchen whites.

Grabbing a tray with plates as she walked through the kitchen, she hoped she looked sufficiently like staff to get past anyone.

And she did, making it all the way to the elevator before a manager stopped her. But only to give her a dirty dish he found.

She smiled at the man, then kept going up to her floor.

No police waited outside in the hallway so she slipped into the room. Clothes were in odd places as if the cops had been here. “Why are they looking so hard for me?”

She jammed stuff into her bag and hiked it over her shoulder. Dropping the pretense of being a kitchen worker, she left the whites on the bed, hoping they’d find their way back to the owner.

“Disguise,” she said to her reflection in the elevator mirror.

Stopping in the gift shop, she bought a big hat and a pair of dark sunglasses. She tucked her hair into the head covering and limped out of the hotel.

Safely into a cab, she let out the breath she’d been holding, then directed the driver to her car. Which ended up being surrounded by cops.

“Damn.”

She couldn’t turn to Mark because he’d betrayed her. She’d have to come back during the night. So the cabbie took her to a park where she hoped she could spend the day in solitude.

***

Zach didn’t call and tell the police that he’d seen Grace. He should have. He’d be aiding a fugitive, not that he knew where she was.

But he had to find her and help her. Some primitive part of him knew she was innocent and needed to be protected. For once he wasn’t being a cop first.

He drove without direction, going on instinct as if with just his gut feeling he could find his mate. Grace.

Where would she be?

He hadn’t gotten to know her well enough to be acquainted with her habits.

He cursed his inability to see what had been in front of him. “Grace, where are you.”

As if on cue he pulled into the Glen Hills Municipal Park and there she sat alone in a tree grove. He walked towards her thinking she might be skittish.

She didn’t run when she saw him. Instead she sighed, her resignation to his presence a severe emotion on her face.

“Grace.”

She came into his arms. “Zach.”

His lips captured hers and she responded, her tongue licking out between them. “Don’t leave me.”

“I have to go back and find Dolores’ killer. I need to prevent her death,” she said.

“Not that I want Dolores dead, but will I remember you? I don’t want to lose you. I haven’t felt like this ever.”

“Zach it’s my destiny.”

“Maybe I am. Maybe you haven’t prevented it so we could be together.”

She stepped away from him, shaking her head. “It can’t be, Zach.”

“Why not?”

“Because I was given a gift for a reason.”

“Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.”

But he knew she would go back. His head dropped to look at the ground. A breeze stirred the trees around them. “What can I do?”

“I need to get into see Dolores.”

His gaze went through her, his tough cop stare, but she didn’t back down, didn’t change her mind. He reached out a hand to her. “We’ll find a way, then.”

***

No cops guarded the front entrance of the emergency department of Centre Community Hospital. Grace and Zach walked in among the bustling nurses as if they belonged there, too.

The multi-casualty accident whose patients had just rolled into the hospital were a godsend to the plan she’d hatched with Zach.

Without anyone noticing, she and Zach made their way to the morgue which sat in the bowels of the hospital. No one passed them in the lime green hallway behind the kitchen.

One of the patients from the car accident had died and his body lay outside the morgue door which stood ajar. Grace eased her way in behind Zach.