Revenge is Sweet (A Samantha Church Mystery) (30 page)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyrighted © 2013
by Betta Ferrendelli

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by Laura Stumbaugh

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Dead Wrong

A Samantha Church Mystery

By

Betta Ferrendelli

Coming to
Amazon in late 2014

Chapter One

Blood does not flow from the dead.

He picks up the scalp
el, positioning it in his hand as a surgeon would, his left index finger coming to rest just above the blade, his knuckle bent slightly.

The heft of the knife rest
s against the Latex gloves he wears, even though he had slipped on several layers of them, as he always does when he’s about to perform this procedure. Then, he won’t have to feel the coldness of the knife’s base as the blade slices through the skin beneath it. Oddly, he takes relief in knowing that the dead do not bleed. Everything has stopped at that final moment when the last breath slipped from the body. Everything just stops. Motion stops. The heart, the mind and the thoughts it contained come to a standstill. That’s the only thing that makes it easier for him to cut into the flesh.

Blood does not flow from the dead.

He takes a short, shallow breath, exhaling through his nose, and his surgical mask puffs out slightly. He positions the large, silver dome of the overhead light and pulls it closer to the body. Then, he stops a moment to stare at her face, now ghostly white in the harsh light.

Her eyes are closed, but he knows them to have been a deep, piercing blue.
He had looked at her so many times, and in return, received her warm gaze, innocent and trusting. She was like that tonight, safe in her condo just a few hours earlier, when she opened her door to let him inside. A swirl of her long, brown hair rests over the top of her shoulder, curled slightly inward on her chest, as it might fall naturally if she were just sleeping. But she’s not sleeping. She’s dead.

He straightens himself, pulling the scalpel away from her slender body, and rolls his head from side to side, hearing the bones in his neck pop, pop, pop. Then, he takes a small step away from the gurney, his arms still positioned,
ready to cut.

It is the quiet, the nothingness here in the Care Center that bothers him. This is where the dead are brought before their final journey to the grave
.

Suddenly, he wants to hear something, anything, even the welcome sound of the tick, tick, tick of the clock hanging on the wall in front of him. The large white face stares at him, and he glances briefly at its black hands, frozen in place at twenty-two and sixteen hundred hours, military
time.

He remembers the Christmas song that played on the car radio
during the drive to her condominium. He was bringing her gifts, so of course, she would not have suspected anything. Not from him and not on Christmas Eve. “Oh, what fun it is to ride …”

He
’s always hated Christmas music, especially that stupid song, but even Jingle Bells would be a welcome sound now. He wants to hear something in this embalming room besides the complete stillness, the kind of quiet only the dead can make.

He closes his eyes and remembers the last moments of her life. She fought him until the end. He remembered how strong she was, pushing back against him, her face a grimace of determination, struggling t
o get free, as he shoved her hard against a wall. She looked at him. The trusting and innocence in her eyes, replaced by fear and trembling. She gasped looking at him wide-eyed as he wrapped his hands firmly around her neck. She tried to pull his hands away from her, but his grip remained firm and, as he squeezed, he could feel the strength leaving her body. Only moments passed before she slumped into him, with her arms falling limply to her sides. He released his grip, surprised at how quickly life flowed out of her body. She slid slowly down the wall to the floor, her leg twisted in a cruel way behind her back. He left her there, knowing it wouldn’t take long for someone to find her. Soon, there would be a commotion of emergency vehicles and law enforcement milling around. When the police were finished, the ambulance would take her body to the Care Center, where he would be waiting.

Now he held the scalpel in the air before him. He had wasted enough time
replaying the last moments of her life in his mind. The others would be at the Care Center soon, expecting him to be finished.

He places his right hand lightly on top her abdomen, with his fingers held close together
and presses down. He carefully puts his scalpel less than an inch from the tips of his fingers. He could never really cut a straight line with his scalpel, no matter how sharp it was.

But then, he wasn’t a doctor. He was just doing what he was told.