Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Well, at least they were in the building.
“Dr. Kohn, I’m Detective Sanders. This is Detective White,” Adrian launched into his spiel. As he spoke, he flashed a detective’s badge he might have boosted from an off-duty detective in a bar three nights earlier. So long as no one looked too closely, the ruse would succeed. “I’m hoping you can help us with our investigation.”
This was his third trip to the morgue as a “cop,” and no one had bothered to report him to the actual police because he’d done nothing more than sneak into some morgues in search of a possible dead body.
A long, irritated sigh escaped the medical examiner, and his shoulders slumped. However, the man didn’t lift his gaze from where he was digging into the dead woman’s organs, let alone glance at Adrian’s borrowed credentials. “As you can see, I am up to my elbows in work and can’t provide any kind of help at the moment.”
Adrian fought a smirk. A distracted and harried ME might work to his advantage here. He shoved his stolen badge into the pocket of his jeans and pulled a worn picture from a different pocket.
“You don’t even have to remove your hands from your current…er…guest,” Adrian said as he stepped closer. He fought to keep his eyes on the medical examiner while holding the picture up at eye level for him. “Has this guy passed through here recently? Possibly as a John Doe. Large scar on his left cheek, stretching from eye to jaw. Late twenties to early thirties.”
The ME frowned and squinted at the grainy, poorly printed picture of a man in profile. Adrian’s heart squeezed, barely sneaking out a beat as he held his breath, waiting for the ME to end his search in the worst way.
After a second, Dr. Kohn shook his head. “Not recently. Haven’t worked on him. However, you can see my backlog. Those in the fridge have been autopsied and are waiting for pickup. You can check out those still on my docket.” He jerked his chin at the two rows of corpses on gurneys.
“You receive that many bodies in a week?” Adrian gasped without thinking.
“Ha!” Dr. Kohn barked out. “You must be new to the fifth district.”
Adrian cleared his throat and moved away from where the man was working. “Uh, yeah. Just transferred from the third.”
The ME hummed and returned to his work. “That explains it. Quieter over there. This is from the past two days.”
“Fuck,” Adrian whispered.
The doctor huffed out another rough laugh. “Welcome to Little Stip and the Gate.”
Adrian had no desire to continue the conversation. He motioned for Haru to go along the line on the right while he took the tables on the left. In less than a minute, they’d moved through the room, and there was no sign of Shey among the deceased.
Thank the gods for that small mercy.
Of course, the problem was that they didn’t know where the hell he was.
“Thanks for the help, Doc,” Adrian called out as they hastened toward the doors to leave the examination room. He wasn’t even sure if the ME grunted in return. It didn’t matter.
Adrian led the way down the hall but came to a sharp halt as they reached the last door that would open into the reception area. He’d peeked through the narrow window at the top of the door in time to see two cops stroll through the building’s entrance. The man in front with the very pissed-off expression was the same cop he’d stolen the badge from. Yeah, this was an encounter Adrian was in no mood to brazen through.
He spun on one heel and slammed both hands into Haru’s chest, stopping and turning his companion. “Back door. We gotta find a back door.”
“What’s wrong, my Adrian? Do you need me to kill someone?” Haru inquired in a calm, completely normal tone.
This was why he wasn’t letting the damn dragon utter a single word during the search for Shey at the morgues. Nothing out of his mouth was remotely sane. It was “My Adrian” this and “Would you like me to kill them for you?” that, as if wholesale slaughter were the only way Haru knew to prove his devotion to Adrian.
“No,” he hissed. “No killing. You saw the bodies stacked in that room. The ME has plenty to do. You’re not giving him more work.”
Once he had Haru pointed in the right direction, Adrian resumed the lead, hurrying them away from the main examination room and past some tiny cubbyhole offices. Another couple of turns and they reached a set of large double doors that opened onto a loading dock for ambulances and other large vehicles making deliveries.
Adrian burst outside and jogged for a while, Haru close on his heels, happy to put as much distance as possible between them, the room filled with the dead, and a pair of Damardor cops.