Yup, damn her.I stared at her dumbfounded. “I-”
“That sounds reasonable to me,” Melody said, cutting in.
There was a chorus of agreement. I shook my head with a shocked laugh.
“But first, we listen to angry music. Angry chick music, or angry head banging music first?” Ainsley asked as if the matter was actually concluded.
“Head banging music,” the group said, coming to a unanimous consensus about this as easily as they had about my love life.
I couldn’t help but smile and shake my head. They were insane. And I loved them. They’d certainly given me a lot to think about.
It wasweird unlocking the door to the funeral home the next day. As if this huge crazy night, people trying to kill me, being rescued, Pyre telling me he loved me, then finding out he’d betrayed me hadn’t happened. It was like it was a book I’d read about someone else. At least that was how it seemed when I stepped into my quiet office.
I frowned down at my desk. “What…” Picking up the note, I sighed and read it.
I was here. Wanted to let you know. I hope you enjoy them.
-Pyre
It took me a minute to figure out what the note said because he had abysmal handwriting. He really could have been a doctor with the illegibility of his penmanship.
Scowling down at the note, I asked out loud, “Enjoy what?” Looking around, I studied the desk, half expecting to see flowers. Nothing. No, he wouldn’t do flowers. I wandered out into the area where I did the majority of my work. I doubted he would have left anything in the front section of my funeral home. He wouldn’t want one of my clients finding whatever ‘they’ were before me.
I began searching around. When I found nothing out in the open, I turned to the morgue drawers. He wouldn’t… I grabbed the first handle and slid the drawer open. My eyes widened as I stared down at an ear.
My lips made an O of surprise, but no sound came out. I looked around, half expecting Pyre to pop out to explain himself. This was…so like him, to be honest. An unexpected ‘gift’ from a man most people found odd.
Grabbing a pair of gloves off the adjoining wall, I picked up the ear and placed it on my slab. Then my brows drew together. One ear would not constitute him writing ‘them’. I turned back to the drawers and began opening more.
A finger. A foot. A toe, not from the aforementioned foot. I began placing the body parts onto my slab. By the time I was done, I realized that there were too many fingers, ears, and toes to be from one body. This was a large collection. I stared down at the eyeball I was holding in my gloved hand. I wasn’t botheredin the slightest. I was curious.What’s worse, him for collecting these? Or me for wanting to piece them together like a puzzle?
I set the eyeball down in the pile. There was one drawer left. Going over, I yanked it open. A yelp popped out of my mouth before I could stop it. I slammed the door shut quickly.No way.I opened it again, but this time it was empty. “What the hell?” I muttered.
I had a sneaking suspicion, so I opened the drawer next to me, this time ready. Pyre stared up at me, a neutral expression on his face. I placed my hand to my racing heart. “You’re going to give me a heart attack,” I complained. Then I looked back and forth between the two drawers. “How? They’re not connected… How?”
“Old trick.” He climbed off of the stretcher inside the drawer. It creaked and groaned under his weight. “Sorry about that.”
“How long were you in there?” I asked incredulously. “You must be freezing.” Those drawers were used to keep dead bodies from decomposing too quickly.
“Not too long.”
I put my hands on my hips. “And how did you get in?”
“Warrant picked the lock. Same as the last time.”
My eyes narrowed. He was telling the truth and Ihadasked. “Tell him if he does that again I’m going to make him regret it. Better yet,I’lltell him.”
“Rae, I-”
I held up my hand and he fell silent, though he looked irritated that I wasn’t letting him speak. “Where did these come from?” I grabbed the foot and waved it at him, then pointed it to the body parts piled on my slab.
“The Iron Circle Crew.” He met my eyes. “I have a habit of…taking trophies.”
I blinked at that. “Then why are you…giving…them to me?”
“I wanted you to know that if anyone tried to hurt you—to even touch you—that I’d take them apart, piece by piece.”
He said it with complete honesty and not a touch of emotion. He had those locked down tight right now. And I believed him. He and his brothers had killed those men for me. Granted, it sounded like they were the club’s enemies and likely to die anyway, but they’d died when and how they had because they’d taken me.
