I move to the elevator and smack the call button, satisfied as the glinting silver doors immediately swoop open, then I step in and select the ninth floor. Now that the air I breathe is cool and not ninety percent sweat, I bring my coffee up and take a fortifying sip so I can get the first hint of caffeine into my veins… but because of my carelessness, I scorch the taste buds clear off my tongue.
“Fuck’s sake.” It’s a bad day when my beloved coffee turns on me, too. Lowering my hand and lifting my head, I broaden my shoulders and cloak myself in the impenetrable, untouchable, bitchy-boss persona I’m so good at, so when the elevator stops on the ninth floor and the doors slide open, I step out a brand-new woman.
Ish.
I emerge onto a floor pulsing with pop music and medical examiners filling every available suite except one. Mine. The crew works efficiently despite the hour, some tap their feet to the beat playing through the speakers. Others bounce their shoulders. Doctor Patten, my night-shift counterpart, glances up from her table in suite number two.
Locking eyes with mine, her affable demeanor makes way for mild panic. She whips the plastic shield off her face andsteps around her table, peeling bloodied gloves off her hands and speaking what I know will be something about how she’s stepping out on her autopsy at—God help me, six-thirty-one—all for the recorder’s sake.
She glides through the suite door and shouts, “music off” as she moves. What was a hopping, lively space, turns dead silent, breaking her team of techs out of their focused spells as their eyes come up searching for whatever,whoever, disturbed their peace.
“Sorry, Chief.” Patten fast-steps my way. “We like to get the tunes going around this time to get us through the last couple of hours on shift.”
“It’s fine.” I shove through my office door, but I stop on the threshold and order “music on” for whatever smart device is listening. Kesha, the chick with the dollar sign in her name, goes back to singing about Mick Jagger, so I release the door and make a beeline for my desk, dropping my bag to the floor so it lands with an undignifiedsplat.
I set my coffee down and jiggle my computer mouse as I pass, but I head to the floor-to-ceiling windows first, almost plastering my forehead to the glass, and glance down to the street.
Harrison stands guard on the sidewalk, somehow not melting while wrapped in a black suit with long sleeves and absolutely no air-conditioning.
I hope he receives hazard pay in these situations.
“Chief Mayet?” Patten steps through my door in her usual black slacks and white lab coat, but over those, she wears a long, plastic, full-body apron smudged in red, and atop her head, the plastic shield lifted the way a welder wears a similar,but entirely different,shield between sparks. “You’re here early. Everything okay?”
“Mmhm.” I turn away from the windows and stride back to my desk, sitting in my comfortable chair and locking my eyes on the computer background like it holds all the world’s secrets.
It’s nothing more than a colorful English-style garden, with wildflowers and hanging baskets. A rusted bicycle. Rolling hills. A rabbit, I think, bounds through the lush growth.
I can’t say I’ve ever truly stopped to look. But doing so now proves legions more pleasant than meeting my staff member’s probing stare.
“Chief Mayet?” She wanders closer, her movements registering in my peripherals. “It’s barely six.”
“Six-thirty-five, actually.” Pink flowers. Blue flowers. Yellow flowers. “I have paperwork to process before I’m officially on at nine. Is there anything urgent you need to discuss, or can we save this for rounds?”
“Er… no.” She stops in the gap between my desk and the chair Aubree typically sits in every other day of the week. “Nothing urgent on my part. But are… uh…” She doesn’t sit. Doesn’t touch anything. Doesn’t even move too fast, lest she get blood on the furniture. “You look like you’ve had a hell of a night, Chief. Did you even sleep?”
Maybe an hour. Maybe thirty minutes. “Mmhm.” Purple flowers. And in the thick, a sly fox eyeing the bunny. “I’m still missing an autopsy tech for the rest of this week, so I’m trying to pick up the slack by completing my administrative duties before shift starts. Get back to your DB.” I dismiss her with aflick of my wrist. “You shouldn’t leave them on the table like that.”
“But Chief?—”
I bring steely, furious eyes up to hers and force the woman back. “It seems my informal tone has confused you, Doctor Patten. I’ve given you an order.” I shift my focus to the door and glower. “Go. And if my staff continues not to follow orders, I suppose I’ll have no choice but to ensureallfuture interactions remain strictly formal. I am your chief. Let’s not forget that.”
Schooled, she dips her chin. Stony and appropriately scalded. “Understood. Chief.” She turns on her heels and stalks through my door, striding toward her suite, but not before shouting “music off” once more.
Kesha silences, and the weight sitting heavily on my shoulders is amplified by a thousand. Ten thousand.
“Forty-fivethousanddollars,” I snarl, shaking my head and slamming my elbows to my desk. I poke my thumbs against my closed eyelids and groan in the silence.
What the hell am I supposed to do without my Factor?
Die?
ARCHER
“Forty-five years old,” Fletch rumbles, pressing one hand to his hip and standing over the dead body of a dude whoclearlygot run over by a car. The tire tracks literally mark his skin. “Morty Presley. Morty,” he repeats. “That’s his actual legal name. Not Mortimer, or Morton. Morty.”
“His mother cut to the chase and went with his eventual nickname straight off the bat,” I murmur. “Road rash along the left side of his body: face, shoulder, hip, and leg.” I recite the details for our record, since Lieutenant Fabian is looking for a reason to fuck me up and toss me across to become someone else’s partner these days. Drawing a deep breath, filling my lungs and expanding my chest, I exhale again and run our case by the book.
No Chief Mayet on scene today. Not even Doctor Emeri.
