He chuckles, a soft, warm sound that sends a flutter through my stomach. “Medical examiners pretty much just sit back and wait for the bodies to come to us.”
“Right.” Of course he’s never been on a stakeout.
We lay there in silence, occasionally moving slightly to stretch out a cramped limb. I listen hard, hoping the dark-haired woman will show up, hoping I haven’t dragged Grayson out here based on an unfounded hunch, hoping that whatever happens, happens before I give in to the urge to push the hair back from his forehead.
“So, um…” I cast about, looking for a safe topic of conversation to distract my itchy fingers. “Why did you want to be a medical examiner?”
He’s quiet long enough that I fear he may have fallen asleep. But when I turn to look at him, he’s clearly awake, his eyes fixed on the entrance to the barn. “A lot of my patients are past the point of help,” he says finally. Then he shakes his head. “Obviously, all of my patients are past the point of help. They’redead. But I mean, before that. I get a lot of drug overdoses and suicides and other deaths of despair. I’m not saying they couldn’t be helped—they could, if we did things differently. But we don’t, and so they die alone, forgotten, dismissed.”
He shifts ever so slightly, turning his upper body toward me and propping himself up on one elbow. “I think growing up as a pig shifter, I felt a little like that. Pigs are smart, you know. They’re like the best of dogs and cats put together, but people don’t want to see that because they’re also delicious. And so when I look at the people society has forgotten, I know I can’t save them, but I can at least treat them with dignity and respect. Maybe to most people it seems like it’s too late for that and it doesn’t matter, but…” He draws in a breath, and I feel the warmth of his body against mine. “But I know it does.”
I don’t know what to say to that, and neither does Sally. Even Cressida is silent in my head.
Then he laughs again. “Sorry. That was heavier than I expected it to be. I just…” He tilts his head—as much as possible—toward the pig pens nearby, from which we can hear the occasional grunt. “It’s hard to be around all of them knowing what’s going to happen to most of them when the show is over.”
Right. Because Grayson is in the market boar division. The other pigs in his division will all be bacon in a matter of days.
“Can you talk to the other pigs?” I ask.
“Not talk, exactly. Communicate, yes. I can definitely tell what they’re feeling—fear, contentment. Often they’re just hangry.”
I want to reach over and touch his arm, squeeze his hand, something. But I don’t know what that will lead to, so I ball my hand into a fist to keep myself from touching him.
“Are you sure you’re not the hangry one?” I tease. “Maybe I should have packed snacks after all.”
“It feels like it should be a tradition,” he says, a smile playing about those beautiful lips. “Like, ‘Hey, we’re on a stakeout. Here’s my thermos of gazpacho.’”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “No one brings a thermos of gazpacho on a stakeout.”
“See? I have so much to learn from you.” He turns his body away so he’s lying on his stomach again. “You really think that woman might be The Witch?”
“Maybe.” There’s a hangnail on my thumb, and I worry it with my index finger, the minor flash of pain keeping me focused.
“Super convincing.”
“It’s just…” I sigh. “There’s something off about this threat.”
“I mean, yes. There’s definitely something off about threatening to blow up an event with hundreds of innocent people.”
“No, it’s more than that.” This is something that’s bothered me from the beginning, and the feeling that this isn’t right is just getting stronger. I push myself up so that I’m sitting, my head bumping against the table above me. “The Witch is kind of a snob. She attacks things like galas. Black-tie events. Places with red carpets and people with fancy titles. Why in the world would she be interested in a pig show that no one important is attending?”
“Well, thanks for that. It’s nice to know I’m no one important.”
I swat his shoulder lightly. “You know what I mean. Why a pig show? Unless…”
He nods. “Unless it’s not really The Witch. Unless this is a copycat using The Witch as cover.” He scoots around so that he is sitting cross-legged, facing me. “Like a vegan protestor.”
“Yes. Like a vegan protestor.”
“But would a vegan really blow up a building with dozens of pigs in it? Isn’t that against their belief system?”
“You’d be surprised at what people can justify doing.”
Like making out with your stakeout partner underneath a table in a pig barn.
And there’s Sally. Perfect.
But…just how wrong is she? Would it be the worst thing to kiss Grayson right now? I mean, we’re not actually partners. We don’t work together. We’re just two people shoved together for an assignment. In a couple days, this will all be over and we’ll be back to our normal lives—him giving his patients a little final dignity and me hopefully back in Cressida’s good graces.
