Page 19

“Bacon. A roll. Keep up.”

“That seems reductive.”

She resumes her descent, satisfied that this settles the matter. “That’s not the point. I need a croissant. And if I’m going to stand near you while you pick apart bones as if it’s Christmas morning, I deserve hazard pay. Specifically, sugar-laden carbohydrates.”

“Bacon roll. Croissant.” I slow on the last step. “This breakfast plan lacks consistency.”

“Good thing I’m eating it and not submitting it for peer review.” She reaches the bottom and heads for the door without bothering to check whether I’m behind her.

We make it as far as the threshold before Marj appears from somewhere behind the desk.

“Breakfast?”

“We’re acquiring it elsewhere,” Tamsin tells her.

Marj looks at me. “Good. She used to think crackers counted as a meal.”

This throws me off enough that I briefly forget I actually do want to eat Marj’s breakfast. “I was eleven.”

“You were twenty-three.”

Tamsin turns slowly toward me, one eyebrow raised in a very clear not much has changed.

I receive the message and keep walking.

Admittedly, I still have a tendency to look up from a set of remains and discover lunch ended several hours ago. That is not the same thing. “Not a word.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

She catches up beside me, looking entirely too pleased with herself.

I realize somewhere between the front door and the car that we’re definitely going to breakfast.

Evan meets us inside the entrance of the medical examiner’s office just as Tamsin is shoving the last of her chocolate-filled croissant in her mouth.

“Hey,” he lights up when he sees us. He gestures forward, already walking. “They’ve got me hanging around today because people keep showing up pretending to be journalists or whatever else they wrongly assume will get them inside.”

“Extra security,” Tamsin says flatly, glancing down at his hip. “Americans and their bloody guns.”

Evan stops and smiles down at her, holding out his hand for her to shake.

She glares at it like it's possibly venomous until he says, “I’m Evan.”

Great.

“Hiiiii, Evaaannnn.” She looks at me, the entire length of his name rolling off her tongue as she shakes his hand.

“I see my reputation precedes me,” he grimaces.

“Your reputation is unbesmirched.” I walk between them, breaking their point of contact before Tamsin can say anything truly embarrassing. “Now take me to the bones.”

Once he’s leading the way again, Tamsin looks up at me with a shit-eating grin plastered on her adorable face. “Don’t,” I mouth, knowing full and damn well she absolutely will.

She gives me a mock salute that prompts me to roll my eyes so hard it actually hurts.

We follow Evan down the hallway and I try not to pay too much attention to how much worse this place is than I’d imagined.