Rapture (Fallen Angels #4)(53)
Author: J.R. Ward

A lock-in where the grief was stored for the rest of someone’s days—

Jim frowned and cranked his neck around, his senses going off on a lot of levels.

With a curse, he pushed his way out of the examination facility, through the receiving office, and into the hall beyond.

Seek, he thought…and ye shall find.

Too bad everyone showed up at the same time.

“You know what I like most about hospitals?” Tony asked.

As Mels walked with him up to one of St. Francis’s huge buildings, she waited for the automatic revolving door to give them an opening. “Not the food.”

“Au contraire—the vending machines.” As they shuffled through the entrance together, he shoved his hands into the front pockets of his khakis and came out with all kinds of change. “They’ve got such a good selection here.”

“Well, you can put your quarters away—it’s my treat.”

“Tell me something…why aren’t we dating?”

Forcing a laugh, she thought…man, he didn’t want her to answer that. And neither did she.

As they came up to a knot of medical staff and visitors playing elevator bingo, they hedged their bets on the first set of doors because it was the least congested. Seconds later, there was a bing, that particular car arrived—and it was headed down.

“We have chosen wisely,” Tony said in an affected voice.

Mels laughed as they waited for some uniformed security guards to step out; then they got in along with a construction guy and his tool belt.

Miracle the man could still walk with all that hammer and screwdriver stuff hanging off him.

When they arrived at the basement floor, Tony hung a louie, and so did she. Hammer guy followed suit, making it three for three, although he stepped out in front of them, heading for the distant sounds of nails being struck and band saws whining their way through two-by-fours.

“We may have to wait,” Tony said as they followed the signs to the morgue. “Suraj said he’d sneak out when we got here, but—”

Both of them stopped as they turned the corner.

CPD blue unis were everywhere, choking the entrance to the morgue.

“Guess the investigation is still in full swing,” she muttered. “You sure your buddy can get out of there at all?”

“Yeah, let’s see how he’s doing,” Tony said as he texted on his phone.

As her mind locked onto something other than Matthias, it was just the distraction she wanted—and she hoped this took a while. God knew the last thing she needed was free time and a car. She was liable to end up back at the Marriott, where Matthias might well be having dinner with Hot Stuff—or worse.

But come on, the fact that he had a forty-caliber gun did not mean he’d shot anybody. She had a nine-millimeter in her purse and that didn’t make her a suspect in every shooting downtown—

“Damn it.”

Tony looked over. “Huh?”

“Nothing. Just frustrated.”

“Maybe this will still work—” As his cell let out a Tweety Bird sound, he checked the text. “Oh, good, Suraj’s not going to leave us hanging. Let’s wait over in…Oh, look. Vending machines. What a surprise.”

Sure enough, across from the morgue there was a break room with all kinds of caloried slot machines. “You planned this.”

“Not the cops part.”

As they went in and Tony sized up the offerings, Mels paced around the tables that were bolted to the floor and the orange plastic chairs that were not—likely because the latter were so ugly and uncomfortable no one would want to steal them.

Remembering her promise, Mels took out her wallet and counted her dollar bills. “Don’t hold back. I got plenty.”

“This is just a snack before dinner, really. And I don’t like to eat alone.” He looked over his shoulder. “Hello? Wingman?”

It was sad that she found it relaxing to think of nothing but what kind of overprocessed, mass-produced, worse-than-nonorganic she wanted.

Sure sign she needed a vacation. And a life.

“Have you made your choices?” she said as that band saw down the hall got to screaming again.

“You’d better believe it.”

Seven singles into the machines later and Tony had a collection of nacho bags and candy bars in his hands.

“Now it’s your turn,” he said.

“I don’t have your metabolism.”

Tony rubbed his belly. “Neither do I.”

She picked M&M’s, the plain old-fashioned kind that she’d loved as a kid, but she’d run out of bills. Putting her hands into every kind of pocket she had, she brought out a palmful of loose coins and fished her way around for quarters—

Mels froze.

“What?” Tony asked from where he’d sat down.

A bullet casing. That was what.

In her frickin’ pocket?

Except then it came back to her as she picked the thing out of the mismatched coins…that garage out in the farm country. Where she’d found a Harley with a warm engine, Matthias with a lie on his face, and…something else….

Someone else—

A sudden sharp shooter went through her head, the pain clogging her thought processes, and shutting everything down…but for the conviction that she’d seen something important out there. What had it been, though?

Pushing hard, her mind just couldn’t seem to put a name to the proverbial song, and the more she tried, the more it hurt.

“Mels?”

“I’m okay. No, really, just—I probably need the sugar.”

Tony nodded as he popped open a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. “A pick-me-up is never a bad thing.”

A compact guy in a white coat came in. “Hey, sorry to keep you waiting.”

Tony got up to shake hands. “Suraj, hey, man.”

Shaking herself back into focus, Mels put the bullet in her purse and struggled to get through the hellos.

“We don’t mean to take you away from your work,” she said as they all clustered around one of the tables.

“Yeah, well, there’s hasn’t been much of that going on today.” Suraj smiled, his teeth white against his beautiful skin. “The police have been here grilling us about that body that disappeared since this morning.”

“What can you tell us?” Tony asked around a mouthful of crunching.

“Off the record, it’s the one that was found in the Marriott basement last night.” Suraj shrugged and settled back into his orange seat like his butt was well familiar with the ugly chairs. “I don’t know much. I came in at noon for my usual shift, and the CPD was all over the place. Rick’s been the guy on the front lines of the questions—he was the one who discovered the body was gone. Went to pull it out to do an autopsy, and…nothing. Not there. It’s too weird—I mean, it’s not like the dead guy walked out or something. But no alarms went off, and bodies are not easily hidden—not as if you’re going to smuggle one out under your armpit. Plus, this place? Eyes everywhere. Security cameras, people—”