All my bases covered, I went to work examining the paperwork stacked on each body. I was so engrossed—or so desperate to get Emerson and get out of there—that I didn’t hear someone slyly removing the Gross Anatomy book. What I did hear was the heavy metal thunk of the door closing.
My heart locked in my throat, but I refused to let myself panic. I casually walked up to the door, certain that the giant refrigerator people had seen all the locked-in-the-freezer episodes as well, and had created some sort of snazzy trapdoor or inside lock pop.
Apparently, refrigerator people are not TV watchers.
I dug into my cleavage and yanked out my cell phone. I wasn’t entirely sure whom I’d call to rescue me from a walk-in freezer filled with people-sicles, but Vlad was usually good for the occasional rescue. I wrapped my arms around myself and hit the speed-dial button.
And nothing happened.
“No bars!” I groaned. I started to pace, staring down at my screen. Closer to the back of the fridge a few cheery bars popped up. If I held the phone above my head, I got another half. Still not enough to support a phone call.
I pressed myself as far back as I could, then eyed the stackable body shelves. If I could just get a little higher . . . I tentatively poked a foot on the edge of the lowermost platform, careful not to get anybody on my shoe. I took a step up. And then another. And then I grinned down at my phone when it decided it could make a call.
And then I heard the weird, scraping sound of the undead coming back to life. My hackles went up, hot adrenaline sparking through me.
I jumped from the cart and launched it backward. I would like to say I barrel-rolled or did something equally as theatrical but what I did was sail through the air, arms outstretched, fingers clawed and desperate for something to hold on to. When I landed on the cement floor, I had the slick, cold plastic of body bags in each hand, the contents of each bag—and several others—pummeling me from above.
I howled.
I don’t think my feet hit the ground as I jumped, and tossed my body into the door, screaming bloody murder.
“Pike! PIKE! Get me out of here! Get me the fuck out of here! I’m stuck!”
It seemed to take eons for Pike to hear me and loosen the door. When he did I ran out, circling the autopsy tables, relishing the way the room-temperature air burned at my frozen skin.
I felt Pike’s eyes on me, curious, as I rubbed my arms and let the adrenaline drain from my body. “Where were you?” I finally hissed, eyes narrowed.
“I was outside. Standing guard. Just like you told me to be.”
I couldn’t fault him for doing as I’d told him, but I wanted to. “Why did you come in here?”
“You were taking forever, I had to pee, and then I heard you huffing and thumping. I thought maybe you were getting a little frisky with ol’ Reg there.”
He grinned and I recoiled, disgusted. “You’re a big ass.”
“And you’re a big ol’ side of beef locking yourself in the deep freeze. Did you find anything?”
“First of all, I didn’t lock myself in the freezer. I shoved a book in the doorway so I wouldn’t get stuck.”
Pike made a show of looking all around for a book.
“Someone filched the book and shut the door on me.”
Pike raised his eyebrows, though he didn’t look the least bit convinced. “Is that so? Because I’ve been waiting out there,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the hall. “And I happen to know for a fact that no one came in here.”
I gaped. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“Of course not. I might be calling you a little bit embarrassed because you locked yourself in the fridge, but definitely not a liar.”
The chill from the fridge had distinctly worn off and rage burned through me. Before I could open my eyes—or my fang-filled mouth—Pike was checking the bodies piled in the fridge. “Here’s our friend Emerson.”
He laid her out on the slab and unzipped her. I was surprised when a stab of emotion shot through me—I’m not sure if it was seeing Emerson laid out this way, or seeing Nicolette red-eyed and torn up over the death of her sister. Either way, the body was just a shell—I knew that better than anyone. But there was something pulling me.
“So what are we looking for?”
I hugged my arms across my chest. “Look behind her left ear.”
Pike did as he was told and I watched his finger slide over Emerson’s marble-still flesh. “Nothing.”
I peered, and pointed. “See that tiny hole? Needle prick.”
“Needle prick? What does that mean?”
“Reginald has one, too. Same place. It means that neither Reg nor Emerson died the way we thought they did.”
Pike was fingering Emerson’s chart and I could see his lips move as he read. That should have been enough for me to shake him off but there was something charming and sweet about the way his lips moved, little bursts of breath puffing at every other word. “Well, that’s something they didn’t say in the papers.”
“What’s that?”
“Drain cleaner.”
I stiffened. “What?”
“They found drain cleaner in both of them.”
“Why would someone inject—”
“It would cause pain, an arrhythmia at best, death at worst.”
I stepped back. “Do I want to know how you know that?”
Pike snapped the file shut and got to work putting Reginald and Emerson back. “Probably not.”
We were able to sneak right back out of the morgue—a happy coincidence for us, an unsettling lack in homeland security for the rest of the country. But, I supposed, as I brushed my dress back down over my thighs, maybe terrorists going on body raids wasn’t exactly at threat level red.
It was one of those nights where everything about the city hummed and moved, but the city itself stayed impossibly still. The air didn’t move and the moon hung in the sky, as pale and anemic as everything else that wilted in the heat.
“Okay,” I said as we walked, “two people are injected with drain cleaner, then made to look like they’ve either committed suicide or been murdered.”
“By you.”
“What?”
Pike slurped the last bit of the purple ICEE he made us stop for through his straw. “First one looked like suicide, second one looked like a murder caused by you.” He grinned, his teeth tinged purple.
“Thanks for pointing that out, Colombo.” I frowned. “And we have nothing in the way of leads, do we?”
“Other than you trying to kill off the competition, no.”
I spun, my finger a quarter-inch from his nose. “What did I say? Look at me.” I jumped back, gave him a good chance to take in my self-styled ensemble. “I would have won that competition fair and square. Someone is out to get me.”
Suddenly Pike was face to face with me and I could feel his hot breath breaking over my cheeks. “Then why hasn’t he gotten you yet?”
Anger bubbled in my veins. “Because I’m a—”
“A what?” His eyes flashed.
I broke his gaze. “I don’t need to tell you anything.” I tried to turn away but his hand was around my arm, clamping down. His warmth shot through my whole body and I remembered things. . . .
Another ink-black night where everything hung still and quiet in the oppressing heat. A rustle in the bushes and I was on the window sill, tucking my petticoats between my legs . . . I felt the air cut open when I dropped, my boots hitting the soft earth below my window. And he was there. He was just a shadow then but he was there—I didn’t need to see him to feel him over every inch of my body, to feel the air sizzle with his vibrant electricity. His fingertips brushed my arm and they were ice cold but sent fire-hot prickles and every synapse firing—and then he closed the distance between us and his lips were on mine. Wanting, tasting. And I was young and I was thirsty and I had never felt this way before . . . then his lips left mine and trailed slowly, with feather-light kisses over my jaw and down my neck. I felt my pulse throb and his tongue circled it. My heart pounded and my head was filled. There was fire roaring through me and it was at my neck. I heard the pierce before I felt it. My virgin skin popped and his teeth sunk in. And when I closed my eyes, everything was dripping in the most vibrant shade of red. . . .
“Pike.” I was breathing hard and trying to push the word past my teeth. Pike had me now, tonight, in this city, and I could feel his fingers pressing at the small of my back as I crushed against him, his hand cupping my chin, my cheek. The city cracked and came alive and I was distinctly aware of every horn honking, every New Yorker talking, yelling, laughing. Waves crashed. The world crashed when Pike’s lips covered mine. I tried to pull back but his fingers dug into me and my entire body was exploding with things I hadn’t felt since that last night, since that last moment when my own blood shot through my veins.
I could feel.
My entire body was on high alert and I felt the hot softness of Pike’s wet lips. I felt his tongue nudge my mouth open and I could taste him.