Working Stiff

Chapter 8

Bryn didn’t intend to drift off, but she woke to the sharp jab of a needle in her arm. Panic set in. For a second she thought she was back in that place again, that awful moment of screaming back to life. She jerked, but he was fast, and the needle was out of her skin in the next second, and McCallister’s hand was on her chest, holding her still. “You’re safe,” he said. “Booster shot. How are you feeling?”

She felt … well, weirdly enough, she felt good. Rested. Revived, if that wasn’t too sick a word to select. “Okay,” she said. “Better.”

“No pain?”

“No.” He took his hand away. Bryn sat up fully, expecting to feel a twinge from her abused abdomen, but the muscles contracted normally, as if she’d never been hurt. She put her hands to her face and felt carefully, but it was just smooth skin, and no bumps or complaining sore spots. Even her nose was straight. “Wow. That’s—”

“Amazing,” he agreed. “You have blood in your hair. You’ll probably want to shower.”

McCallister, she realized, also looked like he could use a rinse, and maybe a long, hot soak…. There was a livid red mark on his left cheek that was going to turn into a dirty bruise before too long, and his hands were bloody at the knuckles. His tie was crooked, his jacket torn at the shoulder and streaked with mud. His pants were filthy, too.

“What happened to you?”

For answer, he reached over and picked up a gun from the bedside table, showed it to her, and put it down again. “I got it back for you.”

Ouch. “It doesn’t look like he gave it up without a fight.”

He shrugged. “No significant damage.” His lips stretched into a grim smile. “To me, anyway. I’m not as concerned about his welfare.” The smile faded. “I’m sorry I wasn’t backing you up.”

“You’re not my bodyguard, McCallister. I’m supposed to be your asset, remember? Not the other way around.”

“I don’t like my assets being damaged without any real benefit.”

“Charming.” She didn’t believe it for a moment, though; she was starting to figure out McCallister, and she thought the man who’d carried her inside and tended to her was more real than the corporate persona. “So, your alibi for Irene Harte is that we’ve sneaked away to a seedy motel for some private busy time?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know how stupid that is?”

He smiled again, this time a little more warmly. “You underestimate yourself. Or possibly me. No one at corporate will doubt it.”

“Let me guess. You have a reputation.”

“I’ve taken pains to build it. It gives me the ability to duck out of surveillance without too much notice being taken. You do enough legitimate philandering and no one questions you when you drop off the radar for a few hours with a girl.”

“Wow,” Bryn said. “You really are a man whore.”

“I prefer the term player.”

She had no response for that. For some reason, she could well imagine McCallister being familiar with these kinds of seedy roadside establishments, although she thought he probably preferred nicer accommodations. Which made her wonder … “Why here?”

“It has no wireless Internet or any other modern conveniences that make it easy to conduct off-site surveillance,” he said. “It takes time for them to get organized and send real bodies out. Even the security camera in the office is state-of-the-art circa 1980, and I think it’s just for show. If we’d checked in at a more upscale establishment, they’d have a much easier time keeping track of us.”

Of course he had a reason. McCallister didn’t do anything without a reason, and maybe two or three of them. “I really ought to be at work,” she said. “Not that this hasn’t been fun.”

He checked his watch and said, “No hurry, it’s already four o’clock, and by the time we drive back, it’ll be well after closing time at the mortuary. Joe’s been briefed. He’ll cover for you. One thing about the dead—they’ll wait.”

His cell phone chose that moment to buzz like an angry hornet, and McCallister paused, checked the screen, and turned it off. “Harte,” he said.

“You’re not answering?”

“Would I be answering if we were doing what they think we’re doing?”

“I don’t know. Would you?”

He raised his eyebrows, smiled, and said, “Maybe.” He switched the phone back on and hit a button on the TV remote at the same time. A porn channel popped up. Why am I not surprised? Bryn thought, and reached to change the channel. He shook his head and stopped her. Instead, he turned up the volume for the pants and moans. “McCallister,” he said into the phone, sounding annoyed and distracted. “This had better be important.” He listened for a second, then subtly altered his tone. “Ms. Harte. Sorry. I didn’t check the screen.” Now he turned the volume down. “Yes. Yes, I know.” Another longer pause. “I’ll alert my team to handle it. I’m not close to the office now.” He locked eyes with Bryn, and mouthed, Say something.

What? she mouthed back. He shrugged.

Well, might as well have fun with it. She pitched her voice to a low, sexy range and said, “Patrick, this is no time to be on the phone.”

He shushed her—loud enough for Irene Harte to hear it—and gave her a thumbs-up.

Bryn reached over, took his tie, and unknotted it. The rustle of fabric would sound good, she thought.

McCallister froze, staring at her, momentarily distracted from his conversation. He reengaged with a physical jolt. “Ah, yes. Yes, that’s fine. I’ll be in later. Eight o’clock.”

This was kind of fun. Bryn unfastened his collar, then slipped the second button loose. She was enjoying the rising confusion in his eyes. Thank God she actually had the upper hand in this very weird relationship, for once. Stop, he mouthed. She grinned and went for the next button.

He grabbed her hand in his, tightly, and pulled her closer—so close she could almost make out what his boss was saying on the phone. She froze, and he didn’t move again either, until he said, “All right. See you then,” and hung up the call.

He didn’t release his hold. “What the hell were you doing?”

“I was selling your alibi,” she said. “Let go.”

“That,” he said, “was not at all necessary, Bryn. I thought we agreed not to complicate things.”

“You were trying to make her think we’re having a mad affair. I was just helping.”

“Helping,” he repeated. “Bryn—trust me, you are not helping.”

She met his eyes and held them. “Then why did you pick this particular alibi?”

He bent forward and kissed her. Really kissed her. The shock of his warm, silken lips pressing and sliding on hers made her tense at first, and she thought about resisting for half a second before her muscles melted in to warm jelly of their own accord. She didn’t intend to kiss him back, but she couldn’t help herself. He was warm and alive and strong, and the intense sensation of his mouth opening, of his hands on her back, of his tongue …

He let her go and stood up, very quickly. He took a giant step back from the bed, turned away, and began fastening the buttons on his shirt.

“Pretending that didn’t just happen won’t help,” she said. Her heart was pounding, and she was vibrating all over with the intensity of what had just happened. He was, too. She could see it in the abrupt, jerky motions of his hands. “Patrick. Talk to me.”

“Nothing happened,” he said. His voice was tight and angry. “And nothing will ever happen again. I apologize.”

“I don’t want your apology; I want you to tell me what’s going on between us, because there’s been something for a while now. You know it. I know it.”

“I told you. Nothing. Instinct.” He lips twisted, and he turned away to do up his tie. “Hey, you’re the one who called me a man whore.”

“I didn’t mean it.” She got off the bed and touched his shoulder. “I didn‘t. And … thank you.”

“For what?”

“For … stepping off.” Even if, at this moment, she didn’t want him to. Some desperate part of her wanted this, craved feeling alive, but she knew it was probably a terrible mistake. That was what he was trying to tell her. “I’ll go take my shower.”

She closed and locked the bathroom door, leaned against it for a moment, and then stripped off her clothes. The tub wasn’t particularly clean, but the water was hot and plentiful, and the rough, cheap soap felt good. Not as good as she imagined other things might feel, but good enough.

She washed away the blood, and the desire, and by the time she came back into the cramped, cheap bedroom (and, God, she hadn’t fully appreciated just how cheap and worn it was until that moment) she found McCallister stripped down to a white T-shirt and Joe Boxers, scrubbing mud out of his pants. He was still wearing his socks and dress shoes, which for some reason she found hilarious.

He looked up, frowned at her, and went back to what he was doing. Mr. French was sitting at his feet and watching with his head cocked, evidently fascinated, but he broke off and padded to Bryn. She leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms. “You know, it’s not going to help. That suit’s pretty much ruined.”

“I’ll change on the way.”

“Maybe you can tell Ms. Harte that I like it rough.”

“Not funny,” he said. He put the washcloth aside—a different one, she noticed; it didn’t have bloodstains—and put the pants on. His shirt was wrinkled, but clean, and he buttoned up quickly. Even his jacket looked passable now, except for the torn seam at the shoulder. “If I don’t have time to change, I’ll tell her we had some problems in the field. She’ll believe it.” There was something wrong, some tightness around his eyes and mouth. He almost looked haunted.

Bryn took a wild, instinctive guess and said, “The appointment tonight. It’s not just a business meeting, is it? You and Harte …?”

He passed the loose circle of his tie over his head, popped his collar, and snugged the tie tight before he snapped down the points again. “We’ve got a long drive. Do you need me to walk the dog before we go?”

“No, he’s fine. And you didn’t answer me.”

“I’m not going to answer,” he said. He swung open the door to the setting sun, head down. “After you.”

On the way back to her apartment, plans changed; McCallister got a phone call, said a few terse words, and then said, “Problem at your apartment. Joe is sure it’s been compromised. You’ll have to stay the night at the house.”

It was funny that McCallister referred to the huge pile of a mansion as the house, because Bryn honestly couldn’t imagine feeling that comfortable about it. “Why?”

“Because I don’t have time to find you anywhere else. Liam will look after you.”

“Then why exactly did we spend the afternoon in a cheap motel, when you have a swanky love nest all your own?”

He barked out a laugh at that term, then said, “Do you want to know the actual truth of it?”

“Sure.”

“Our excuse is not so much the cheap, anonymous sex— which was great, by the way—but the drugs I buy there.”

“Drugs,” she repeated. “What kind of drugs?”

For answer, he reached into his coat pocket and came out with two plastic bags. Pills. Some kind of pills. “The kind that get a don‘t-ask, don‘t-tell pass from executives. I make a point to go out there once a month.”

“Do you actually take them?”

“The only ones they see me take are gelatin-filled. I may be the only corporate employee who fakes a positive drug test.”

“But aren’t they going to wonder about you bringing me back here?”

“Joe’s arranging for your apartment to be tented, as if for fumigation. It’s as good as we could come up with on short notice.” He smiled grimly. “And there really are bugs, after all. The electronic kind, anyway.”

They ate the picnic lunch Liam had packed on the way back. There were, in fact, finger sandwiches without crusts. And delicious, too. McCallister was a font of utter silence. He answered when she spoke, but in monosyllables or utterly uninformative responses. Back to the same old Patrick, then.

She wondered if he was as uncomfortable as she felt.

Liam was standing on the steps with a suit coat on a hanger when McCallister crunched the car to a stop on the flawless white gravel, and Bryn’s door was open before she could do more than cast a look Patrick’s way. He didn’t return it. He was staring straight ahead, through the windshield, at the growing gloom and the halogen glare cast by the headlights.

Liam gathered up the picnic basket and Mr. French’s doggy bed, put the fresh jacket on the hook in the back, and shut the passenger door once she was out of it. McCallister, without another word, took his foot off the brake and continued along the rest of the circular drive leading back to the main entrance.

Bryn watched him go. When she turned, Liam was watching her with far too perceptive a gaze, but he merely said, “It’s getting chilly, Miss Davis. Shall we go in?”

She let Mr. French follow up the steps; he needed the exercise anyway. He let out a whuff of recognition once they were in the door, and immediately went in search of his dog bed, which Liam had set against the wall. “I can see you’ve had quite a day,” the butler—estate administrator—said. “I’ve kept some dinner warm for you. Mr. Fideli is waiting in the Small Room. If you’d prefer to change first, there are clothes in your closet upstairs. I took the liberty of buying a few things for you.”

Implying, of course, that what she’d brought wasn‘t suitable. She didn’t feel at all offended, because, well, he was right. She’d never bitch about someone with exquisite taste—and he almost certainly had that—buying her something new to wear that was out of her budget range. Liam wasn’t out for anything but upholding the good name of the McCallister trust. If Patrick had bought her clothes, that would have seemed … awkward.

“Sure,” she said. “Thank you, Liam. I’ll go change first.”

Mr. French, the traitor, stayed in his bed and watched her go upstairs alone. Funny how quickly he was adapting to the good life. Her dog, she decided, was quite the social climber. She wasn’t sure she was any different, and that made her feel a little dirty, somehow.

The things hanging in her closet were, predictably, amazing. She picked out a pale pink silk blouse and a pair of designer jeans and dressed quickly. When she walked into the Small Room, Joe Fideli—digging into an overflowing salad bowl—looked up and said, “I feel like I should get up or something. You look good, Bryn. Ladylike.”

“Don’t get up. You’ll make me feel worse than I already do about all this.” She got herself a plate and inspected the silver warming trays. Chicken, fish, salad, vegetables, dessert. It all looked amazing. She chose the salad and sat down with him, feeling hungrier than she expected. “What did McCallister tell you?”

“That the protocol inhibitor from Glickman is working,” he said. When she frowned at him, he waved his fork vaguely at the room around them. “Room’s shielded. You can say what you want in here. So, you met the crazy man. What’d you think?”

“He’s the most paranoid man I’ve ever seen not locked up.”

“Yeah, that was my feeling, too. He knows what he’s doing, though.”

“Yes, he does. Did my mystery guest call today?”

“No. He said he’ll take a week to look you over, so I didn’t expect it anyway. As soon as I get your apartment buttoned up, you’re out of here, and you don’t come back. In fact, you break ties with McCallister, at least in public. I’m going to be your shadow.”

“You don’t think our friendly supplier’s going to notice you and trace you back?”

“I’m not on record at Pharmadene, as I told you. I’m a ghost who gets paid in cash. Besides, I think he’ll think we’re really, really close.” He held up two fingers together, then crossed them. “You know.”

“You can’t do that. You’ve got a family.”

“Yeah, and Kylie won’t be too damn happy about my shacking up with a good-looking woman like you, but I’ll martyr myself for the cause.” He was, she realized, kidding her. “Seriously, Kylie’s good with it. She knows the drill. This isn’t our first rodeo, and she’s met you. It’s all good.”

“So our cover story is what, you’re sleeping with me on the side? God.” Bryn dropped her head into her hands. “If only my personal life were really this exciting.”

“Sorry?”

“That was also McCallister’s alibi for slipping off the chain today. I’m getting twice the reputation and none of the fun. I’m assuming that Pharmadene would also notice the sleepover.”

“Oh. Right. Well, Pharmadene doesn’t officially know me; I’m not on any corporate records. Pat pays his contractors off book. Shouldn’t present a paper trail for our mystery guest to follow.”

“My apartment …” Bryn bit her lip. “McCallister said you’d be making it safe.”

“Well, safer, anyway; it’s a cinder block box, only so good I can make the place. Tonight, you sleep here; this place is as solid as you can get. I’ll go do some midnight renovations: sensors, motion detectors, upgraded doors and windows. Your neighbors might be a little pissed off about the noise, but I can do it in a couple of hours. Pat’ll sign off on the expense, no problem.”

“Maybe I should go with you.”

“Trust me, you shouldn’t. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder wondering whether somebody’s creeping up behind you while I’m installing windows. Because it’s all about me, obviously.” Fideli fell silent for a moment, then said, with studied casualness, “What happened to you today?”

“Me? Nothing. Why?”

“Tremors.” He pointed at her hand as she picked up her water glass. Sure enough, it was shaking. She could see the ripples spreading across the surface of the liquid, and quickly put the glass down. “I know Pat can be tough to take, but people don’t usually get PTSD from a day with him.”

McCallister was going to tell him anyway. She picked up her fork and ate a couple of leaves of lettuce drenched in heavenly balsamic dressing before she replied. “I got mugged. He beat me pretty bad. Broken nose, broken cheekbone, probably some broken ribs. It wasn’t McCallister’s fault. He was checking in for the room. I was walking the dog.”

Fideli absorbed that in silence. “Just a random mugging.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re sure about that.”

It was a new thought, and a nasty one, and she took another bite and considered it carefully, before she said, “You think someone might have set it up? How? We weren’t followed. Even I didn’t know where I was going.”

“Pat did.”

She almost choked on her salad, and took a quick gulp of water to wash it down. “You think he—”

“No, no, but if he scouted this location before, or used it before, they might have made an educated guess and planted somebody on coverage at every possible stop. That would mean a big operation, big enough to scare me, and I don’t scare easy. Of course, I could just be paranoid, but that’s what they pay me to be.” He shrugged and drank about half a glass of water. “Maybe it was random. Maybe you’re just damned unlucky, Bryn.”

She felt that way. “Why would they do that? Send someone to beat me up?”

“I can only think of one reason,” Joe said. “Because they wanted to see if you’d heal.”

“Oh, God. They just proved I was revived?”

“Look, our Mystery Guest must have already guessed at it; he sent that guy to protocol you at the bar. We got to the son of a bitch before he could report in; that meant he had to try something else. This could be it. And this could still be pure speculation.” Joe finished up the last bite of his salad and pushed back from the table. “I’m going to need the keys to your apartment. Whether I’m being crazy or not, you need better security on that place. It’s a kill box.”

“Eat first. It’s not going to get any worse before you get there.”

“Yes, ma‘am, boss. By the way, I up-sold two premium packages today, with full floral. Should net us about ten thousand in clear profit.” He got up and speared a piece of chicken from the warming trays, then added rice and asparagus. “Of course, the bad news is I had to kill one of them myself. Anything to get business, I always say.”

It was morbid, but he made her laugh, and as they sat together and ate, and Liam came in and out, and Mr. French wandered in with a pug she hadn’t seen before, life seemed … temporarily normal. Death-and-taxes normal, anyway.

It was a good way to end the day.

“So,” Joe said, “this is a panic button. There’s one in every room, recessed, so you can’t hit it by accident. If the electricity goes out, they light up on their own battery power so you can see them easily.” He pointed to something that looked like a simple doorbell, recessed beside the interior frame of her apartment door. “It hits up police and robo-texts me and Pat a nine-one-one with your address. I added break-resistant windows last night, with key locks and interior panic releases in case you have to get out quick. Here’s the alarm keypad. You put in the code and you arm tamper sensors on the wall under each window and on the door outside. You want to leave motion detectors on; you just press this button after you arm it. I configured it to ignore anything dog-size.”

He was good. Bryn, looking around the apartment, couldn’t see any sign that anything had been done at all, except for the keypad next to the apartment door and the recessed button. Well, the windows might have looked a little less grimy. “Anything else?”

“Here’s the deactivation code and secret panic code.” He passed over a sheet of paper. “Memorize and destroy; you know the drill. There’s a video surveillance monitor in the bedroom that shows you the external door and the outside walls, so if you’re worried about somebody out there, just check the feed. Got it?”

“Got it.” She cast him a look. “Anybody else watching my monitors back at the mother ship?”

He laughed. “Yeah. Can’t avoid that. They’ll keep tabs and records. We all get used to it.”

Or, Bryn thought, we build ourselves fortresses of solitude in the backyard and arm up with AK-47s.

“You’re clear on how the system works?”

“Yes.”

“Time to get back at it, then.” He yawned wide enough to crack his jaw. Bryn winced at the noise; it sounded painful. “Don’t worry; I’ll stay awake. Couple of pots of coffee will fix me right up.”

“Sorry.”

“Part of the job. Sleepless nights just come with the territory.” He dropped the apartment keys back into her hand and brushed a fleck of dust from his suit lapel. “How do I look?”

“Impressive.” He did. In the suit, Fideli looked trustworthy, calm, kind, attentive—all the things you should be as a funeral director. “I guess I’ll take my own car…. Oh, damn.” Her car was probably parked in a lot near that damn bar where she’d been so humiliatingly introduced to the concept of protocols.

“I had it brought over,” he said. “Don’t want people thinking the boss got smashed and had to be driven home.”

“Do you have any idea of the alcohol and drug abuse statistics among mortuary workers? It’s not like anyone would blink at my getting drunk.”

“It scares me that you knew that and still took the job.”

“Why? What are the self-harm statistics in your line of work?”

He was silent, then shrugged. “Point taken.” He bowed, elegant and formal, and yet warm in ways Patrick McCallister didn’t seem he could ever be. “After you, boss.”

Fairview Mortuary was now hers, Bryn thought. She stood there in the elegant lobby and greeted people, signed for flowers, assigned runners to take floral arrangements to viewing rooms and out to grave sites; she checked the clothing choices of staff to make sure everything was appropriate, and despaired, because she was not ready for this. She’d studied, she’d graduated, she’d apprenticed successfully, but this … this was different.

It wasn’t even the grief. She quickly got used to the raw emotions, and the awful, gut-ripping stories of loss; funeral directors learned how to distance themselves from that, like police officers and therapists. By the third day of what she supposed constituted her normal life, she’d hired on two more funeral directors and three assistants. Two of those assistants had lasted about half a day before leaving and never coming back, which Lucy assured her was entirely normal. “We never stop running the ads,” Lucy told her, as she helped get the death certificates filed and paged people for pickups out to residences, hospitals, and the county morgue. “Can’t keep assistants. You’re lucky if one makes it a few months, seems like. It’s even hard to keep funeral directors; I guess because they like to move around to greener pastures. We went through three last year.”

Well, Bryn thought, I know what happened to one of them. She’d seen him, still moving weakly in his body bag, body rotted into rags. The memory came back to her in a post-traumatic rush of sight, sound, and smell, and she felt herself waver. That’s my future.

No. No, it wasn‘t. She just had to keep telling herself that.

It was lucky Riley Block was on the staff, because there was no one, no one, better than Riley at doing the delicate, artistic work of embalming. Bryn was astonished the first time she went down to do her own work at how meticulous and neat the prep room was kept; nothing was left out, except what Riley was currently using. Every surface gleamed. Unlike the creepy atmosphere the place had had when Freddy reigned, this felt oddly warm and comfortable, even though it had the usual chilly temperature. Riley had brought in some lovely art to put on the walls, and warm lighting in the corners, and there was a subtle scent of vanilla and jasmine in the air to cover the usual uneasy spoiled-meat tang.

Bryn said hello and went to the locker to grab a gown and mask, which she tied on with practiced ease, and gloved up before retrieving Mrs. Jacoby from refrigeration. This one was simple enough that there was no need to waste Riley’s time, and Bryn needed the practice. She was discovering, as the days went by, that even as much education as she had left huge gaps in her practical experience.

Riley, she discovered, wasn’t chatty when she was working, so Bryn kept her silence, too. There was something oddly Zen about the prep room; it was like a chapel, hushed and peaceful. As Bryn made her incisions and hooked the carotid out of Mrs. Jacoby’s pale, fleshy neck, she concentrated on the details. Don’t break the surface was the first rule; the dead did bleed, particularly from the carotid, and it was a mess that ruined the clear field of vision and made embalming that much tougher. If she screwed this one up, she’d have to go for the femoral.

She didn’t screw it up.

The mechanics of the embalming went smoothly enough, and Mrs. Jacoby had died peacefully in her sleep. It was only a matter of pumping out the blood and pumping in embalming fluid, applying the hydration cream to keep the tissues supple, and suturing the mouth.

“You know the worst thing about this business?” Riley suddenly said. She stepped back from her table, sighed, put her hands on her hips, and stretched as if her back ached, which it probably did; Bryn’s already had a twinge, even though she’d probably done a lot less standing and leaning. “You can get used to the bodies, the smell, the mess. I’ve picked up bodies that were melted into furniture, they’d been down so long. You can get used to the grief, too.”

Bryn nodded. She’d already experienced that; after the first few days, she’d realized that the tearful stories still moved her, but not in a deeply personal way. She’d put up a wall to muffle the vulnerability. That was manageable. She’d seen the bad (Melissa) and the sad (most of the rest), and so far, only one that was crazy, but it was all a manageable process now. A continuum.

“You get used to thinking of them as just skin, bones, flesh, to-do lists, but every once in a while you find something that makes you realize they used to be just like you. Just like us.” Riley stared down at the man she was working on. He was a tough one, a car crash victim in his thirties. Handsome, too, though Bryn had more reason than most to subscribe to the whole beauty-is-skin-deep theory. “He had plane tickets in his pocket. He was supposed to be headed to Hawaii today—can you believe that? First class. He probably paid extra so he could really enjoy himself, and somewhere, right about now, they’re calling his name at the ticket counter and moving on to a standby because he hasn’t shown up.”

Riley was right. That made it uncomfortably real. There were so many layers of reality to the world. Nothing stopped for death; nothing stopped for grief or horror or tragedy.

As if she’d read her thoughts, Riley said, “The worst part of it is that it never stops. Death keeps coming. We get older; we get tired; we get sad and lonely because nobody understands what we do or why we do it. Police and firemen, they’re heroes. Us, we’re pariahs. And every day, there are more bodies.” She said it without any particular emotional emphasis; it was an observation, delivered calmly, but it chilled Bryn deep down.

“Then why do you do it?” she asked.

Riley turned and met her eyes. She didn’t smile. “Because I’m good at it,” she said. “Because it needs doing. Why do you?”

Originally, it had been because the money was good and the job was stable, but Bryn understood what Riley was saying. There was a certain unspoken honor to this job, a certain quiet dignity. We, Bryn thought, are the great dirty secret, the reality that runs under everything else.

And Riley was right. It was lonely.

“Don’t mind me,” Riley said, and finally smiled. It didn’t reach her sad eyes. “I’ve been at this awhile. I get maudlin. Some people drink; some get depressed; some run around having sex with anyone with a pulse. Me, I get philosophical. It’s healthier.”

“What do you do when you’re not, you know, here?”

“I shower three times before I leave the building, and then I go out to dinner with friends. I watch movies and read books. I exercise. I live a normal life.” Riley cocked her head and looked at Bryn with suddenly sharp, inquisitive eyes. “Don’t you?”

“Well, I have a dog.” That was just about the only normal thing in her life anymore. “Mr. French.”

“Dogs are good. Pets are good. People will let you down.” Riley shook her head and put her mask back on. “That’s good work on Mrs. Jacoby, by the way.”

“It’s easy.”

“Nothing’s easy here. Just delicate.”

As Bryn warmed the tinted wax in the palm of her hand and gently, gently applied it to Mrs. Jacoby’s pale, lifeless lips, she had to agree.

Joe Fideli gave her shots every day. She didn’t see McCallister at all, although she knew Fideli was in contact with him. By special arrangement, she and Fideli carpooled; he didn’t like having her on the road alone, unprotected. So she had a bodyguard from the minute she left the fortress of her apartment until she arrived at the funeral home, with was always buzzing with activity until closing time.

And still, she felt very alone when the phone rang in her office, and the distorted voice said, “I got your good-faith money, Bryn. Very nice.”

Him. Bryn sat very still in her leather chair. She was suddenly hyperaware of the paperwork sitting in front of her, the crooked angle of the pen beside it, the way light from the desk lamp fell across things in shadows and glares. She’d closed the door to work on files, and in here, it was so silent it might have been on another planet.

She spun the chair to look out the window. That was better. There was normal life out there: sun, trees moving gently in the breeze, clouds passing. Joe Fideli pulled up in the mortuary van and backed down the ramp that led to the downstairs loading dock, delivering more clients. She felt obscurely glad to have him here, somewhere close.

“Bryn?”

“I’m listening,” she said. She cleared her throat. “Are you ready to do business?”

“How are your Returné customers doing?”

“They’re dead,” she said. “What did you expect? You know how quickly the drug wears off.”

“They were already dead. Now they’re just … normalizing their state.”

She felt her free hand clench into a fist, and forced herself to stay calm. Don’t take it personally. But it was tough, when all that stood between you and that awful future was a shot controlled by someone else. “Like you said before, I can always get new customers.”

“Hmmm, any prospects?”

“I have a thirtysomething man downstairs with lots of money,” she said. “He should be good for a few months of profit.”

“Family?”

“He was single; no next of kin to speak of.”

“Excellent. You don’t have to worry about conscience nibbling away at you for robbing the wife and kids. See, I know something about you, Bryn. You’re softhearted.”

“I’m practical. You don’t get into the death business if you’re softhearted.”

“You do if you inherit it.” It was hard to pinpoint, but Bryn thought his tone had been sounding lazily amused, but now it changed. “Enough chat. You want to do business, bring another hundred thousand to the address you’ll get in your e-mail. I pick up the money, and I e-mail you another address where the goods will be waiting for you.”

“No way. I’m not leaving money and walking away. What do you take me for?”

“Bryn, I had a good working relationship with Uncle Lincoln, but I don’t know you. And I don’t trust you.”

“Why not?”

He laughed. It sounded horrible and mechanical through the voice filter. “Because I don’t have any hold on you. Fear is the basis of any good relationship, and you’re not afraid enough of me. Not yet.”

He hung up. Bryn stared at the receiver for a moment, then slowly replaced it in the cradle. She looked mindlessly at the paperwork for a moment more, then stood and walked out of her office, down the hall. There was a viewing in progress in the Lincoln Suite—the boy, Jake Hernandez, who’d been shot in a drive-by. She drifted through the people talking outside the room in hushed tones; some nibbled the cookies; some used the tissues. There were a few family members and friends who had that hardened, dead-eyed look; nobody had said Jake had been in a gang, but then, nobody had needed to. She’d seen the tattoos and the knife and gun scars.

Bryn passed through the door that led to the other world, the Formica-and steel-world, with a sense of actual relief. She came down the stairs just as the loading-dock door slid up, and Joe Fideli, standing in the back of the van with two sheeted gurneys, looked back at her.

“Hey,” she said. “Need a hand?” She didn’t wait for his answer. The metal ramp was off to the side, and she brought it over and put it in place to bridge the gap between the van and the concrete.

“What’s up?” he asked her as he maneuvered the first gurney in line with the ramp.

“Our friend called,” she said. “He wants another hundred thousand. He’s sending me an e-mail with the address of where to leave it. Then he’ll send another e-mail with the location of the drugs.”

“Smart,” Joe said. “Low risk for him, high profit. If we do anything out of line, he can cut and run and never contact us again.” He pushed the gurney out, and Bryn grasped her end and pulled it over the ramp onto the dock’s clean, firm surface. They repeated the process with the second body. “I’ll run it by Pat, but it sounds like we need to play along a little more. Once he starts trusting you, it’ll be easier to set this guy up for a personal meet. Once he shows himself, we’ve got him.”

“Can’t you just pick him up when he gets the money?”

“He’s not stupid. He won’t get it himself. We could spend all day chasing down handoffs.”

Bryn concentrated on the logistics as they wheeled the gurneys down the hall and into the prep room; Riley was washing a body, and waved to them without speaking as the gurneys went into refrigeration. Each body had an ID tag and a plastic envelope of paperwork, which Bryn clipped to hanging boards above the appropriate stations.

“You look spooked,” Joe said.

She laughed. “I’m standing in a cooler full of bodies, Joe.”

“That doesn’t bother you. Was it the call?”

Fear is the basis of any good relationship. “No,” she said, but the lie wasn’t very good, and she knew he’d see right through it, so she changed it. “Yes. He’s … There’s something about him. Something that really scares me. He’s not just in this for the money. He actually enjoys it.”

“I know the type,” Fideli said. “Look, we’re doing everything we can to keep you safe. You’re armed; you’ve got escorts to and from work; you’re secured when you’re here and when you’re home. We’ve got remote surveillance working. You’re covered, okay?”

“Okay,” she said. She really didn’t have any reason to feel so scared. Maybe it was the chill of the air, or the stale, never-quite-right smell of the refrigerator. Maybe it was her own inevitable end pressing down on her. She wanted warmth, suddenly, and remembered the man with Hawaii airline tickets in his pocket. I could do that. Just … go somewhere.

No, she couldn’t. Not without permission. Not without an escort carrying her shots.

She wasn’t free, and she’d never be free again. She was owned by the ultimate corporate loyalty program.

“Hey,” Joe said. He took her hand in his. “Look at me.”

She did, and his earnest concern made her try for a smile. “I’m just having a hard day,” she said. “No reason. You ever have days like that?”

“All the damn time,” he said. “I get too involved. So Pat tells me. Come on. Let’s get some coffee. I’ve got to move the van and—”

The pager on his hip went off. Ten seconds later, so did Bryn’s cell phone, ringing a text alarm.

Both of them checked devices, and then looked at each other. “My apartment,” Bryn said. He nodded. “Someone tried to get in.”

“I’ll drive.”

The police were already on the scene when Joe parked the mortuary van—a cruiser, light bars strobing, and a curious bunch of her neighbors dawdling and gawking. Bryn jumped down from the passenger seat and dashed up the stairs, with Joe right behind her. Her front door was open, and the alarm was still going off in wild shrieks.

A uniformed officer held out his hand to stop her from going in. “Sorry, miss—”

“I’m Bryn Davis,” she blurted. “This is my place. Is my dog okay?”

Mr. French barked furiously from somewhere inside— full-throated roars of outrage.

“He’s fine,” the policeman said, sounding resigned. “We had to put him in the bathroom. Good little guard dog you’ve got there.”

That eased the knot in Bryn’s chest. “Thank God. What happened?”

The cop started to reply, but before he could, a slender hand grabbed the door and pulled it all the way open.

Bryn’s sister Annalie stood there looking tired, stressed, and bedraggled. She was shorter than Bryn, and curvy in ways that men seemed to much admire, but right now she didn’t look bouncy or sexy. Just shocked and frustrated. “Would you turn this damn thing off?” she shouted over the racket. “God, you could have told me you had an alarm!”

“Annie?” Bryn pushed past the cop and entered her code on the keypad. The pounding noise shut off, to the relief of Bryn’s ears, and probably everyone else in a five-block radius. “Annie, Jesus Christ, what are you doing here?” There was a flower-patterned suitcase sitting on the floor next to a bright aqua purse that had to be her sister’s. “How did you get in?”

“It wasn’t easy. Do you know, the key you gave me last time doesn’t work? What did you do, change the locks?”

“Annie—how did you get in?”

Annie grinned and shrugged. “I called a locksmith and got him to open it for me. I paid him triple. He wouldn’t do anything about the alarm, though, and he took off.”

Bryn rubbed her forehead. There was no system sophisticated enough that her sister couldn’t find a perfectly obvious way around it, apparently. “He’s supposed to check ID.”

“Well—I paid extra.”

“Don’t take this wrong but … why are you here?”

“Well … I know. It was kind of supposed to be a surprise. I brought you a present to celebrate your new job,” Annie said, and tried for a grin. “Surprised?”

“Bowled over.” Now that her heart was slowing down to a more normal pace, Bryn hugged her sister, then looked at the waiting policeman. “Uh … it’s okay; I’m so sorry. I didn’t know she was coming, that’s all. She’s all right. Everything’s all right.”

The policeman had been joined by his partner, a woman. She seemed more amused than angry. “Happens all the time,” she said. “Maybe you ought to let anyone with keys know that you’ve put in a new alarm system.”

“Nobody else has keys.” Well, Bryn imagined McCallister did, and Fideli, because that would be par for the course, but she’d never given out any other keys. “I am really very sorry about the bother.”

“That’s okay; you’ll get the bill,” the male policeman said, and nodded to her on the way out, followed by his partner.

Joe Fideli stepped in, shut the door, and leaned against it, looking much more amused than Bryn felt. “So?” he asked. “Going to introduce me?”

“I hope so,” Annie said, and gave him a smile. “Bryn, you didn’t tell me you had a cutie for a boyfriend. Holdout.”

Bryn rolled her eyes. “Annalie, this is Joe Fideli. He works with me at the mortuary. He’s a funeral director. Not my boyfriend.”

“You’re kidding. Really?”

“Tongue in mouth, please. He’s taken, and not by me.”

“Permanently?”

“Oh, yeah,” Joe said. “Afraid so, darlin’.”

“That is just Bryn’s luck.” Annie sighed dramatically and sank down on Bryn’s couch. “Since when did you need an alarm system, sis? Scared ten years of life out of me!”

“Since I got robbed,” Bryn said. “There’s such a thing as crime, you know.”

“Yeah, I bartend, doofus. I know all about it.”

“It’s really good to see you, Annie, but … why? What happened?”

Annalie shrugged and looked down. She seemed casual, but Bryn wasn’t fooled; there was a subtle tension about her that only someone well versed in Annie-speak would recognize. “I just wanted to get away for a while. You know how it is. Mom was driving me nuts.” Mom, it seemed, had always been hardest on Annie, but then, Annie had needed it. Bryn had skated by as the example against which everyone else was measured. It was a miracle, she thought, that she hadn’t been shivved by her siblings by now. Annie came out of it and gave her a bright, sweet smile. “You want your present now?”

“You shouldn’t be buying me things.”

“I didn’t. Well, I contributed, but Mom and Tate went in on it with me. I even got Grace to put in, believe it or not.”

“Wow. How’d you manage that?”

Annie opened up her suitcase and took out a small, neatly wrapped box with curly ribbons dangling from the top. It looked very festive. “I twisted arms,” she said. “You deserve a present, Bryn. You do a lot for us. Especially for me. I know I’m kind of a burden sometimes.” A cloud came across her smile, dimming it. “And I should have called—I know that. I’m sorry.”

That was typical of Annie—doing something thoughtful and thoughtless at the same time. The present, when Bryn unwrapped it, proved to be a beautiful, delicate watch, probably way too expensive; she put it on and loved it immediately. She hugged her sister, and Annalie hugged her back with fierce intensity. “There’s a card, too,” she said. “We all signed it. Even Kyle, if you can believe that.”

“Kyle?”

“I sent it through his lawyer. It took a week to get it back. Which is why I’m late, by the way; it was supposed to be a first-day-on-the-job kind of thing.”

Well, thank God for small favors. Having Annie involved in all that … Bryn didn’t even want to consider it. “I’m surprised Kyle even remembers who I am.”

Annie gave her a wide-eyed look. “He’s your brother. Of course he remembers!”

There were times, Bryn thought, when Annie could be kind of hopelessly naive. Not that it wasn’t a little endearing, but she conveniently forgot what Kyle was like. Family first—that was Annie’s motto.

Bryn felt a little guilty that she couldn’t see it quite that simply.

“You want a Coke?” she asked, to cover the awkward moment. That was Annie’s drink of choice, even at the bar. She nodded, and Bryn went into the kitchen to pour. “Joe? Would you like anything?”

“I’m okay,” he said. “Rain check on coffee for later, though.”

Bryn carried back two glasses, one for her, one for Annie. “All right. What’s Mom done to make you come running out here? Because you could have just mailed the present, you know.”

“I missed you!”

“I know, but come on. What happened?”

“She … Well, you know. She’s being Mom.” Annie drank, and fiddled with the glass. “She doesn’t like me working at the bar. She keeps trying to get me to quit and go to college. I just got tired of the lectures. I needed a break.”

“You weren’t arguing about money?”

“What?” Annie choked on her Coke. “No. No, don’t look at me like that! I swear, I didn’t ask her for a dime.” She sounded wounded. “I wouldn’t do that. Besides, you bailed me out—I know. I remember.”

“I’ve never been able to figure out where you spend it all. You don’t drink; you don’t, you know …” Bryn made a smoking gesture.

“Do drugs? Jesus, Bryn, we’re not twelve; you can say it. No, I don’t!”

“Then—”

Annie sighed. “I just like to buy things. I try, I really do, but I just … lose track. And then the banks make it worse. Did you know they process the biggest charges first, so you bounce the most checks and get hit with the most fees? It’s awful.”

“You know what solves that? Not spending so much.”

“You sound just like her.” Meaning Mom. Of course. “Look, I know, okay? I’m trying really hard to get better with money.”

“Annie …” Bryn shook her head. “You say that, but you just spent too much on this present, and don’t tell me Tate and Mom and Grace pitched in; I know you paid for most of it, right? And then you flew all this way to deliver it.” The fresh airline tag was still on the handle of Annie’s bag. And she must have gotten a taxi, which cost a fortune from the airport. “Well, you’re here now, so it doesn’t matter.”

Annie seized the moment. “Yes! I’ve missed you, you know. We can go out—do you know I’ve never been to Sea-World? Or the zoo. I hear the zoo is amazing. We can go! And we can have so much fun. It’ll be like when we used to share a room— Oh, it’s okay if I stay, right? I didn’t get a motel.”

Joe gave Bryn a wide-eyed look of very clear warning. “Well … actually, there’s not much room. How about if I get you a hotel room? We can do things at night if you want. I do have to work during the day” That clearly wasn’t good enough; Joe gave her a tiny shake of his head. She glared back, trying to send the silent message of, She’s family, damn it! He finally shrugged. Surrender.

“Oh,” Annie said, subdued. “I didn’t think … Okay. Right, a hotel is fine, I guess. And I can just do things on my own.”

“Annie—”

“Maybe I should just see if I can get on standby and go home. I don’t want to bother you. I just thought … I wanted to spend time with you.”

Annie didn’t exactly mean to make it a guilt trip; she really did feel abandoned and sad, and didn’t cover it well. She never had. In some ways, Annalie was still a child, and Bryn sometimes forgot that. Everybody had always indulged her. Protected her.

And Bryn was no different, because she gave up at the sight of Annie’s sad, almost teary eyes. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. You can stay here during the day. I’ll give you the codes to get in and out. Mr. French needs someone to play with, anyway….” Oh, crap. Bryn felt a guilty shock. Mr. French—she’d left him in the bathroom. She jumped up and hurried into the bedroom, embarrassed by the fact that she hadn’t made her bed or picked up the clothes on the floor, and the police had been in here staring at it. Too late now. She opened the bathroom door.

Mr. French was lying in a pile of snow, looking somehow supremely grumpy and self-satisfied. He let out a whuff of disapproval when she opened the door, and stood up to waddle regally past her.

No … that pile wasn’t snow.

It was the shredded remains of her full roll of toilet paper. He’d ripped it apart. Also, the towels were off the racks, although she couldn’t imagine how he’d bounced that high. And the back of the door was gouged with scratches.

“Damn,” Annie said from behind her. “Your dog knows how to party.”

“You know what? You really should stay here,” Bryn said, and shut the bathroom door. “He needs a walk right now. When you come back, you can pick up all that and clean it up.”

“Me? He’s your dog!”

“He was locked in because of your mistake. You clean it up.” Bryn handed her the key, took a piece of paper, and scribbled down the code for the alarm, which she thrust on her sister before Joe could tell her what an awful idea that was. “Memorize it and destroy the paper, and I mean destroy it; don’t just crumple it up, okay? Shred and flush.”

“Seriously? Bryn, are you mad at me? I had a key; I didn’t know it was going to be a problem. I mean, I know he made a mess, but I didn’t think—”

“I know,” Bryn said, and took a deep breath. Annie never meant to cause chaos. It just followed her around in a dark cloud. “It’s okay. You stay here today. I’ll see you tonight, and then we’ll figure things out.”

Annie brightened up into a smile immediately. “Cool. See you tonight. And I promise the house will be clean, your bed will be made, and I’ll have dinner for you.” Annie, bless her, could cook. And Bryn had just been thinking about how damn lonely life was becoming. Having family to come home to might be a blessing … just for a little while.

She hugged Annie, impulsively, and her sister hugged her back, then tenderly smoothed Bryn’s hair back. “You smell like dead people,” she said. “Confidentially, it’s probably why you don’t have a boyfriend.”

“You are such a bitch.”

Annie grinned. She had perfect white teeth, the achievement of years of dentist visits, rigorous brushing, flossing, and bleaching. She had a nice tan, too. “I’m not judging. I smell like airplane,” she said. “I’m going to shower and lie out by the pool for a while.”

“After you clean the place.”

“Oh, absolutely. After.” Annie assumed a saintly expression and crossed her heart, which made Bryn laugh; it was Annie’s giveaway for lying. They exchanged another hug, a quick one, and Annie waved as she and Joe descended the steps.

“Lock the door!” Bryn called back. “And turn on the alarm!”

“Yes, Mom.”

Joe held his tongue until they were in the van, buckled in, and driving away. “Do I even need to tell you what a terrible idea this is?” he asked. “Or how incredibly pissed off McCallister will be?”

“Nope,” she said. She felt oddly very much steadier now. Annie might be a doofus sometimes, but she was an anchor to her past, to her family, and Bryn needed one right now.

Joe was a good guy, but there was no substitute for that.