Rereading her article, she was dissatisfied. No new information other than the victim’s identity, and when she’d called the family, she’d gotten a rather shockingly uninterested no comment.

How could you not be upset at your daughter’s death?

Mels didn’t like sending her piece in as it was. The writing was fine, and spell-check had done its job, but the real story was with Monty and his photographs and she couldn’t put any of that in yet.

With a curse, she hit send, and vowed that she was going to get to the bottom of it all. Even if it didn’t go into print.

Switching her screens, she reassessed the side-by-side of two images that she’d put together an hour before: they were both of similar markings carved into abdominal skin. One was from that Cecilia Barten girl who’d been found at the quarry on the outskirts of town just days before…and the other was what Monty contended had been on the prostitute’s belly.

The pattern of scratches looked like some kind of language: There were identical characters in both photographs, although they were not in the same sequence—which in her mind didn’t rule out in the slightest the Monty-as-Photoshopper theory. If anything, it was perfect, tying the death at the motel to that of the Barten girl without making the manipulation a one-for-one obvious.

In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she decided the tampering fit with Monty’s routine. If he was the “source” for a new serial killer, how much fun would that be for him….

Except she had to wonder. When no one else was killed like those girls, what was he going to do? And his job was at risk. He was already walking a line by giving info like he did. Raising the stakes by lying about it was just too foolish.

Maybe he was simply getting sloppy.

Then again, what about the hair color? The prostitute had colored hers right before she’d died, to a shade of blond that matched the Barten girl’s. That wasn’t something that had changed between photographs; that had actually occurred.

What if Monty was a copycat killer?

“How’s your car situation?” As Mels jumped, Tony halted in the process of packing up his stuff. “You okay over there?”

“Yeah, sorry. Just thinking.”

Her buddy slung his bag over his shoulder. “You need to borrow my vintage wheels again?”

Mels hesitated. “Oh, I couldn’t bother you with—”

“Not to worry. Just drive me home and she’s all yours as long as you bring me breakfast again tomorrow morning.” Holding up the keys, he swung them back and forth from their KISS logo tag. “I really don’t need the damn thing.”

“One more night,” she hedged.

“Two more sausage biscuits with coffee, you mean.”

The pair of them laughed as she shut down her computer. Getting up, she took the photographs Monty had given her, stuffed them into her bag, and linked an arm through Tony’s.

“You’re a prince among men, you know that?”

He smiled. “Yeah, I do. But it’s nice to hear it once in a while.”

“Listen, do we know anyone who’s good with photographs?”

“You looking for a portrait of yourself?”

“I’m talking about analyzing.”

“Ah.” He held the back door open for her. “As a matter of fact, I know just who you can talk to…and we probably can meet him on the way home.”

26

Jim had not expected to pay another visit to the St. Francis Hospital morgue anytime soon. Once through the park with the slabs and the stiffs had been more than enough for him.

Of course, the good news was, he didn’t have to die this time. And the rigor mortis wasn’t his own.

What a great standard to measure shit against.

The trouble was, things were way too quiet on the home front. And that meant he had to go looking for Devina—and he figured a good place to start was with the operative’s body down at the morgue.

He still didn’t believe for a second that the demon had just been lending a helping hand the night before when she’d arrived with her sharp and shiny to “save” them. And after a day spent tailing Matthias, and waiting for her to do something more than breakfast, he’d told Ad to hold the farm—and come here to the land of Lysol, piss-green tile, and scales that were used to weigh brains and livers.

He wanted to take a good look at that “operative’s” body.

In the quick draw of last night, he hadn’t been able to pay a lot of attention to the remains—and although he wasn’t sure what they could tell him, it was the only leftover around…

Assuming he got to them before the XOps recon folks did.

His first clue that all wasn’t well in the land where coroners were kings was the police presence out in the hall in front of the morgue: Blue unis were everywhere, milling around the basement facility, chatting one another up. And then as Jim ghosted through the morgue’s double doors, there was another bottleneck of badges in the reception area, this one mixing with members of the medical staff.

Somehow, the place had become a crime scene.

Gee. What a surprise.

“—time did you come in?”

The scrubs being questioned over at the desk crossed his arms over his chest and shoved out his patchy goatee. “I told you. My shift started at nine a.m.”

“And was that when you arrived?”

“That’s when I clocked in. I already told you—”

Jim left that interview where it was devolving, and headed out of the paper-pushing part of the afterlife enterprise and into the chilly clinical section. Stepping through the Staff Only doors, the fluorescent-lit area beyond was kitted out with more stainless steel than a smelting factory, what between the five workstations, the half dozen deep-bellied sinks, and all those godforsaken scales.

Over on the far wall, the rows of cold-storage compartments were latched closed, as if the folks at St. Francis weren’t entirely sure zombies were a work of fiction—except for a single one in the corner. That was open wide, with various guys in navy blue polo shirts dusting and peeling for fingerprints in a radius around the gaping mouth.

Whaddaya want to bet the operative’s body had disappeared.

Shocker.

Jim cursed as he went over, and found no sign of Devina anywhere in sight—typically, in her wake, a nasty smell lingered like a Glade PlugIn gone bad. Here? There was the slightest whiff inside the refrigerator unit, but nothing that was recent.

Looked like XOps had come to Merry Maid the aftermath, not the demon.

“Damn it.”

As he spoke out loud, a couple of cops looked over to where he was standing, like they were expecting to see a buddy of theirs.

When they frowned and went back to work, Jim considered going upstairs for a visit—and he wasn’t talking about the ER or the inpatient rooms of the hospital. But what would Nigel the archangel do for him? Trips to Heaven hadn’t really helped in the past, and shit knew he was pissed off and frustrated enough already.

He was just about to leave when something dawned on him.

Going down the wall units, he looked at the names that had been printed on index cards and slipped into brackets on those shoulder-wide doors.

Sure enough, at the other end, there was one that read, BARTEN, CECILIA.

On some level he was surprised her remains were still here, but then he reminded himself that it only felt like forever since he’d found her in that quarry. In reality, it had been a mere matter of days, and she was, after all, part of a criminal investigation.

Not that any member of the CPD was going to be able to find Devina and hold that demon accountable for the death.

That was his job.

Lifting his hand, he touched the stainless steel. Sooner or later, Sissy’s mother was going to have the chance to bury her child, and that kind of cold closure was rather like the cooling space the bodies were kept in, wasn’t it.

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.