The sharp-angled eaves of the mortuary seemed to cut the gloomy morning sky. It’d never looked more like what it was than it did today: a building that housed the dead. Daunting. A place to be feared.
I rubbed my sweating palms on the front of my jeans, swallowing past the lump in my throat as I approached from the rear entrance like I always did. A soup of dread bubbled in my gut like acid.
Pausing at the door, I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes. The air filled my lungs, crisp with the smell of morning dew. The gentle sounds of the birds, and the creek rushing around the back of the property gave me a measure of peace, no matter how false it felt.
If my father asked whether I was near the mortuary last night, all I had to do was lie.
What I heard and witnessed last night played over in my head.
If he had secrets, so could I.
I let myself in, padding down the steps into the colder air below.
I strained my ears to hear any sign of life as if I was going to hear him in conversation like I had the night before. The tattooed man, the ghost with the bloody hands, flashed behind my closed eyelids and I pushed him back, blinking him away. Unnerved by the shock of heat rushing through my core, making my skin flush.
And who are you, little lamb?
I shook my head, hearing nothing but the soft shuffle of my Dad’s loafers on the tile as I entered the basement.
He slid open one of the lockers, looking over and at me with a thin smile on his lips.
“Early morning today?” he asked.
Was it?
I looked up at the large face clock on the wall. I was fifteen minutes early. I left Tessa asleep in the cabin, she’d let herself out whenever she woke up. I’d stayed home as long as I could, wide awake and jumpy as a new foal, before giving in and making my way up the hill.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I said, trying to sound and look less anxious than I was.
“Oh? Tessa keep you up?”
Not exactly. The ghost’s voice droned in my head for hours. Every creak and groan I heard through the night made me think he’d come to get me.
“Yeah,” I lied. “What about you?”
I watched him warily as I shrugged my coat on. Clearly the man who’d been here with him hadn’t mentioned seeing me and I wasn’t sure if that was a relief or something quite the fucking opposite.
Gerard Snow, only my mother ever called him Jerry, was hardly intimidating. His green eyes, the only thing he gave me were kind but often distracted and for the first time I wondered what the real reason behind that was. What sort of secrets he was hiding from me. Whether he hid them from mom too when she was still alive.
“No complaints here. We have a busy day today. Three this afternoon. One embalming, and two autopsies. The embalming is for an open casket funeral so you know what you need to do.”
I rarely had an opportunity to wear makeup in my own life, but when it came to beautifying the dead for their final public appearances, I was the one many grieving families asked for by name.
The cosmetic side of funeral preparations here naturally fell on me as it did my mom before me. Dad always covered the autopsies, having done the proper schooling, whereas everything I knew I’d learned from Mom’s books or on the job, apprenticing beneath him.
“Great, anything else?” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t fidget, eager to put some distance between us before he got suspicious.
Dad pursed his lips, thinking for a second, then shook his head. “That should be it. Are you still working on the one you started yesterday?”
I told him I was. Cancer patients were tricky. Chemo sped up decomp so embalming took longer. He opened a locker to a gust of frosty air, revealing the covered body inside, ready to start his workday. I blinked, still bracing myself for the worst, but nothing came.
Was that it?
I watched Dad, heart in my throat as he wheeled a trolley over to the slab. My heart pulsed in my ears waiting for him to say he knew everything and that I was in trouble. He finally looked up; his green eyes expectant.
“Don’t just stand there. Come help,” he said.
“Oh,” I jumped, hurrying over to help him transfer the body to the trolley, then again to the preparation table.
I was off the hook, if I was ever on it to begin with.
“’Kay Dad, I’m going to get started. Back in a bit.”
“Mmm,” he muttered, already setting about getting his tools ready.
Besides today’s main work, I had to do inventory and prepare a suicide for transportation, receiving the family as they came to escort the hearse to the wake.
Storage was on the second floor, but I lingered in the foyer instead of continuing up the stairs. One of the doors on that level led to a smaller, lesser used refrigeration room where we stored the cleaned and prepped dead in their coffins before pickup. Next to that was my father’s office.
Rule number two; no entering his office.
Unlike the rule of never entering the mortuary after midnight, this rule had been in place since I was a little girl.
I had been inside exactly two times, both to fetch something for him. Something he gave explicit instructions to grab along with the item’s exact location. No dallying. No snooping. And I never had.
What else was he hiding?
If I were him, that was where I would keep my secrets. The one place on this property no one went but him.
I hurried to the door before I changed my mind and tried the knob. It opened with a gentle push and my lips parted on a shuddering breath.
Glancing over my shoulder, I clamped my mouth shut and scurried inside. Dad’s office was large and unassuming. A large desk with a computer sitting on top of it held the middle of the space. His bookshelf held all my mom’s old books to my right.
I realized I had no idea what I was looking for or even where to start.
His desk. It made the most sense, right?
I pulled the top drawer open first.
Nothing.
It was scattered with office supplies; paper clips, spare pens, old receipts, and pencils. I tried the next one. Envelopes of old mail, some bills, nothing interesting nor alarming. I tried the last one and stumbled back as the item inside knocked loudly against the wood. Terror gripped my chest.
I recoiled from the small black pistol as if it could sprout legs and arms and shoot me all by itself.
Dad hated guns. Hated them. Or so he said.
Mouth dry, I blinked furiously, as if I could make it disappear through sheer force of will.
I reached out to touch it, but withdrew just shy of my clammy fingers brushing the metal barrel.
Why did he have it? Why would he need it?
We were almost completely isolated out here. No one came onto the property unless it was for business purposes. And I couldn’t think of anyone who would want to break into a fucking mortuary.
My brows drew, noticing what the weapon was lying on. A thick, bulging envelope filled the drawer beneath it. Curiosity overcame my fear and I carefully plucked the envelope from under the gun.
Peeking inside, I saw an almost two-inch thick stack of bills.
My dread was so thick it clogged my throat, making me choke on it.
It had to be at least four thousand dollars. That would cover direct cremation for two bodies without any extra for an urn or storage or any of the other fees normally charged to our clientele. And who the hell paid in cash?
These days, fucking no one.
I set the cash filled envelope down on the desk and reached deeper into the drawer, my fingers finding two more envelopes. No, not envelopes. File folders. My hand shook as I pulled them out.
Opening the first one, I saw the familiar font and template of an autopsy report. I scanned the page. Male, 32, suicide. Gunshot wound to the chest.
My mouth dried out and I triple checked the date on the report. We didn’t have any corpses of this description brought in on that date.
Adrenaline opened the next envelope for me. It was another report.
Male, 32, gunshot wound to the chest.
Ice crept up my fingers holding the sheet.
Suspected murder. Awaiting autopsy report.
I stuffed the reports, legitimate and doctored, back into the drawer along with the cash and fled the room. I ran straight out of the front door.
The empty driveway and road were peacefully quiet next to the riot that raged inside me. I wrapped my arms around myself, shaking. My stomach soured and I gagged, struggling to catch my breath. Each exhale fighting its way out of my mouth, burning my lungs.
No.
There was no fucking way. No.
My vision doubled.
I leaned against the wall next to the door, sinking down to the floor.
This was not happening.
I closed my eyes.
The money, the gun, the reports.
What the hell did I see last night? I forced myself to relive it.
The tattooed man, the ghost flashed in my memory. A stark reality against the dark night. A monster carved of stone with blood on his hands.
My stomach twisted and I shut my eyes, leaning my forehead against the cool exterior of the building, paralyzed until I heard the car coming up the road. Someone was here.
My Pavlovian response took over. Working here, I’d learned how to calmly talk to grieving loved ones with a straight yet empathetic face from a young age.
Remember, Dad would tell me, no matter how bad of a day you might be having, they are having one which is much worse.
I tucked away my anxiety, swallowing it back until it compacted in my stomach like heavy brick to be dealt with later.
Forcing myself to my feet, I straightened my hair and waited as the car parked. A withdrawn man exited, explaining his need for services.
I went through the motions, explaining our services and determining what he wanted as I filled us each a glass of lemonade. The day wore on, the worst of my shock passed, but I couldn’t look my dad in the face.
“Do you want to come over for dinner?” he asked as we finished up.
“No,” I blurted out before he even finished. He looked up, lips parted, speechless. He looked hurt. I scrambled.
“No. Sorry, no. I’m just not hungry. Think I’m going to head to bed early, I’m beat,” I rambled, trying to deflect from my mistake. His lips closed, but his eyes were still guarded.
“All right,” he said, something too close to suspicion in his eyes for my liking. Did he know how to use that gun? It was like he was a stranger in my Dad’s clothes, and I hated it. Wished I was strong enough to confront him.
“Bright and early tomorrow,” Dad called to me as I left, reminding me we had double the workload of today tomorrow to get ready for all the funerals next weekend.
Outside, only a small sliver of daylight still peaked up from the horizon. I walked back to my cabin in the twilight, stopping just short of opening the front door.
The cool wind slicing around the cabin howled, bringing with it a sense of unease. My hand tightened on the doorknob, turning to look over my shoulder when the hairs on the back of my neck rose.
The silhouette of the trees swayed sedately in the wind. The distant trickle of the creek continued its song, unbothered. There was nothing outside of the norm and yet I couldn’t help the nagging feeling that as I looked out into the woods, something out there was looking back at me.
I shook off the unease and pushed inside, the warm silence of my cabin wrapping me up in its reassuring embrace.
I took comfort in the never changing sameness of my existence. The low couch in the small living room with the hand-me-down TV on the hand-me-down tv stand.
The kitchenette, with the old tool chest I repurposed as a kitchen island still littered with remnants of last night’s snacks and wine.
Normally, I’d feel nothing but an all-consuming, mind-numbing, boredom on my return home, but right now, the predictability was the comfort I needed.
I cranked the shower on in the bathroom, giving the water time to heat before rushing back through the cabin to the front door, deciding to lock it.
Swallowing through the tightness in my throat, I peered outside one last time, trying to shove away morbid imaginings of monsters coming out of the dark to take me. There was nothing there. No one. Just me and the bugs.
Chill out, Em, I chastised myself. Just because Dad may or may not be doing shady business with shady people doesn’t mean anyone’s coming for you.
I pulled my t-shirt off, stripping down on the way to the bathroom, needing the hot water to wash away all my sins, soothe my overtightened muscles.
I dumped my dirty laundry into the hamper and stepped under the hot stream of the shower. Through the fogged-over glass of the shower cubicle, I could see the familiar shapes of the toilet, mirror, and door, but just barely. If someone was in here with me, I would see them too.
Stop being paranoid, Em.
Running my soapy, slippery hands over my naked body, he burst back into my thoughts. His face like a Renaissance statue. And those eyes. I shivered despite the scalding water. He was dangerous.
I wondered if he would be back.
The energy around me was turbulent and full of static. My ears and eyes told me I was alone, but that knowing sensation haunted me all the way out of the shower and into bed.
I flicked through my phone, shooting off another apology text to Tess, but wound up jumping from app to app, my mind too unsettled to focus on anything. Dropping it on my nightstand, I hesitated before lifting the top book on a stack gifted to me by Tessa. I smoothed my thumb over the cover, a close up of a man with piercing gray eyes and tattoos over his collar, arching over his brow.
I bit my lip, cracked the first page, and settled into my pillow.
An hour was gone before I knew it. Then two. My promise of just one more chapter turned into five as I devoured page after page of a romance story so dark it had me questioning my own morals.
I read until my eyes couldn’t stay open another second, drifting off to sleep with images of tattooed hands around pretty throats crowding my foggy mind.
