CHAPTER THREE
Tess had worked with the dead for a lot of years, so nothing much surprised her. She’d once had a man’s hand jerk up and hit her in the side of the face just as she was about to embalm him. It had certainly gotten her blood pumping a little faster, but dead bodies did weird things sometimes.
What they didn’t do was appear out of nowhere and end up on her embalming table.
“Think this through, Tess,” she said out loud, creeping closer to the body.
Her grandmother had always told her she needed to be more Russian. Logic always trumped emotion.
“Obviously they took the van to make a pickup. The question is, why didn’t they tell me? And where did the body come from?”
There was no paperwork that she could see. And paperwork was absolutely a necessity. There had been more than one occasion when the hospital had tried to give her the wrong body. And without paperwork, she couldn’t legally take the body into possession.
“Idiots,” she muttered.
There was still no sign of anyone else—at least anyone living—in the house. Maybe they’d just crossed paths while she was looking through the house. It was a big house. Maybe right at this very moment one of them was knocking on her bedroom door—preferably Deacon, because good God those shoulders—letting her know they’d picked up a dead body and he had all the correctly signed paperwork right in his hand.
“Because they’re super-thoughtful like that,” she said, blowing out a breath.
And now she was thinking of Deacon’s shoulders. And the rest of him. Which was about the most horrible thing she could do because on a scale of one to ten, he was a twenty-two, and she had the feeling he had the ability to make all her Russian logic fly right out the window.
She sighed and put Deacon out of her mind, and then she peeked out the door and down the hallway again to make sure she was alone. What if they hadn’t brought the dead guy into the house at all? What if it was just a terrible coincidence and she’d been caught in the middle of some kind of horrible crime?
Her palms were damp with nerves and she again wiped them on her jeans, debating whether or not to close the door. Of course, then she wouldn’t have an escape if the body turned out to be a zombie and tried to eat her face off.
“I should probably cut back on the caffeine,” she muttered. “Though I haven’t had any coffee this morning, so maybe I need to increase the caffeine.”
She left the door open and headed back to the body, determined not to let her imagination get the best of her.
“No need to complicate matters. I’m sure I’m completely safe and that there’s a reasonable explanation for this.”
The body on the table didn’t seem to have an opinion one way or the other, but she liked to think he’d agree with her.
“This is what I do,” she explained to the corpse apologetically. “I reason things out. I’m all about the logic. Why can’t I fantasize about Deacon without wondering if he is a criminal? Why won’t my subconscious let me be wild and crazy? It’s damned irritating if you ask me. Being responsible is for the birds.”
She sighed and then pursed her lips together. “And I don’t need your silent judgment either. I know that one of the reasons Henry broke up with me is because I talk to dead people.” She bit her lip and moved closer to the table. “Of course, Henry was the type of man who made lists of my faults, so Henry can suck it. There’s nothing wrong with talking to the dead. Unless they start talking back. Don’t do that, okay?”
The silver necklace around the man’s neck immediately caught her attention. Not because the Star of David was unusual, but because the hospital always removed all personal belongings from the body and gave them to the immediate family. And if there was no immediate family to sign the paperwork for the body, they sent personal items along with the body in a labeled plastic bag.
It wasn’t just the jewelry—where the hospital normally removed the corpse’s clothing, this one was wearing what looked like a flight suit in dark gray. One of the sleeves had been rolled up and the front zipper had been pulled down to his navel, showing a patch of dark chest hair. There was a needle mark in the arm with the rolled-up sleeve.
“So weird,” she whispered.
He didn’t look like the normal bodies she worked on. This man was massive in size, but not with fat. The flight suit strained over muscular thighs and broad shoulders. He barely fit on the metal embalming table. He looked like one of . . . them. Except dead. His skin was cold to the touch, and though he looked to be Hispanic or Middle Eastern, he had the grayish hue of the recently deceased.
He had a puckered scar on his chest that was no doubt from a bullet, and she pressed her lips together tightly, thinking this was a man who’d cheated death on more than one occasion and now it had caught up with him. He was too young to be on her table. That was for damned sure. He looked to be in his mid- to late thirties, though death often made people look older than they were.
She spread the flight suit a little farther apart to get a better look at the scar on his chest, and maybe see whether cause of death was visible. The unease in the pit of her stomach had only intensified. Dead men without paperwork were nothing but trouble. She didn’t know that from experience, but common sense told her that was the case. She bent over to get a closer look, but there were no recent wounds that she could see.
Tess rose again and moved to zip the flight suit back up, but as soon as she tugged at the zipper the man on the table gave a great gasping wheeze and his hand clamped around her wrist. The force of his grip brought her to her knees, and terror clawed at her as his body went into a seizure, his legs jerking uncontrollably as his grip on her wrist grew tighter. It wouldn’t take much more to break it.
And then he did the unthinkable. Something none of her dead bodies had ever done before.
He sat up and stared at her out of eyes that were very much alive and very, very angry, his grip so strong she bit her lip to keep from crying out.
“You ever heard the saying about curiosity killing the cat?” a graveled voice asked from the doorway.
Her eyes wheeled around and she stared incredulously at Deacon from her crouched position on the floor. “Seriously? That’s what you’re going to say?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” He came toward her, and she felt the space close in with every step he took. Maybe she was the one who was dead and she’d been transported to Valhalla. It would certainly explain why she was surrounded by giant men who looked like gods.
“A good idea?” she repeated. “Maybe next time try ‘Hey, Tess, let me help you with the giant dead man trying to kill you.’ ”
“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but he’s not dead. Thank God,” Deacon said calmly. “We thought he was, which is why we put him here. And he’s not trying to kill you. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s just the body’s natural reaction.”
He’d said more to her in the last thirty seconds than he had in the last couple of years, and the closer he came the more worried she got. He didn’t look like her savior. He looked more like the Angel of Death. His dark hair was pulled back into a stubby tail at the base of his neck and his eyes were the iciest of blues. His skin was bronzed due to the fact he spent a great deal of time outdoors. He was built like a laborer instead of someone who spent all his time in a gym, though she knew he did that too. But when she looked at him, all she saw was . . . man. His jaw was angular and his lips—sweet Jesus—his lips were the kind that could tempt anyone to stray from well-laid plans.
She wasn’t sure which man she should be dodging, but it seemed like a good sign that Deacon was removing the hand from her wrist instead of trying to strangle her. She cradled her wrist as soon as it was free, and flexed her fingers. Nothing was broken, but she was going to be sore and bruised for a few days.
“Thanks,” she said and watched as Deacon pushed the man back down on the table. He took a syringe from his pocket and tossed the cap aside before sliding it beneath the man’s skin and pressing down the plunger.
“Umm . . . what the hell is going on here? Do you always carry syringes in your pocket? That seems dangerous.”
She was babbling, but that’s what she did when she was nervous. It didn’t seem to matter though, because Deacon’s full attention was on the man on her table. Almost immediately, the seizure stopped and the man’s body went slack. He no longer had the grayish hue of the dead.
Deacon put two fingers at the man’s neck and felt for a pulse. Tess was guessing he must’ve found one, because he dropped his hand and nodded with satisfaction.
“Now that you know your boy is alive, can you answer my questions?” she asked.
He looked at her, his eyes piercing, but he didn’t answer.
“Hello?” she said. “I’m talking to you, Valhalla,” she said, cradling her wrist as she rose slowly to her feet.
“You need to get some ice on that,” he said.
“No shit. A dead guy just latched onto me like I was his last meal.”
“You’re being dramatic. It’s not like he was trying to eat you. It was just an automatic reflex. It happens.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said incredulously. “And I should know because I see some pretty strange stuff.” She took a couple of steps toward him and his eyes widened the closer she got. “Do dead guys in your world normally sit up and start breathing again too?”
He shrugged and looked down at his watch, as if he’d already given her too much of his time. “It can happen.”
“No!” She seethed. “When someone dies, they usually stay dead. I’ve had it with you people. I want to know what the hell is going on around here. You guys swoop in like Satan’s army and make camp in Last Stop like it makes sense, when it doesn’t make any sense at all. A funeral home of this size doesn’t need five full-time employees. It’s ridiculous. You’d be of better use figuring out why the pipes rattle in my bathroom or whether or not the floor is rotting in front of my fireplace.” She paused to take a breath, but not for long. “I have nightmares about falling straight through to the bottom floor.”
“I can fix your floor,” he offered. “And the pipes.”
“Really?” she asked, losing her train of thought. “Because that would be great. I didn’t get upgraded like the rest of the place. I’m in steerage.”
His lips quirked and she felt a small victory. She could count the number of times she’d seen him smile on one hand.
“Anyway, thanks for the flooring offer. I’ll take you up on it. But that’s not my point. My point is random dead guys don’t just show up out of the middle of nowhere. And people don’t just bring them back to life.”
“Isn’t that what doctors do?” he asked.
She narrowed her eyes and put fists at her hips. “Don’t be deliberately obtuse. And you’re not a doctor.”
“How do you know?” he asked. “You don’t know anything about me.”
She stared at him blankly for a second and realized he was right. “Are you a doctor?”
“No, but I could be.”
She growled and he full-out grinned this time. Apparently her temper was entertaining.
“I’m in charge here. What I know is that you or one of the others took the transport van out in the middle of the night, without letting me know I might add, and you came back with a body and no paperwork.”
“If you’d woken up at your usual time, you wouldn’t have seen him at all. We just needed a quick place to put him while we tended to some other things. I’m really glad Eve put that tile floor in. It makes cleanup a lot easier.”
“So what you’re saying is if I hadn’t had insomnia I’d have never known the difference.”
“Pretty much. You’re a creature of habit. We can set our clocks by you for the most part. We had a small setback while we were out, and time wasn’t on our side. It was a simple race against the clock.”
“So y’all frequently use company equipment to joyride and pick up random bodies while I’m sleeping?” Her temper was on the edge of the boiling point.
“Not random,” he said.
“If you hadn’t showed up when you did, he could’ve killed me.”
“If you’d stayed asleep until seven, you’d have never been in danger.”
“So this is my fault?” she asked incredulously.
“More or less.”
“You must be out of your damned mind.”
“I wouldn’t have let him hurt you,” he said, shrugging.
“How would you have stopped him? It was just chance that you happened to walk by.”
“I never do anything by chance.”
“You are the most maddening man I’ve ever met in my whole life.”
“Thank you,” he said, nodding.
“It wasn’t a compliment!” She paced back and forth along the side of the body. “I’m the person responsible for anything that happens with the funeral home. Did you kidnap this man? Are the police going to be banging down the door looking for him? I deserve an explanation.”
He stared at her a few seconds, his face set in determined lines. She wouldn’t be intimidated by his size, and she wouldn’t back down.
“No,” he said after a moment of silence, and turned around and walked out of the embalming room.
Her mouth hung open in a surprised O, and then her brain processed his rudeness and she ran after him.
“What do you mean, no? You can’t just say no. That’s ridiculous.” He was already to the other end of the hall. “Good grief,” she muttered under her breath and sprinted after him. “He’s like a damned gazelle.”
“My hearing is excellent,” he said.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with that guy?” she asked. “I’ve got a body to prep today.”
“He’ll be out of your way in the next couple of hours. Don’t worry about it.”
“Oh, sure. No problem. I’ll completely ignore the hulking guy on my table. I’ll just put Mrs. Schriever right on top of him while I get the liver spots off her face. My mother is going to have a cow.”
He stopped in his tracks at that, and she ran right smack into his back with an mmmph. “Your mother is coming today?” he asked.
“She’s doing Mrs. Schriever’s hair. Why?”
“No reason. I’ll warn Dante. She bit him once.”
Tess pursed her lips tightly. “She has a fondness for British men. I guess she couldn’t help herself.”
Deacon’s lips twitched and he moved forward, but she rushed in front of him. “I’m serious, Deacon. I need to know what’s going on here. I’m not stupid. I’ve got eyes and ears. This was supposed to be my funeral home. I’ve put blood, sweat, and tears into this place for a long time. But then you guys move in and all of a sudden there’s a room I can’t access inside the casket showroom and the carriage house is protected like Fort Knox.” He shook his head like he was going to deny it, but she cut him off before he could speak. “Do me a favor and don’t lie to me. I’d rather you ignore my questions than lie.”
His lips pinched together, but he eventually nodded. He didn’t deny or confirm her accusation of the hidden room.
“My grandmother’s ring got stuck in one of the memory compartments on one of the caskets, and I was on the floor trying to get it unstuck. Axel didn’t notice me when he came in and went to the back wall with the three stacked caskets. I couldn’t see what he did to open it, but the wall slid open. I’ve known about it almost since the beginning.”
“Interesting,” Deacon said. “I’d really love to talk, but I need to get a couple hours of sleep before our new friend wakes up. He’s going to take a lot of energy to deal with. Just let him sleep it off and stay out of his way.”
“Yebat’, chto,” she said.
In loose translation, it meant something along the lines of “Fuck that.” Her grandmother had taught her all the really important sayings before she’d started school. She’d been the only kid in kindergarten who could call her teacher a Commie bastard and get away with it.
“Nerazumnym zemleroyka,” he popped back.
Her mouth dropped open as he answered in the language of her childhood.
“An unreasonable shrew?” she asked, her voice pitching higher on the last word. “An unreasonable shrew?”
She spat back in a tirade of back-alley Russian that would have made her grandmother proud. Her body was hot all over, and she figured she probably looked like a teakettle ready to blow, complete with steam coming out of her ears.
His brows rose high and he said, “Pretty talk.”
“I haven’t even gotten started,” she said, blocking his attempts to get around her. “And since we’re on the subject—”
“No we’re not,” he said, picking her up by the elbows and lifting her to the side.
She wasn’t deterred. “I was told you all were experienced employees and mortuary assistants. You’ve always helped when help was needed, but none of you know Jack squat about digging graves or your way around an embalming table. Or even what to do with the fluids for cleanup. The first time Axel assisted with an embalming I thought he was going to vomit. I’ve never seen a man gag like that.”
A definite twinkle came into his eyes at that bit of information.
Tess crossed her arms. “I’m not stupid, so I know there’s a specific reason she put you here. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t care. Okay, maybe I care a little, but only because I’m curious. What I really care about is my reputation and whether or not it gets damaged. Whatever the real scenario is with the body in the embalming room, it doesn’t play out well. You were surprised he was alive. Which begs the question, did you try to kill him or try to save him? And when did you learn to speak Russian? I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone.”
“I’m never surprised by anything,” Deacon said, expertly ducking all her questions. “Being surprised usually leads to being dead.”
“That’s very philosophical. But it still doesn’t explain the very alive man on the embalming table.”
“Like I said, he’ll be out of your hair in a couple of hours. You’ll be seeing him around once he gets used to this place. We’ve all gotten along just fine. Don’t start sticking your nose places it might get cut off.”
“Like I said, I’m tired of being kept in the dark. I’m not even sure what I’m still doing here, other than it’s the only thing I’ve ever done. I’m about this close to walking out of here for good and letting you explain to the nosey people in this town why you can’t bury their loved ones because you don’t know a vein expander from a hole in the ground.”
“You think you’re irreplaceable?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Of course not.” It was the first time she’d voiced her thoughts of leaving out loud, and it felt powerful. Or maybe that was her temper. Either way, she was bound to say something she’d regret later once her good sense returned. “Everyone’s replaceable. But I won’t be bullied into doing things I don’t agree with. And I won’t be steamrolled by the five of you because you’re taking orders from Eve Winter instead of me. I’ll do my job the right way or I won’t do it at all.
“So if this is the way you plan to do things, you can relay my resignation to your boss. Don’t ever underestimate the people in this town. They’re nosey as hell, and if I leave here they’re going to invade your personal space like you’ve never imagined. They’re going to ask questions, no matter how personal. And then they’re going to take their business into the city, because they’re not going to let an outsider they don’t trust handle the bodies of their loved ones. Only there’s just one problem with that.”
“And what would that be?”
She moved in a step closer, so her chin almost touched his chest. “It’s going to be pretty difficult to explain to the feds why enough income for ten funerals a month comes in consistently when we’re lucky to do one. The money has to come from somewhere, right? Maybe they can find out whatever scam it is you’re running and using the funeral home to do so. Maybe I should go wake the John Doe on the table in there and ask him what he knows before you get your hands on him.”
“That would be a mistake,” he said gravely. “A big one.”
“I don’t appreciate being used to take the fall for whatever kind of fraud you’re involved in. I don’t know what scheme you’re running, and I don’t care. But I’ll be damned if I’ll have the IRS or FBI looking at me as the responsible party because my name is on the account and I write all the checks.”
His eyes went frigid and she hoped to God he couldn’t smell her fear. Because once she’d started talking she hadn’t been able to shut up. It was like the pseudo-dead guy on her embalming table was the last straw, and something in her had cracked. Up until this point it had just been her gut telling her something was off with her sexy and secretive employees. It hadn’t stopped her imagination from picturing them as part of a prostitution ring or black-market baby scheme, but she figured most of that had to do with the fact that she read a lot of romance novels. The body on her table was a different story. She deserved some answers.
All five-foot-six of her faced off against a man who looked like he’d have no problem snapping her neck.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, Tessera.”
She narrowed her eyes and said, “Don’t call me by my full name. And how in the world do you even know that name anyway?”
“It’s beautiful,” he told her.
She backed up a step and crossed her arms over her chest. She was never very comfortable with compliments, so she ignored him. “Besides, we wouldn’t have to play any games if you just told me the truth. This is my life you’re messing with.”
He took a step forward, until their bodies were almost touching and his gaze bore into hers. Her breathing was ragged and her heart pounded in her chest, and she felt the electricity from their tempers and the storm crackling between them.
He leaned a little closer, and then he said, “Has anyone ever told you you look a little bit like a hedgehog when you’re angry? It’s terrifying.”
Tess didn’t recognize the sound that escaped her lips, but she thought the synapses in her brain must’ve been exploding one by one, because all she saw was red. And then he leaned the rest of the way down and kissed her right on the lips.
The heat that was already infusing her body went molten as his lips pressed hard against hers. He didn’t touch her anywhere else, and her arms dropped to her side as she went boneless. He tasted of mint and man, and her tongue stroked against his. She felt as if she were falling, and she brought her hands up to grasp hold, but he pulled away from her mouth and took a moment to nuzzle her neck before taking a step back.
There was a loud buzzing in her ears, and it had been going on awhile before she realized someone was at the door. It was followed by three loud knocks.
“Tess, open up. It’s Cal.”
Cal Dougherty was the sheriff in Last Stop. Her eyes widened and she looked up at Deacon, but he’d already taken a step back. The teasing glint that had been in his eyes was gone, and in its place was the same unreadable mask she’d seen for the last two years. She wanted to kick him in the shin, but she figured it was probably best to refrain. Deacon was a bit of a wild card.
“Sounds like you’ve got business to tend to,” he said, stepping around her. “I’ll let you get back to work.”
Her emotions were wreaking havoc inside her body. All she’d wanted was a few answers. Instead she’d had the rug pulled out from under her. What the heck had been with that kiss? She’d imagined kissing him for two years, though in her fantasies it had transpired a little differently. There hadn’t been the arguing. And he hadn’t called her a hedgehog. Other than that it was as spectacular as she’d imagined.
“Why did you kiss me?” she asked him hotly.
“Because I wanted to.”
“Seems awfully coincidental that you’d pick now of all times.”
“You’re very cynical.” His voice was calm and his breathing even, as if he hadn’t just had his tongue in her mouth.
“I’ve got reason to be.”
“Not really. You dodged a bullet with that jackass you were engaged to. I can’t believe you were even engaged. He wasn’t your type at all. You’d railroad a man like that in no time.”
She huffed indignantly. “I would not,” she said. “I’m not some overbearing nag. I’m a very nice person. Dammit.”
Bang, bang, bang. “Tess, are you in there?” Cal called out again.
“You are a very nice person,” he agreed, pacifying her a little. “But putting your personality with his would be like letting a hurricane loose on a trailer park. You’d mop the floor with him and come to resent him. And you wouldn’t be able to pretend to be the meek and subservient wife forever, which was how you ended up engaged in the first place.”
Her hands went back to her hips and she scowled. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t realize you’d been such an active part of my relationship. No wonder you have such insight. Maybe you could’ve told me all this a couple of years ago instead of letting me make an ass of myself in front of the entire town.”
“Sometimes you’ve got to learn lessons the hard way. Besides, it was pretty entertaining the way you threw that ring into that Dumpster. And it was more entertaining to watch him go in after it. What’d you do with it? I know you didn’t actually throw it in that Dumpster.”
She narrowed her eyes. “How do you know that?”
“I’m observant. It’s part of the job.”
“Which job would that be?”
Buzz. Buzz.
He just smiled.
“You know, I don’t think I’m cut out for whatever is happening here,” she said. “I’d already been considering a change, but I’m feeling pretty strongly about it now. I’m resigning.”
“No, you’re not.” And with that, he moved around her and headed out the kitchen door and into the rain.
“I’m really getting tired of you telling me no,” she yelled after him, and then went to let in the sheriff.
In her experience, it usually wasn’t good news when the cops showed up at the door before the sun had risen.