Dead Case in Deadwood (44 page)

"The albino," he said. "He’s six-foot-five
with short white hair and a birthmark on his left cheek shaped like a horseshoe,
right?"

I hadn’t noticed the birthmark. When had Cooper seen the albino?

That didn’t matter now. "Yes, that’s him. He told
George that Natalie needs to be eliminated. I need to help her, but I don’t
know what to do. He’s too big for me to take down."

"Stay right where you are—wait, where exactly are you?"

"The hidden room behind the one-way glass."

"Of course you are. Don’t move. I’m on my way."

"Okay."

"I mean it, Violet. Stay put. Don’t do anything stupid."

"Thanks for that vote of confidence after I called
you
instead of going after her on my own."

"Just shut up." He hung up on me.

I pocketed my cell phone.
Hurry, Cooper!

Twisting my hands together, I walked back over to the opened
crate. One of the black bottles would make a good weapon, but I’d rather hide
behind Cooper’s badge and gun.

I picked up a bottle and pulled on the cork, putting my
nervous energy to work. It wiggled slightly. I squeezed the bottle between my
arm and rib cage and tugged on the cork.

The sound of a distant scream played through the speakers.

I gasped, my lungs frozen in fear.
Natalie!
The
bottle almost slipped from my grip.

The scream played again—louder, longer. Definitely female.

"Stop!" I cried, staring through the glass at the
dead man’s hands as if he was the one responsible.

Tears welled in my eyes, fear clogging my throat. I couldn’t
sit here. I couldn’t stand by while my best friend was murdered. Cooper was
just going to have to be pissed at me.

Clutching the bottle, I rushed through the door and into the
parlor. My muscles crackled with adrenaline, making me feel like Jackie Chan’s
sidekick, but I knew better than to leap from the frying pan into the fire. I approached
the other doorway on my tiptoes.

My visit to Mudder Brothers last week to identify the
headless corpse had taught me the layout of the building. I peeked around the
doorframe. To the left, a hallway led to a much smaller viewing room, and then
out to the bathrooms and foyer. Across the hall was an office George used to
console the deceased’s family members and plan the funeral. To my right, a doorway
led to the basement stairwell that ran parallel to the back of the building.

I kicked off my mule heels and trod barefoot down the steps,
ready to bound back up them if George or Eddie or the albino appeared below me.
At the bottom of the stair, I paused and listened. I knew the stairwell emptied
into the elbow of an L-shaped hall, but I couldn’t hear any voices or sounds of
movement.

After sneaking a quick look, I eased out from the stairwell
door. Straight ahead were two doors on the left and one on the right. I was
pretty sure the first left-side door opened to the room full of those Civil War
amputation cases and the big nasty scissors. The second door led to George’s
office, where Cooper had been waiting for me on a morning that now seemed like
years ago rather than days. The door on the right could be a gateway to the planet
Jupiter for all I knew.

To my right, the long leg of the L-shaped hall dead-ended at
two sets of closed steel doors on each side. The pair on the right led outside,
where I’d seen Ray and George hanging out with a crate a couple of times now.
Those on the left with small square windows opened to the Autopsy room.

Which way should I go? If only Natalie would let out another
scream, I’d have a heading, not to mention that I’d know she was still alive
and breathing.

One of the overhead florescent tube-lights flickered at the
end of the shorter hall, drawing my gaze. I noticed George’s office door was opened
a crack with the light on inside. A check of the autopsy room doors at the
other end of the other hall showed no light in the windows.

George’s office won the coin toss.

I tiptoed forward, shifting the bottle from one hand to the
other. My sweaty palms made the glass neck slippery. I hoped like hell the
thing wouldn’t fly right out of my hands if I had to enter swinging.

If George was alone with Natalie in his office, I might have
a chance of taking him. If the huge albino was there, too, the most I could
hope to do was delay the two men long enough for Cooper and the cavalry to
arrive. There was no way I could take the albino down, not with the way he brushed
George aside as if he were a speck of dust on his sleeve. For him, I’d need a shotgun.

George must know I was still in the building. He either
wasn’t looking for me on purpose, or was too distracted by what the albino was
doing to Natalie to pay me any mind.

Outside the door, I stopped, listening, hearing nothing. My
throat felt powder dry, fear coating the back of my tongue.

My fingers quaked as I reached out and pushed open the door.
It creaked and swung inward. The room looked the same as it had the last time,
only Cooper and his ever present frown were missing and so was any other
breathing being, thank God.

I raced inside and glanced behind the door just to make sure
there was no boogeyman hiding there. The faint scent of George’s cologne hovered
in the room, but the little man was nowhere to be seen, nor was the albino.

And no Natalie, damn it.

I inched back out into the hallway, my ears pinned back, my
internal radar scanning. The coast appeared to be as clear as it was going to
get.

Next up on my to-do list—the gateway-to-Jupiter door. It was
unlocked. When I opened it, I smelled grease, like a mechanic’s break room.
Upon further inspection, I discovered a lift system sitting in the middle of
the small room. The lift had a grated, steel-plate floor attached to a few
pulleys via cables.

On the other side of the lift, was a set of closed, windowless
steel doors. I guessed they led to the autopsy room, and this was how the
Mudders got caskets and bodies up to the parlor. It also explained how they moved
the big crates up and downstairs.

I slipped back into the hallway. The sound of a door
thumping shut around the corner and heavy footfalls coming toward me spurred
the return of the stars and tunnel-vision effect. Crap. I was going to pass out
right there at the bad guys’ feet.

With seconds to spare, I dashed inside the antiques-filled
room. The window in there could serve as an escape hatch, if needed. I eased
the door closed behind me and backed up against it, gripping the door knob. I
wanted to lock it, but if I pushed the lock button, whoever was coming might
hear the click.

Breath held, I waited for the knob to turn in my hand, for
the door to push against my back.

The sound of footsteps stopped for a count of three, and
then faded in the other direction.

After I’d gulped a couple of breaths and the haze of panic
that had filled my head cleared, I realized I’d forgotten to shut the lift room
door.

Is that why the footfalls had stopped? Had someone—namely
George—noticed the open door and gone looking for me upstairs?

My gaze skimmed over the large rectangular cases and
freaky-shaped shadows from the light seeping under the door past my feet. The
musty odor of rotting leather and cardboard reminded me of the records room
upstairs.

Why did Natalie have to poke her nose in that goddamned
crate? I could be home primping for an evening with Doc right now instead of
gearing up to arm-wrestle a huge albino.

I pulled out my cell phone and hit a button to shed more
light on the scene. Oddly enough, being able to distinguish the amputation saws
and plexi-glass cases full of old-fashioned scalpels, bone shavers, and other
deathly paraphernalia did not ease my quivering soul. That musty smell sat
heavy on the back of my tongue, making me swallow to keep from gagging.

The window beckoned. The primal need to scratch and claw my
way toward the safety of the orange streetlights and fresh air gave me a push
of courage to move away from the door, my stronghold.

I stepped over a small stack of cases. A gleam to my left caught
my attention. Within an arm’s reach, hanging on the wall, were the shiny big
scissors. The long steel blades screamed
lethal!
Now that I’d seen them
up close, I had no doubt the suckers could lop off human appendages, including
a head.

I reached out to touch one of the sharp edges, but then
pulled back. My fingerprint on a possible murder weapon might not go over well
with Cooper.

Speaking of the cop, where in the hell was he? Maybe that
explained the footfalls. Cooper might be upstairs, distracting George at this
very moment. That meant Natalie might be alone with the albino, who wouldn’t
dare do anything to make her scream while the cops were on the scene.

Unless he gagged her … or silenced her permanently.

That instinct to flee for safety eased. I turned back to the
door. It was time to stop messing around and find my best friend.

I shoved my phone into my pocket. In my other hand, I still clutched
the bottle. While my conscious mind had paused to sniff the lilies, my
subconscious remained prepared for attack. Thank God some part of me was able
to stay focused.

Easing the door open, I checked both ways. The hall was
empty. I pulled the door the rest of the way open. The small creak of the hinges
made me wince, but it was too quiet to be heard beyond the bend in the hallway.

I stepped over the threshold and pulled the door closed
behind me, turning toward the stairs.

Someone grabbed me around my waist from behind. My scream
was stifled by a large, callused hand that covered my mouth and blocked my
breath.

My attacker jerked me backwards. Our feet tangled and I stepped
on the toe of his shoe. He stumbled, dragging me with him. Just as he tried to
catch himself, I planted my right foot on the floor and shoved hard. We lurched
through the doorway into George’s office, his hand still covering my lips. Losing
his balance, he fell, dragging me down on top of him.

As we landed, I whipped my head back, trying to free my
mouth enough to bite his hand. My skull connected with something soft that
crunched from the impact. After a grunt, the hand on my lips went limp.

I shoved his hand away and scrambled to my feet, whirling
and raising the bottle at the same time just in case he was playing possum.

Then I gasped.

Detective Cooper laid spread eagle on the floor, blood seeping
from his left nostril. Uh, oh. I didn’t remember his nose being crooked before.

"Shit," I whispered and squatted over him, making
sure he still had a pulse. He did, thankfully.

Rising to my feet, I grimaced at the unmoving detective. Now
what in the hell was I going to do for backup? If Cooper didn’t bring any of
the other boys in blue with him, I was fucked.

Way to go, ninja princess.

If I lived through this mess tonight, Cooper was going to
kill me when he woke up.

A muffled high-pitched scream laden with panic rang out from
down the hall. My skin prickled at the sound of it.

I looked down at Cooper’s handgun, riding in his shoulder holster.
A cold layer of calm fell over me. I knew what I had to do.

"Enough of this shit," I whispered, putting the bottle
down on the floor next to him and yanking his gun free.

I ran out the door and down the short section of the hall, Cooper’s
gun pointed at the floor just in case a cop jumped out in front of me. At the
stairwell doorway, I banked left and hurried down the long hall. Slowing as I
neared the autopsy double doors, I crouched below the windows.

Success here would depend on the element of surprise. I squeezed
the door handle and pulled the steel slab open with my left hand, entering with
the handgun raised in my right.

The sight stopped me just over the threshold.

No. Fucking. Way.

The closing door bumped me in the ass, nudging me into the
room.

Ray lay on the autopsy table where the decapitated body had been
last week, his wrists and ankles strapped down.

Unlike the other guy, Ray still had his head. The rag
stuffed in his mouth poked out from a strip of duct-tape.

Like the decapitated body, Ray, too, was naked.

I tried not to look in the general direction of his mid-section
as I crossed toward him, but by then it was too late. The image had been burned
into my brain the moment I’d stepped into the room, the knowledge of his lack
of tan lines embedded in my memory until death did us part.

Ray’s wide, panic-filled gaze held mine. He yelled something
through the rag, but I couldn’t understand him. I ripped the tape off with a
little more glee than a rescuer probably should have and pulled the rag free. I
set the cloth down on a metal tray on a table next to Ray’s head, noticing the
array of frightening-looking autopsy tools laid out on the stainless steel.
What had they been planning for him? A live autopsy? I shuddered.

"Get me loose," Ray said, his voice raspy. "Hurry
before he comes back."

He?
Not
they
? Was he talking about Eddie?

I tucked the gun into the back of my waistband, hoping like
hell I didn’t end up with my ass shot yet again. The metal felt cool and
empowering against my sweaty lower back. No wonder Cooper was so sure of
himself.

Starting at Ray’s left hand, I tugged on the straps, keeping
my eyes averted from his naked nether regions. "What the hell is going on
here, Ray?"

"What’s it look like, Blondie?" he snapped, his
usual sneer in place.

I stopped with his hand still strapped tight and glared at
him. "Get yourself free, dickhead. I have a friend to save."

I turned to leave.

"Wait!" He cried at my back. "I’m sorry,
Violet."

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard him say my name.
It was a nice change, but I kept walking toward the door. "Fuck you, Ray."