Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 146477 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146477 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
My fists slam against the door. “Dr. McKullan,” I call out, hoping like fuck that someone’s actually in there. I never actually checked the time, but it feels quite early. He might not be in yet, but I keep trying. “Dr. McKullan. Please, open up.”
The door opens a moment later, and I find Dr. McKullan staring back at me, his brows furrowed as he takes me in. I’ve always done everything I can to appear professional in front of my boss, but right now, I couldn’t care less.
I need to know that I’m not losing my mind.
“Dr. Madden?” he grumbles, his gaze sweeping over the nasty bruises still lingering on my skin. “What are you doing here? You should be home resting. You’re in no condition to be working.”
I cringe and barge right past him. “I’m sorry,” I rush out, hurrying straight through the morgue and to the massive refrigeration unit across the back of the room. “I just . . . I need to check something. My friend, he was here. He—”
“Is everything alright, Harper?” he asks, cutting me off as he follows me deeper into the morgue, the few day shift pathologists side-eyeing me.
I shake my head, barely able to get a single thought out as I make my way down the refrigeration unit, looking for locker thirty-six. Finding it almost immediately, I grip the handle and quickly twist before yanking the door open and pulling the table right out.
Laith’s black body bag stares back at me, and I reach for the zipper without hesitation.
“Dr. Madden. What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Dr. McKullan demands, knowing damn well that I haven’t stopped to scrub in or even bothered to find a pair of gloves, let alone a pair of shoes, but that’s not important to me. I have to see Laith.
I grip the zipper tighter and pull it down, revealing the body beneath, and I suck in a loud gasp. There’s a man here, tall with dark hair. He’s attractive and has one hell of a nasty gunshot wound right in the center of his chest, but he’s not Laith.
“Where is he?” I demand, my crazed stare snapping up to Dr. McKullan as I hastily do up the bag and push the table back inside the unit. I dive for locker thirty-seven. Maybe I made a mistake. It’s rare, but it happens, and after performing Laith’s autopsy, I wasn’t exactly in the best head space. Maybe I wasn’t focused. Maybe I put him in the wrong unit. “The man who was in locker thirty-six. Laith Mitchell. Where is he?”
“What are you talking about?” Dr. McKullan questions, slowly coming closer as I pull out the next one and hastily check inside the bag, only to come up empty. “We don’t have anybody here by that name. Thirty-six belongs to a gunshot victim, James Harding.”
I stop and look back at the doctor. “No. No, that’s not right. I put him there myself. The man who was in locker thirty-six,” I repeat just in case he’s not following. He’s getting old so sometimes he forgets things. “Laith Mitchell. I performed the external part of his autopsy last Monday and put him in thirty-six. I made a note of it. That number has haunted me ever since. He was my friend. One of my best friends, and now his body is not here. I need to know where he went. Where did he go?” My gaze snaps to the girls who are trying not to gawk at me. “Did one of you move him?”
Dr. McKullan shakes his head, and I groan, diving back to the refrigeration unit and pulling out the next table as dread fills me. He can’t be lost. We don’t fuck up here. We can’t have lost him. One after another, I search the body bags, hysteria growing thick in my chest. A lump forms in my throat, making it hard to breathe, and as I check the very last bag, the tears start to flow.
“No, no, no, no,” I cry, hurrying across the morgue to the open report files. I start flicking through them, desperate to find anything on Laith. Maybe his parents had him moved. Maybe he was assigned incorrectly and was transferred. Maybe they’ve already claimed the body and buried him without me. Did I miss it while I was in the hospital after the attack?
Fuck!
The tears are uncontrollable, and as Dr. McKullan steps in beside me and lays his hand on my arm, I lift my panicked stare, unable to make sense of anything. “Harper, I’ve personally overlooked every case we’ve had. Nobody by the name Laith Mitchell has come through the morgue. Perhaps you’ve got the details wrong.”
“No. I did his autopsy. I cried while I cut his clothes off him. I read the carvings on his chest, the same ones that are on my ribs. The same as the men from the double homicide and the one before that. Laith is here. He has to be. I know it.”