Love Bites Read online

Chapter One

 

  "Yo, Rach. I'm gonna grab a Java. You want anything?"

  Rachel Garrett straightened and wiped the back of her gloved hand across her forehead. She had been bouncing between the chills and fever since arriving at work two hours earlier. At the moment, she was in a hot phase. Sweat was gathering across her back and along her scalp. She was obviously coming down with something nasty.

  Her gaze slid to the clock on the wall. Almost one. Two hours down, six to go. She almost groaned. Six more hours. The way this flu bug was coming on, it was doubtful she'd last half of that.

  "Hey! You feeling all right, Rach? You look like hell. "

  Rachel grimaced as her assistant moved to her side and felt her forehead. Like hell? Men could be so tactful.

  "Cold. Clammy. " He frowned and asked, "Fever and chills?"

  "I'm fine. " Rachel pushed his hand away with embarrassed irritation, then reached into her pocket for some change. "Okay, Tony. Maybe you could get me some juice or something. "

  "Oh, yeah. You're fine. "

  Rachel stilled at his dry words, suddenly realizing she had pushed her smock aside and shoved her hand into her pants pocket without removing her bloody rubber glove first. Great.

  "Maybe you should--"

  "I'm fine," she said again. "I'll be fine. Just go on. "

  Tony hesitated then shrugged. "Okay. But you might want to maybe sit down or something till I get back. "

  Rachel ignored the suggestion and turned back to her cadaver as Tony left. He was a nice guy. A little weird maybe. For instance, he insisted on talking like a Goodfella from the Bronx when he had been born, raised, and never left Toronto. He also wasn't Italian. Tony wasn't even his real name. The name he'd been given at birth was Teodozjusz Schweinberger. Rachel had complete sympathy with the name change, but she didn't understand how the bad accent came with it.

  "Incoming!"

  Rachel glanced at the open door to the main room of the morgue. Setting down her scalpel, she stripped the rubber glove from her right hand and walked out to meet the men propelling a gurney inside. Dale and Fred. Nice guys. A couple of EMTs whom she rarely saw. They generally delivered their clientele to the hospital alive. Of course, some died after arrival, but it was usually after these two had already been and gone. This patient must have died in transit.

  "Hi, Rachel! You're looking. . . good. "

  She crossed the room to join them, politely ignoring Dale's hesitation. Tony had made it more than plain how she looked. "What have we here?"

  Dale handed her a clipboard with various sheets of paper. "Gunshot wound. Thought we got a beat before transporting from the scene but might have been wrong. For the record, he died in transit. Doc Westin pronounced him gone when we got here and asked us to bring him down. They'll want an autopsy, bullet retrieval, and so on. "

  "Hmm. " Rachel let the paperwork fall back into place, then moved to the end of the room to grab one of the special stainless steel gumeys used for autopsies. She rolled it back to the EMTs. "Can you switch him over onto this while I sign?"

  "Sure. "

  "Thanks. " Leaving them to it, she moved to the desk in the corner in search of a pen. She signed the necessary papers, then walked back as the EMTs finished shifting the body. The sheet that had covered it for the trip through the hospital was now missing. Rachel paused and stared.

  The latest addition to the morgue was a handsome man, no more than thirty, with dirty blond hair. Rachel took in his pale chiseled features, wishing she'd seen him while he was alive and that she'd known what he looked like with his eyes open. She rarely thought of her work as having been at one time living, breathing beings. It made her job impossible if she considered that the bodies she worked on were mothers, brothers, sisters, grandfathers. . . But this man she couldn't ignore. She imagined him smiling and laughing, and in her mind he had silver eyes the likes of which she'd never seen.

  "Rachel?"

  She blinked in confusion and stared up at Dale. The fact that she was now sitting was a bit startling. The men had apparently rolled the wheeled desk chair over and urged her into it. Both EMTs were hovering over her, worry on their faces.

  "You nearly fainted, I think," Dale said. "You were swaying and all white-faced. How are you feeling?"

  "Oh. " She gave an embarrassed laugh and waved her hand. "I'm fine. Really. I think I'm coming down with something, though. Chills then fever. " She shrugged.

  Dale placed the back of a hand to her forehead and frowned. "Maybe you should go home. You're burning up. "

  Rachel felt her face and was alarmed to note that he was right. It crossed her mind to hope that the speed and strength with which this bug had hit her wasn't an omen of how bad it was going to be. And if it was bad, she hoped it would burn out as quickly as it had come. She hated being sick.

  "Rachel?"

  "Huh?" She glanced at the concerned faces of the EMTs and forced herself upright. "Oh, yeah. Sorry. Yes, I might go home early when Tony gets back. In the meantime, I signed for the body and everything. " She retrieved the necessary paperwork and handed back the rest. Dale accepted the clipboard, then exchanged an uncertain glance with Fred. Both appeared reluctant to leave her alone.

  "I'm fine, really," she assured them. "And Tony just went out to grab us some drinks. He'll be back shortly. You two go on. "

  "Okay. " Dale still sounded reticent. "Just do us a favor and keep your butt in that chair till he does, huh? If you faint and hit your head. . . "

  Rachel nodded. "Sure. You two go on. I'll just rest till Tony gets back. "

  Dale didn't look like he believed her, but he had little choice. He followed Fred to the door. "Okay. Well, we're out of here then. "

  "See you later," Fred added.

  Rachel watched them leave, then sat still for a moment as promised. It wasn't long before she became impatient, though. She wasn't used to being inactive. Her gaze slid to the body on the gurney. A shooting vic. Those were rare. It meant there was a shooter out there running around Toronto. It also meant this man had become her top priority. The police would want the bullet for forensics testing, which meant she wasn't going home after Tony came back. At least, not until she had removed the bullet. The official autopsy wouldn't be done until morning, but retrieving the bullet was her job. As head coroner at night, it was her responsibility.

  Straightening her shoulders, she stood and moved to the table. Peering down at her newest customer, she said, "You picked a heck of a night to get shot, my friend. "

  Her gaze slid over his face. He really had been a looker. It seemed a real shame that he was dead--but then it was always a shame when people died. Shrugging such thoughts aside, Rachel grabbed her tray of equipment and rolled it over. She looked the body over once more before setting to work.

  The EMTs had ripped his shirt open, then laid it back across his chest. He was still fully clothed and in a rather sharp--not to mention expensive--designer suit. "Nice duds. Obviously a man of taste and means," she commented, admiring the cut of the suit and the body beneath. "Unfortunately, your suit has to go. "

  Picking up the shears from the equipment table, she quickly and efficiently cut away the suit coat and shirt. As the cloth fell back, Rachel paused to take in what was revealed. Normally, she would have simply moved on to remove the cadaver's pants and underwear, but the fever was affecting her strength. Her arms felt all rubbery, her fingers limp and awkward. She decided a change in routine wouldn't hurt. She would start recording her findings of his upper body before she moved on to try to remove the clothing from his lower body. With any luck, Tony would be back by then to help.

  Setting the shears aside, she reached up to swing the overhead light and the microphone directly over his chest. Then she switched the microphone on.

  "The subject is. . . Oh, shoot!" Rachel flicked the microphone off. Quickly retrieving the paperwork Dale and Fred had left behind, she scanned the informati
on in search of a name. She frowned. There wasn't one. He was a John Doe. Well-dressed, but without identification. It made her wonder if that was the reason behind the shooting. Perhaps he'd been shot and robbed of his wallet. Her gaze went to the man. It seemed a real shame he was dead for nothing more than a couple of bucks. What a crazy world.

  Setting the paperwork down, Rachel flicked the microphone back on. "Dr. Garrett examining shooting victim John Doe. John Doe is a Caucasian, male, approximately 6-foot-four," she guessed, leaving actual measurements for later. "He is a very healthy specimen. "

  She turned off the microphone again and took her time looking him over. "Very healthy" was an understatement. John Doe was built like an athlete. He had a flat stomach, a wide chest, and muscular arms to go with his handsome face. Picking up one arm then the other, Rachel lifted each to examine its underside before stepping back with a frown. He hadn't a single identifying mark. No scars or birthmarks. There was nothing that could be considered an identifying feature on the man. Other than the gunshot wound over his heart, the man was completely flawless. Even his fingers were perfect.

  "Strange," Rachel muttered to herself. Usually there were at least a couple of scars--an appendicitis scar, small ones on the hands from past wounds, or something. But this man was completely unmarred. His hands and fingers were even callous free. Idle rich? She wondered and peered at his face again. Classically handsome. No tan, though. Jet-setters usually had tans from the sunny spots they visited or from the tanning salon.

  Deciding she was wasting time on such suppositions, Rachel gave her head a shake and turned the microphone back on. "Subject has no identifying features or scars on the front upper body except for the gunshot wound. Death, upon first glance, appears to be due to exsanguination caused by the aforementioned wound. "

  She left the microphone on as she reached for the forceps to remove the bullet. The recorder was sound-activated, so it would only record what she said anyway. Later she would use the tape to write up her report, leaving out any muttered comments it caught that were irrelevant to the case.

  Rachel measured and described the size of the gunshot wound, as well as its placement on the body, then set to work cautiously easing her forceps into the hole, moving slowly and carefully to be sure she was following the path of the bullet and not pushing through undamaged tissue. A moment later, she had reached and grasped the missile and was drawing it carefully back out.

  Murmuring a triumphant "Ah ha!" she straightened with the bullet caught in the spoon of the forceps. Turning toward the tray, Rachel paused with irritation when she realized there was no container for it. Such things weren't normally needed, and she hadn't thought to grab one. Muttering under her breath at her lack of forethought, she moved away from the table to the row of cupboards and drawers to search.

  While looking, Rachel pondered where Tony had got to. His five-minute trip in search of beverages had become a rather lengthy absence. She suspected it was a certain little nurse who worked on the fifth floor who was holding him up. Tony had fallen hard for the girl and knew her schedule like the back of his hand. He usually arranged his breaks around hers. If she was in the cafeteria when he arrived, Rachel could count on his taking his full break now. Not that she minded. If she did go home after removing this bullet, he would have no one to relieve him for the rest of the night.

  Finding what she'd been looking for, Rachel packaged the bullet, then carried it to her desk to make out an identification tag. It wouldn't do for evidence to get misplaced or to be left lying around without a label. Of course, she couldn't find the labels right away and wasted several minutes looking for them. Then she messed up three before getting one right. It was all a good indication that Rachel wasn't on the ball tonight, and that going home was a good idea. She was a perfectionist, and such little mistakes were frustrating, even embarrassing.

  Exasperated with herself and her weakened state, Rachel smoothed the label onto its container, then paused as she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned, expecting Tony to have returned, but the room was empty. There was just herself and John Doe on the gurney. Her feverish mind was beginning to play tricks on her.

  Rachel shook her head and stood. Alarm shot through her as she noted that her legs were a touch shaky. Her fever was skyrocketing. It was as if a furnace switch had been flicked on, taking her from cold and clammy to burning up in a heartbeat.

  A rustle drew her attention back to the gurney. Was that right hand where it had been the last time she looked? Rachel could have sworn she'd laid his hand back palm down after examining it for identifying scars, yet now it was palm up, the fingers relaxed.

  Her gaze travelled up the arm to the face, and Rachel frowned at its expression. The man had died with a blank, almost stunned look, which had remained frozen in death. But now he wore more of a pained grimace. Didn't he? Maybe she was imagining things. She must be imagining things. The man was dead. He hadn't moved his hand or changed his expression.

  "You've been working the night shift too long," Rachel muttered to herself. Slowly she moved back to the gurney. She still had to remove the rest of the corpse's clothes and examine his lower front body.

  Of course, she would need help from Tony in turning the man to examine his back. His lower front could wait until Tony returned too, but Rachel decided against it. The sooner she got out of there and went home to bed, the better. It was smarter to get as much done, as possible now, before her assistant returned. Which meant cutting away the shooting vic's pants. To that end, Rachel reached for the shears--then realized she hadn't checked for head wounds.

  It was doubtful he'd been shot in the head. At least, she hadn't seen any evidence. Fred and Dale would have mentioned it too. And despite their claims of thinking they'd got a heartbeat, then losing it, the man would have died instantly when the bullet hit his heart. Still, she had to check.

  Leaving the shears where they were, Rachel moved to stand at the top of the gurney and did a quick examination of the vic's head. The man had lovely blond hair, the healthiest she had ever seen. Rachel wished her own red locks were half as healthy. Finding nothing, not even a small abrasion, she gently set his head back down and returned to the side of the gurney.

  Retrieving the shears, Rachel opened and closed them as she eyed the waist of the man's suit pants, but she didn't immediately start cutting. Oddly enough, she was rather hesitant to do so. She hadn't felt shy about cutting off a guy's pants since medical school, and had no idea why she was now.

  Her gaze slid up over his chest again. Jeez, he was really built. His legs were probably as muscular, Rachel supposed, and she was chagrined to note that she was more than just a little curious. Which was probably the reason for her hesitation, she decided. She wasn't used to feeling anything like this while examining a subject, and she felt embarrassed. Man, this fever was really playing havoc with her thinking.

  Even pale and lifeless, John Doe was an attractive man. Mind you, he didn't appear quite as pale and lifeless as the usual clientele. He looked as if he were simply napping.

  Her eyes traveled back to his face. She found him really appealing, which was alarming. Being attracted to a dead man seemed a little sick. But Rachel reassured herself that it was just a reflection of how dry her social life had been. Her work hours made dating difficult. While most people were going out and having fun, she was working. Yes, the nightshift had put a real crimp in her lovelife.

  Well, in truth, her lovelife had never been very exciting. Rachel had shot up in height as a pre-teen and remained taller than all the other kids in her age group through high school. It had left her shy and self-conscious, and had managed to ensure that she grew into something of a wallflower. Getting the job on the nightshift at the morgue had merely increased her difficulties. But it had also been a handy excuse when people asked about her non-existent lovelife. She could easily blame her job.

  Things were getting pretty bad, however,
when she began finding herself attracted to corpses. It was probably a good thing she was trying to get off the night-shift. All this alone time couldn't be healthy.

  Forcing her gaze away from the corpse's too pretty face, Rachel let her gaze slide over the instruments of her job and once again marvelled that she had chosen to work in this field. She had always hated anything having to do with doctors and doctor visits. Needles were a nightmare and she was the biggest wuss on the planet when it came to pain. So, of course, she'd got a job in the morgue of a hospital where needles and pain were a constant companion. Rachel supposed it was a subconscious rebellion of sorts, a refusal to allow her fears to hold her back.

  Despite herself, Rachel eyed John Doe's chest, pausing abruptly at the gunshot wound. Had the opening grown smaller? She stared at it silently, then blinked as the chest appeared to rise and fall.

  "Eyes playing tricks," Rachel muttered, forcing herself to look away. She'd pulled a bullet out of the guy's heart. He was definitely dead. Dead guys didn't breathe. Determined to get this over with quickly so that she could refrigerate him and stop imagining things, she turned back to his pants and slid one blade of her shears under the material.

  "Sorry about this. I hate to ruin a perfectly good pair of pants, but. . . " She shrugged and started to slice through the material.

  "But what?"

  Rachel froze, her head jerking toward the man's face. The sight of his eyes--open and focused on her--made her shriek and leap back. Almost tumbling to the ground on shaky legs, she gaped in horror. The corpse stared back.

  She closed her eyes and reopened them, but the guy was still lying there looking at her. "This isn't good," she said.

  "What isn't good?" he asked with interest.

  His voice sounded weak. But, hey! For a dead guy, even a weak voice was a neat trick. Rachel shook her head in awe.

  "What isn't good?" the corpse asked again, sounding a little stronger this time.

  "I'm hallucinating," Rachel explained politely, then noticed the stranger's eyes. She paused to stare at them. Rachel had never seen such gorgeous eyes. Like her earlier imaginings, they were an exotic silver-blue. She had never seen eyes that shade before. In fact, had she been asked, she would have said they were a scientific impossibility.

  Rachel relaxed, and the fear and tension slipped out of her. She had never seen silver eyes before. They didn't exist. Earlier she'd imagined his eyes were silver, and she was obviously imagining now that they were wide open and that color. There was suddenly no doubt in her mind; she was hallucinating, and it was all due to her skyrocketing temperature. Jeez, it must have hit dangerous levels.

  The corpse sat up, drawing Rachel's attention back to him. She had to remind herself, "It's a hallucination. The fever. "

  John Doe's eyes narrowed on her. "You have a fever? That explains it. "

  "Explains what?" Rachel asked, then grimaced as she realized she was talking to her hallucination. Which maybe wasn't much worse than talking to dead people, she reasoned, and she did that all the time. Besides, the stiff had a really nice voice, kind of warm and whiskey smooth. She wouldn't mind some whiskey. Tea, lemon, honey, and whiskey. Yes, a hot toddy would fix her right up and nip these hallucinations in the bud. Or simply make it so she didn't care about them. Either way would be fine.

  "Why you won't come to me?"

  Rachel glanced back at the corpse. He wasn't making much sense, but then who said hallucinations had to? She tried to reason with him. "Why would I come to you? You aren't real. You aren't even sitting up. "

  "I'm not?"

  "No, I just think you are. In reality, you're still really lying there dead. I'm just imagining you sitting up and talking. "

  "Hmm. " He grinned suddenly. It was a nice grin. "How do you know?"

  "Because dead men don't sit up and talk," she explained patiently. "Please lie back down now. My head is starting to spin. "

  "But what if I'm not dead?"

  That stumped her a minute, but then Rachel recalled that she was feverish and he wasn't really sitting up at all. She decided to prove her point by stepping forward and swinging out, expecting her hand to sail through thin air. Instead, it slammed into a hard chin. The corpse cried out in surprised pain, but Rachel hardly noticed--she was busy shrieking and leaping away again. Her hand stung, but she was too busy yelling to care. The dead man was sitting up.

  The room that had been spinning moments before suddenly stopped. It began to darken. "Darn. I'm going to faint," Rachel realized with horror. She told her corpse almost apologetically, "I never faint. Really. "

  Etienne watched the tall redhead slip to the floor, then slid carefully off the cold metal table and peered around. He was in the morgue. The realization made him grimace. This was not somewhere he'd ever, in three hundred years of living, aspired to be.

  Giving a shudder he knelt to examine the woman. The moment he bent to touch her forehead, though, the room immediately began to revolve. It was a result of his weakened state. He'd lost way too much blood--first to the chest wound, then to healing it. He would have to replace that blood soon, but not with this woman's. She was obviously ill, which meant her blood would do little good. He would have to find another source, and soon. But for the moment he would have to ignore his need and weakness the best he could. There were things he had to do.

  Etienne brushed the hair away from the woman's face and took in her pallor. Her head had hit the floor with an audible crack. He wasn't surprised to find a bump and an abrasion there. She would have a terrible headache when she awoke, but otherwise she would be fine. Reassured that she was relatively unscathed, he concentrated on attempting to ensure that she wouldn't recall his arrival--that memory, combined with his disappearance from the morgue, could raise all sorts of questions he didn't need. Etienne sought her mind with his own, but found her oddly elusive. He couldn't seem to get into her thoughts.

  He frowned over the turn of events. Most minds were open books to him. He had never run into this problem before. Except for Pudge, he admitted with a touch of regret. He had never been able to get through the pain and confusion in that boy's head to reach his thoughts and eliminate his knowledge of Etienne's family's special situation. Had Etienne been able, things would have never reached this juncture.

  He blamed himself. Etienne considered his inability to sort through the pain and loss in Pudge's mind as a personal failure. Pudge had suffered greatly in the last six months or so: the loss of Rebecca, a woman he had loved and been engaged to marry. Etienne had known her. She had been a processor of high caliber and as sweet as a sunny summer day. She had been something special. Her death in a car accident had been tragic. For Pudge, it had rocked his world. The subsequent death of the man's mother had finished pushing him into a world of pain.

  Etienne simply wasn't strong enough to suffer with the lad. The one time he had tried, the loss tearing at Pudge's thoughts had touched Etienne in ways he wouldn't even admit. He didn't know how anyone could suffer the heart-sore state Pudge did without losing his mind. Etienne had barely touched those feelings and had come away both sad and terribly depressed. Pudge experienced it twenty-four hours a day on a daily basis. Etienne fully understood how the other man would seize on the knowledge he had garnered regarding Etienne's supernatural status and use it to give him a purpose in life. It gave the boy something of a shield between himself and his loss.

  Etienne had experienced such pain and compassion for the fellow, he had refused to try to sort through his thoughts and try to eliminate the more dangerous memories. But that had left him wide open to attack by the man, which wasn't the most ideal scenario--as tonight's latest murder attempt proved. It was time to try a different tactic. The problem was, Etienne didn't know what that should be. Eliminating the problem seemed easiest, but such a solution was always a last resort. Besides, Etienne couldn't accept the idea of killing someone who was suffering so horribly. It was rather like kicking a do
g when it was down.

  Shrugging away his upsetting thoughts, Etienne contemplated the redhead again, wondering why he couldn't seem to get into her mind. Loss and pain and teetering on the verge of insanity were not what he was sensing from this woman. The only sensation he had felt was an infinite sense of loneliness, something Etienne was used to feeling himself.

  His difficulty now must be because he was so weak, he decided. Well, the woman's fever combined with the knock on her head should convince her she had hallucinated. The woman had claimed he was an hallucination while still conscious, so perhaps that was enough.

  Etienne's fingers were smeared with blood when he set her head back on the floor. After a moment's hesitation, he lifted his fingers to his nose, sniffed the sweet scent, then chanced a lick. He frowned. The poor woman needed vitamins or something; she was bordering on anemic. Or perhaps that was just a result of her illness.

  Despite himself, his gaze went to her neck. He was so hungry. Etienne fought the temptation to bite her. He needed blood, but it wouldn't help him to take it from someone who was ill. And this woman was definitely ill. Her skin had felt on fire under his cool hand, and her face was flushed with blood. The scent of it was driving him wild and making his body cramp with hunger. His body didn't care that she was ill and would do him little good, it smelled blood and wanted some.

  Forcing his basest instincts away, he straightened, grabbing weakly at the edge of the table he had been lying on to keep his balance when the room again swayed. He was waiting for his legs to regain some strength when the swinging doors behind him suddenly opened. Etienne turned his head slowly. A man had entered and stood frozen just inside the room.

  "Who--?" The guy's gaze went from Etienne to the woman crumpled on the floor, then back to Etienne's naked, bloodstained chest. "Oh, man!"

  Much to Etienne's amusement, the guy glanced around wildly, then held out the coffee he carried as if the hot liquid were a deterrent. "What did you do to Rach? What are you doing here?"

  "Rach?" Etienne glanced down at the woman on the floor. Rach. Short for Rachel, no doubt. A pretty name for a pretty lady. A pretty sick lady, from what he could tell. The woman should be home in bed. He glanced at the newcomer. "Are you sick too?"

  "Sick?" The fellow straightened somewhat, bewilderment crossing his face. Apparently that was the last thing he'd expected to be asked. "No. "

  Etienne nodded. "Good. Come here. "

  "I--" The man's mouth froze in the refusal he'd been about to make, then his hands lowered and he moved forward as if compelled. Which, of course, he was. Allowing the orange juice he held in one hand and the coffee he carried in the other to hang at his side, the man continued forward until he stood directly before Etienne.

  "I need some of your blood. I need a lot of blood but will only take a bit from you," Etienne explained. Not that it really mattered or he expected permission; the man stood silent and still, his gaze unfocused.

  Etienne hesitated. He hadn't bitten anyone in a long time. In years, really. Doing so was frowned upon by his people now that there were blood banks. Still, this was an emergency. He had lost a lot of blood, and it had left him extremely weak. He needed to feed to restore himself enough to get home.

  He cast an apologetic glance at his victim, then used a hand at the back of the man's neck to tilt his head, nicely exposing the throat. The man stiffened and made a slight sound of protest as Etienne's teeth pierced his skin, but he relaxed with a moan as Etienne began to drink. The blood was warm and rich, nourishing. It was also much tastier than the cold bagged blood he'd become used to. It reminded Etienne of days gone by, and he partook of a bit more than he intended. It wasn't until his donor sagged weakly against him that he forced himself to stop. Easing the fellow into the rolling chair next to the woman crumpled on the floor, he checked him to be sure he hadn't done any lasting damage. He hadn't.

  Relieved to find the man's heartbeat steady and strong, Etienne took the time to wipe his memory clean, then straightened, his glance catching on a container on the desk. He immediately recognized the object inside: a bullet. His hand moved to his chest to absently rub the still healing wound, then he reached out for the container and checked the label.

  This was the bullet that had stopped his heart. The woman's removal of it had allowed his body to heal. Otherwise, he'd still be on the table. It was proof of his existence and couldn't be left behind.

  Pocketing the bullet, Etienne did a quick search of the room. Finding the paperwork left behind by the EMTs, he realized he would have to find them, clear the memory of the incident from their minds, and get their paperwork as well. He supposed there would be police reports and other things he would have to take care of too. It was going to be a bigger project than he liked, and one with which he would need help. The thought made Etienne grimace. He'd have to ask Bastien, which meant the family would find out, but there was no help for it. This incident had to be removed from public memory.

  Resignation overwhelming him, Etienne collected his shredded shirt and suit jacket, and did one more quick search of the room to be sure there was nothing of his left behind. Then he borrowed one of the lab coats hanging from a peg by the door. He donned it, found a garbage bag for the bullet and his ruined clothing, then quickly left the morgue.

  Bastien would have to be called in to help clean up. Etienne just hoped his older brother wouldn't tell their mother. Marguerite would have fits if she caught wind of this. She had gotten a taste of Pudge's suffering from Etienne shortly after his attempt to read the other fellow and, a very soft-hearted woman, she had agreed with Etienne that Pudge shouldn't be killed. But she hadn't had an alternative solution, and she'd been annoyed with Etienne for being unable to come up with more useful ideas himself.

  Etienne grimaced as he made his way quickly out of the basement of the hospital. He hated failure in any form.