Gallows Humor Read online

  www.BellaBooks.com

  When you shop at Bella, more of your dollars reach the women who write and produce the books you love. Thanks from all of the authors & staff at Bella!

  Blog: Bella Books

  Facebook: BellaBooks

  Twitter: @bellabooks

  Instagram: TheBellaBooks

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Synopsis

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Epilogue

  Bella Books

  Synopsis

  Corey Curtis is coasting. At thirty-three, she’s in the best shape of her life and has a satisfying position at Jackson City Memorial Hospital. With a good paycheck, great friends, and occasional relationships with smart, beautiful women, she couldn’t be happier. She thinks.

  Dr. Thayer Reynolds, whiling away some time before the start of her Emergency Department fellowship at JCMH and intrigued by the stories she’s heard, crashes the morgue to get a look at Corey—the woman her young colleagues are whispering about.

  Totally spinning from her first interactions with Thayer, Corey throws herself into the post mortem exam of a construction worker who fell to his death, which isn’t at all suspicious—until it is. With no support from her boss or the police, Corey investigates the death on her own. Making bad decisions with good intentions, she recklessly endangers her own life and Thayer’s. Even worse—she potentially dooms any chance of a real relationship with Thayer before it even gets started.

  Copyright © 2019 by Carolyn Elizabeth

  Bella Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 10543

  Tallahassee, FL 32302

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  First Bella Books Edition 2019

  eBook released 2019

  Editor: Ann Roberts

  Cover Designer: Judith Fellows

  ISBN: 978-1-64247-007-9

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to the folks at Bella Books who saw a submission with an odd title and gave it a read, and for believing it had potential. Thank you to Ann Roberts for taking the rough cut and helping me polish it into a book I am proud to share with the world.

  Thank you to the readers of my early fan fiction who were quick with the reviews and words of encouragement to always keep writing.

  Most importantly, thank you to my wife, Laurel, who told everyone I wrote a book when I was trying to keep it a secret and who laughed at my hysteria and talked me off the ledge when those first edits came back.

  To my children, Henry and Grayson, my undying love and gratitude for keeping it real and yelling ‘Mom’ in my face until I closed my laptop and fixed you a snack and played a game of foosball.

  About the Author

  Carolyn Elizabeth was born in Canada and moved to the US as a young child. She has lived in Illinois, New York, New Hampshire, Texas, Maryland, and Connecticut before moving back to Canada several years ago.

  She now lives with her family in London, Ontario where she has parlayed her education and professional experience in pathology into a satisfying job in tissue banking for research.

  When not reading, writing, or dreaming up new characters and the trouble they can get into she can be found goofing around with her children, cuddling with the dogs while binge watching Netflix, and taking afternoons off work to have adult lunch dates with her wife.

  This is her very first book.

  Dedication

  This one is for younger me who had the desire and ideas but never the discipline or confidence.

  Chapter One

  Corey danced on the balls of her feet, her fighting stance relaxed, and grinned around her mouth guard. Her opponent grinned back, rolling her shoulders, as she circled Corey while waiting for her opening.

  “Kick her ass, Curtis,” a woman called, her voice echoing through the cavernous converted warehouse, now the gym where Corey spent several mornings and evenings a week.

  She snorted a laugh, her gaze flicking to the ropes where a few of their other early morning MMA classmates watched with interest. She’d never beaten Rachel, not even come close, despite her height advantage and longer reach.

  But today could be her day. Her focus came back to the ring as Rachel moved in on her, snapping off a couple of jabs in her direction. Corey easily danced out of the way.

  Rachel taunted her, gleefully dropping her gloved hands. “What you waiting for, Corey?” she garbled around her mouth guard. “I gotta be at work in less than an hour.”

  Corey’s eyes narrowed at the challenge as she stepped in with a sharp, three-punch combination landing two lefts before letting go with a right overhand punch to her head. She realized her mistake too late as Rachel stepped back, blocked her punch with her left arm, locked her arms around the back of Corey’s neck in a double-collar tie, and pulled her forward and down with a hard knee to her solar plexus.

  Corey dropped to the mat with a grunt as the air was forced from her lungs. She spit out her mouth guard and canted her head up just in time to see Rachel’s gloved fist a second before it smashed into her face—hard.

  “Oh, shit.” Rachel spit out her mouth guard and dropped to the mat next to her. “Cor, are you all right? I tried to pull that punch. I just meant to smack you in the side of your headgear but you turned into it.”

  “I’m okay.” Corey sat back on her heels, sucking in deep lungfuls of air as she prodded her already tender eye with her fingertips.

  “Better luck next time, Curtis,” someone cackled from nearby.

  “You’re getting old, Corey,” another voice chimed in.

  Rachel scowled in their direction. “Bitches,” she muttere
d. “Twenty-eight isn’t old.”

  Corey grimaced. “I’m thirty-three.”

  “Oh, well.” Rachel grinned. “I’ll go find you some ice, Grandma.”

  Corey wiped steam from the mirror and leaned over the sink, prodding the skin around her eye. It was puffy, tender and already discolored, but it wasn’t swollen shut. She stepped back and gave herself a once-over, clad only in her briefs and sports bra. Her skin was tight over muscles defined from three or four days a week at the gym. The ink of her full sleeve tattoo on her right arm, a gift to herself for her thirtieth birthday, was still vibrant. Her teeth were straight and white, her eyes clear and blue. Her hair was cut short but trendy—closely cropped around the sides and back and longer and asymmetrical on top to fall rakishly over her eyes or stick up carelessly if she ran her hands through it—so said her stylist. All in all she had no complaints.

  Rachel placed a baggie of ice on the sink. “Don’t let those skanks get to you, Cor.”

  “What? No, I wasn’t. I was just—”

  “They hope they look as good as you when they’re your age.”

  She spun around. “I’m only thirty-three.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.” Rachel opened her locker and sat on a bench to change. “I mean if we didn’t already know we suck in bed together, I’d totally be all over your shit.”

  “We didn’t suck, exactly.” Corey laughed at the memory of their one night together five years ago.

  She had only recently moved back to the area and started her position at Jackson City Memorial Hospital. She had joined the Women’s MMA Warehouse for obvious workout reasons and to meet people. This gym was particularly appealing because it was the only one that didn’t have gang showers. She was far from a prude about her body, or anyone else’s, but she drew the line at showering in full view of total strangers.

  Rachel, a slightly androgynous twenty-something with a Ruby Rose look—black spiky hair, tattoos and a tongue ring out to prove herself to the world and expand her sexual horizons—latched on to Corey, six years her senior, like a spider monkey. After months of flirting and one night of far too many drinks, Corey relented and figured they should, at least, get it out of the way. While they both got what they needed at the time, the sex was more comical than anything and it never came up again. Their friendship, however, was one of the best things Corey had in her life.

  “And anyway, you’re still stringing along that cool as ice, yet smoking-hot lawyer.” Rachel dragged her coffeehouse T-shirt over her head.

  “Financial advisor,” she corrected. “Wait. What? Stringing along?”

  Rachel pulled on cargo shorts. “Don’t pretend you don’t know how into you she is. You just haven’t gotten around to cutting her loose.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not—”

  “Oh, yeah?” Rachel eyed her. “When’s the last time you took her out? Have you ever even introduced her as your girlfriend? I can’t even remember her name. That’s how often you talk about her.”

  “Anna,” Corey mumbled. “And I gave her a key to my place.”

  “Oh, shit.” Rachel pulled on her battered Chucks and grabbed her canvas messenger bag out of her locker. “I’m late and hippy-dippy, yuppie, extra skinny, blah, blah, blah lattes won’t make themselves.”

  Rachel pretended to resent her silly barista job, but Corey was one of the very few people who knew Rachel had dropped out of her first year of university and purchased the failing downtown coffee shop, using tuition money and a small business loan. She was smart and savvy, and within a few years, had turned it into the very successful shop it was today with great food and drinks, open mic nights, poetry slams and an occasional women-only speed dating night.

  Corey glanced at the clock. It was after eight and she needed to get moving too. “Don’t let the hipsters get you down, Rach,” she called as Rachel raced out the door. “Oh, and thanks for the ass kicking.”

  “Anytime.”

  She laughed and pressed the melting bag of ice to her eye, her smile faltering with Rachel’s words about her half-assed relationship of six months still ringing in her ear.

  Corey’s vintage, blue and white Ford F-100 rumbled into the lower level parking lot of the hospital. She often wondered what people would say if they knew the morgue and food services shared the same loading dock. She more or less kept regular hours, but she was autonomous, didn’t punch a time card and her patients were never an emergency. As long as she didn’t have a meeting, she considered her start time anywhere between eight and nine in the morning.

  She shouldered her way through the door, adorned with the Latin phrase Mortui Vivos Docent, the dead teach the living. The small morgue contained a desk, computer, phone, and file cabinet. She headed past the silver walk-in cooler and into the main autopsy suite, where she heard the stainless steel being banged around.

  “Jesus, there you are.” Cinnamon James, her sort-of and sometimes lab assistant by day and forensic anthropology PhD student all other times, eyed her up and down, impatiently. “Is that what you’re going to wear? And what the hell happened to your face?”

  She looked down at her usual faded jeans and even more faded beer T-shirt. “Yes, Mom, this is what I always wear.” She frowned back at the petite, younger woman, noticing she was pulled together nicely in khaki dress pants and a light blue button-down blouse that made her look marginally older than her twenty-four years. Cin looked like the blond, doe-eyed cheerleader next door and was constantly dismissed and underestimated as a result. Her name didn’t do her any favors either. She was, in fact, whip-smart, highly educated and just had yet another paper published in Forensic Science Quarterly, which had generated invitations to several professional conferences to speak on her work.

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “It’s the beginning of July, Corey,” Cin huffed. “You forgot the new residents were coming—”

  “Oh, shit.” She spun, mouth agape, and stared at the clock as the minute hand ticked toward nine. For those rare meetings in the land of the living, with her boss and any administrative types, she would at least change into scrubs and a lab coat. People found her five-foot-ten height intimidating enough without adding visible tattoos. “You think I have time to change?”

  The door banged open to the anteroom. “Right this way, gang. I know it’s a little cramped but we’re all friends here.”

  Cin pressed her lips together with a helpless shrug. “Sorry,” she mouthed.

  Corey dropped her head back in a silent scream, her eyes tightly closed. “Fuck.”

  She had just enough time to square her shoulders and straighten her expression before Dr. Edward Tweedle, PhD, Director of Resident Education, appeared followed by a gaggle of first-year residents from multiple specialties. “Dr. Tweedle, good morning,” she greeted him and gave a nod to the crisp white coats filing in behind.

  Tweedle stopped dead, a few residents piling up behind him, as he took in her appearance with unadulterated disapproval, his eyes narrowing and his perfectly coiffed mustache twitching in anger. “How nice of you to take time out of your bar fight to meet with us.”

  She bit down on her lip and looked away to keep from snarking back, while a few of the residents within earshot nervously snickered and gaped at her.

  His program for resident training using deceased scheduled for autopsy was genius, had won awards for the hospital, and been emulated at other institutions. He accepted all the accolades and Corey oversaw the training. He needed her and he knew it. She considered it job security, but they mutually despised one another.

  “I’m assuming you have an appropriate body and the required consents?” he asked haughtily.

  She stiffened, opened her mouth to speak but paused too long, unsure of the answer.

  Cin jumped in, waving a stack of forms. “Yes, sir. Of course.”

  His expression relaxed somewhat. “Very good. Thank you, Miss James, for your professionalism and attention to our program. You
are a great asset.”

  Corey smoothed her expression again. “Do you have their paperwork and schedule?” she asked, making a point to fix her gaze on his forehead. She expected much of his animosity stemmed from being three inches shorter than she and having a surname ripe for lifelong bullying.

  He thrust a clipboard into her hands. “Make sure they’re done in time for grand rounds,” he snapped, before pushing his way back through the residents to the door.

  Corey turned away from the residents and shot a look to Cin. “Thank you. Will you get the body?” Cin threw on a lab coat and snapped on gloves before making her way through the living bodies to get the dead one from the cooler.

  For a brief moment Corey considered putting on a lab coat, but it didn’t seem important now. The residents waited quietly with a mixture of expressions—anxious, excited, bored, overwhelmed, and exhausted.

  “All right, let’s get started. For those of you who don’t know, I am Corey Curtis, Autopsy Services Coordinator under the direction of our forensic pathologist, Dr. Randall Webster. I assist Dr. Tweedle with supervising the practicum for your initial weeks of training.”

  She paused and gave a cursory glance to the information on the clipboard. It was little changed from the past three years. There were twelve residents, four each from the emergency department, general surgery, and medicine. “For the next six weeks I’ll be seeing you once a week to practice a few common procedures including central lines, intubations, and arthrocentesis.” She paused when she heard the banging of the gurney through the cooler door as Cin made her way back. “Can everyone back up a little?”

  It was a small autopsy suite brightly lit with overhead fluorescent lights, and despite the constant powerful ventilation, it always smelled of blood, chemicals, and cold flesh—sometimes overwhelming and rotten depending on the case. There was only one stainless steel table with attached sink, water, suction, and spray attachments. The surface of the table consisted of removable steel grates that allowed fluids and tissue to drop through to the smooth steel surface underneath, slightly slanted toward the sink for efficient cleanup.