Dirt Nap Read online

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  Other Books by Carolyn Elizabeth

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  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

  Epilogue

  Bella Books

  Synopsis

  Though still suffering side effects from the injuries she sustained in a serious fall, Corey Curtis is off restricted duty and back at work in the morgue. Within hours of cutting the cast off her arm with a bone saw she’s asked by her former mentor to assist on a body recovery. Now she’s elbow deep in decomposing human remains and a suspicious death that hits far too close to home.

  Just when her relationship with Dr. Thayer Reynolds has reached a new milestone, the new case tests Corey’s limits while Thayer struggles with a difficult situation at work. Corey’s impulsive nature has her hurtling down an all too familiar road with trouble around every corner.

  The only thing keeping the wheels from totally coming off is Thayer’s unwavering love and support. But when the investigation comes full circle, everyone is caught off guard…threatening a most unhappy ending.

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  Other Bella Books by Carolyn Elizabeth

  Gallows Humor

  About the Author

  Carolyn Elizabeth is an enthusiastic writer of romantic lesbian fiction where serious camp meets upbeat macabre.

  She 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 in 2013.

  She 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 cancer research.

  When not working or writing, 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.

  Copyright © 2020 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 2020

  eBook released 2020

  Editor: Ann Roberts

  Cover Designer: Judith Fellows

  ISBN: 978-1-64247-102-1

  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

  Endless thanks to the Bella Books family for all they do to support authors and get our work out there into the world. Thank you to Ann Roberts for taking on the herculean task of editing another one of my books. I’ll read a manual on punctuation for dialogue before the next one—wait, I mean the one after. I promise.

  Thank you to the readers and reviewers whose thoughtful, insightful, and critical comments help inspire and motivate me in new ways with every project.

  Thank you to my wife, Laurel, for her continued encouragement and her willingness to laugh, not just with me, but at me.

  As ever, to my children, Henry and Grayson, thank you for helping me grow into my best possible person—and my most patient.

  Chapter One

  Corey Curtis turned up the volume to Joan Jett’s “Crimson and Clover” and drummed on the steering wheel of her vintage Ford F-100 as she drove away from the hospital. A trip into the field and away from her basement office in the morgue was always welcome, especially in nice weather. Her mood soared and she fought laughter, although she was on her way to a crime scene and the recovery of a partially decomposed body.

  It was a hot, breezy, late August day in Jackson City, New York, in the Southern Tier, and for the first time in thirty-three years, she was in love—madly, deeply, insanely in love with Dr. Thayer Reynolds, a woman so wonderful and beautiful that when Corey looked at her, she thought her heart would beat right out of her chest. She wanted to jump up and down on Oprah’s couch and scream at the top of her lungs.

  She was downright giddy at finally having the use of both hands after seven weeks in a full cast on her left arm. She had sustained a broken arm and other serious injuries in a freak attack from a murderer. She and Thayer had inadvertently solved a crime while snooping around the construction site where the foreman had died after a five-story fall, a fall Corey had always believed was suspicious.

  A deep breath at the memory triggered the tolerable ache just beneath her left breast from the three broken ribs she suffered. She still had some healing to do. She rolled her shoulders and neck, loosening the muscles damaged when she fought the man in defense of herself and Thayer. She beat him, knocking him out, only to fall fifteen feet through an unfinished floor, and Thayer, unable to help, had watched it happen.

  Broken bones and internal injuries weren’t even her biggest concern compared to the massive concussion and the debilitating headaches she still endured almost two months out from the accident. The migraines occurred less often and didn’t always require medication any longer, but they still incapacitated her for the better part of a day.

  She shook herself out of her melancholy thoughts and adjusted the specially tinted glasses that protected her from UV and fluorescent light, the constant insult of which frequently triggered an attack. She focused on the day ahead and the recovery of the dead body.

  Dr. Audrey Marsh, the forensic anthropologist at the university and Corey’s former mentor as an undergraduate, had been called by the police to assist on a case. At one time Corey had dreamed of a career in forensic anthropology but was seduced away by a master’s degree in pathology as a certified pathologists’ assistant. She c
ould now boast a decent paycheck with good benefits and the position of Autopsy Services Coordinator at Jackson City Memorial Hospital. She had worked there for the last five years, overseeing the post mortem examinations under the supervision of Dr. Randall Webster, the forensic pathologist.

  Still, she kept in touch with Dr. Marsh and was involved in forensic cases as they came up and overlapped with her work. She hadn’t assisted with a forensic case in a while and was far more excited than even she would have thought, given the gruesome death scene that awaited them at their destination. If the body was so far gone they needed Dr. Marsh’s help, it was going to be nothing but horrible.

  She looked over at Cinnamon James riding shotgun. Cin was Dr. Marsh’s student, Corey’s friend and sometimes assistant. “Look Mom, two hands,” Corey blurted gleefully, her hands at ten and two on the wheel.

  Cin smiled at her before returning to her phone. “You’re spirited today.”

  “I told Thayer I’m in love with her this morning.”

  Cin held her phone up to get a better satellite signal. “That comes as a surprise to exactly no one.”

  “Well, sure, okay.” Corey shrugged, still grinning. “But I said it out loud and I just feel like…I don’t know. I feel like everything’s changed.”

  Cin nodded. “God, my phone sucks.”

  Corey pulled her much newer phone from her back pocket. “Here.”

  “What did she say?” Cin asked.

  “She said ‘I know.’”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Corey slanted her an incredulous glance. Cin was frighteningly bright and accomplished, well on her way to a PhD in forensic anthropology at Jackson City University, and Corey often forgot she was nearly ten years younger. Still, Corey wasn’t born yet when the movie Thayer quoted was released so that was no excuse. “From The Empire Strikes Back. Han to Leia after she confesses her love right before he’s frozen in carbonite.”

  “Was Natalie Portman in that one?”

  “What? Never mind.” She came to a stop at Main Street. “Which way?”

  “West. Looks like we’re heading down Old South Road to Rankins Lake.”

  Corey’s head whipped toward her. “Where?”

  “Um.” Cin studied the directions as they continued through what passed for the business district in the small city of just over sixty-three thousand people. “Looks like the north side—Corey, stop!” she screamed as she looked up and threw her arm toward the dash.

  Corey’s eyes snapped back to the road and she stood on the brakes, slamming them against their seat belts as the truck screeched to within inches of the car in front of them. Corey threw her arm out across Cin in the passenger seat. “Oh, fuck.”

  “Jesus Christ, Corey,” Cin panted, dropping her head back against her seat and pulling at her belt that had tightened across her.

  “Shit.” Corey’s heart pounded. She met the wide-eyed stare of the other driver in his rearview mirror and offered an apologetic wave. He took off as soon as the light turned green, apparently wanting to put as much distance between them as possible. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” Cin rubbed her collarbone where the belt had dug in.

  “Oh, shit, I’m sorry.” Corey winced at her reddening skin.

  “Are you getting a headache or something?”

  “No,” Corey said and started moving when the car behind her honked. “Thayer lives on Rankins Lake and just for a second…”

  “Yeah, I know. So do other people, Corey. And didn’t you just see Thayer at work, like an hour ago?”

  “Yeah, I know it’s stupid.” Corey smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I just flaked out for a second.”

  “Do I need to drive?” Cin offered her a smile in apparent acceptance of her apology. “So you can be alone with your distracting thoughts?”

  “I got it.” Corey shook her head, focusing on the road. “Just tell me where we’re going.”

  Chapter Two

  They turned off Old South Road onto a smaller, unnamed access road half a mile from Thayer’s place and began winding their way around to the opposite side of the lake. The road narrowed, going from paved to gravel to dirt, and closed in by dense trees and ground foliage.

  Corey squinted through the windshield, sunlight strobing in through the trees as they bumped along slowly. She couldn’t help wincing as the jostling and light flashes caused her some discomfort. “How much farther?”

  “Almost.” Cin peered up ahead. “There.” She pointed to the patrol car pulled off in the brush, marking a drive of little more than two rutted dirt tracks heading toward the lake.

  Corey stopped as a young officer held out his hand. He was her height, muscular arms straining against his shirtsleeves with closely cropped brown hair that glistened with sweat beneath his uniform cap. She didn’t recognize him but couldn’t fail to notice his sickly pallor and sweaty skin. As soon as she rolled the window down, she got blasted by the hot, fetid stench that could only be putrefying tissue. “Corey Curtis and Cinnamon James.” She held up her hospital ID badge and breathed through her mouth. “They’re expecting us.”

  The officer swallowed heavily several times in an effort to speak, but in the end decided keeping his mouth closed was the safer option and simply waved them forward.

  Corey’s face lit up at the sight of Audrey Marsh leaning against her battered Corolla, lighting a cigarette from the butt of one she’d just finished. Corey knew it was her recovery car and she drove a Benz on campus. Though it had been at least a year since Corey had seen her last at a lecture she had given, she hadn’t changed at all. She was small, five-foot-three, with wiry muscled arms and legs. She still wore no jewelry and no makeup, her almost completely gray hair in a long single braid down her back.

  She waved, blowing a stream of smoke through her nose as Corey and Cin parked next to the ambulance. Two miserable-looking paramedics huddled in the cab, using the tails of their shirts to cover their noses.

  Corey jumped out fast and slammed the door in a futile effort to keep the air in the truck clean. Her eyes watered and she coughed at the overpowering miasma of human decomposition. Her eyes tracked to the house, an old rundown double-wide with busted screens, mold on the siding, and a roof she was certain leaked in at least three places.

  At the front of the house, to the right of rickety wooden porch steps, a section of rotting latticework had been pulled out and set aside revealing the entrance to a crawlspace beneath the house. The mouth of the pit was completely dark but the drone of the flies was so loud she could hear it from where she stood, and there was a cloud of flies at the entrance buzzing in and out.

  “Corey.” Audrey Marsh’s voice was smoker’s rough as she pinched out her cigarette and pocketed the butt. “It’s good to see you.” She pulled Corey into a much stronger hug than her size suggested.

  “Dr. Marsh, how are you?”

  “Corey, I’m not going to tell you again about calling me Audrey. How long has it been since you were my student? Ten years? We’re colleagues.”

  “Twelve.”

  “Damn that makes me feel old.” Audrey sighed and lit another cigarette as she eyed her former student. “Are you up for this? Cin told me everything.”

  “I’m much better Dr. Mar—um, Audrey,” Corey stammered, trying out her first name. “I’ve been cleared for work.”

  Audrey nodded and took a long drag. “I wanted to come see you in the hospital but I was at conferences all summer. I only just got back before Webster and the police started blowing up my phone. I haven’t even unpacked.”

  “It’s okay. Cin told me you were out of the country, and besides, I wasn’t very good company for a while.”

  “Hmm.” Audrey took a long drag. “I hear you made a friend over the summer?”

  Corey couldn’t help the grin that split her face at the mention of Thayer.

  Audrey laughed and gripped her arms. “Love looks good on you, my young friend.” She took a final drag
before pinching it out, her expression turning serious. “I’m glad you’re here today.”

  Corey grimaced, acutely aware that they were chatting in very close proximity to an unidentified and rapidly decomposing body they were tasked with extricating from a very dark, very hot, and very small resting place. “I was pretty excited until I opened the car door.”

  “I’ve done an awful lot of recoveries in my time, and you never really get used to it, but even I think this one will be rough.” Her eyes trained on the opening to the crawlspace.

  Talking about it brought the stench to the forefront of Corey’s mind again and she coughed. “Hope you brought some gel.”

  “Always.” Audrey produced a small jar of mentholated gel from her pocket, unscrewed the lid and dug her finger in. She swiped a glob beneath her nose and offered it to Corey. “It’s why I’ll never knock off the smoking. Nasty habit but kills the respiratory cilia.”

  Corey did the same, smearing it under her nose to cut the foul air. “I better check in with Collier and get dressed.”

  Audrey barked a laugh. “He’s as fun as ever.” She popped the trunk of her car to get her equipment. “See you in the trenches.”

  Corey headed over to Jim Collier, who was looking especially disheveled with his tie loosened and his shirtsleeves rolled up. He was imposing at well over six feet tall with cropped graying hair and a gruff voice and demeanor. He was a sergeant with the Jackson City Police Department and they had often worked together when he was assigned cases that involved her postmortem exams. They had always had a friendly relationship, but since Corey’s injuries from her involvement in the previous case, they had begun to realize they were friends.

  Today he stood with an unfamiliar female patrol officer, thumbs hooked into her duty belt and head on a swivel, her eyes hidden behind her aviators. She looked to be a few inches shorter than Corey, maybe five-foot-seven. She was powerfully built but still feminine even in the shapeless uniform and Kevlar vest.