Dirt Nap Page 4

  “I get it.”

  “There’s nothing for me to do.” Corey’s throat burned with bile, her stomach roiling at the site of the rotten innards. She backed away from the table arms raised in surrender and tossed her blade into the Sharps and the handle into the sink. “He’s all yours.”

  “What’s next?” Steph asked, swallowing hard when Cin and the graduate students moved back to the body and Corey resumed her place with her against the wall.

  “Manually defleshing.” She nodded toward the body as all of them got to work scooping out organs and stripping the body of soft tissue as close to the bone without touching it. All the unusable tissue went into a large biohazard bag-lined box for disposal.

  “Then what?” Steph’s expression held a mix of horror and fascination.

  “They’ll disarticulate him, put him in a box and drive him to Audrey’s lab on campus.”

  “What about toxicology?”

  “On what?” Corey gestured to the table. “He’s soup. His eyes are gone so no vitreous. I doubt I could even recognize his bladder. His blood is sludge.”

  “Hair?”

  Corey pursed her lips, considering. She’d never had the occasion to use that and the county lab didn’t screen hair. “I don’t know. We’d have to send it out to a private lab and someone would have to pay for it.”

  “If you get me some I’ll discuss it with Collier and see if we can put in a requisition.”

  Cin stood at the head delicately defleshing his face. “Cin, can I have some hair for possible tox screen?”

  She nodded without looking up and tugged at the hair. The entire scalp came away with a wet sucking sound and she held it up. “You can have it all.”

  Corey grimaced. “Just bag it for me. I’ll take care of it.”

  Before she had a chance to do anything else, someone banged hard on the morgue door. She had locked it because she didn’t want someone randomly walking in on them. “Be right back.”

  She pushed the door open to see a female security officer and Dan Lloyd standing behind her. They both took a step back as if being buffeted by strong wind as the door opening changed the pressure in the room and let out a cloud of foul air. Corey quickly stepped into the hall and closed the door. Letting flies out would be a biohazard too. Cleanup would take her hours. Plus, her truck. She groaned inwardly.

  Corey’s eyes lit up at the security officer. “Kim, when did you get back from mat leave?”

  Kim Stewart was taller than Corey at nearly six feet with giant hands that took Jackson City University women’s basketball to two Division II championships. She had sharp features, though she wasn’t unattractive at all. She was particularly imposing in her uniform, similar to the police but she didn’t carry a firearm.

  “Last week.” Kim gagged and one of the giant hands covered her mouth and nose. “Good lord, Corey, what is going on? We’ve had complaints about the smell.”

  Corey peered around her to Dan Lloyd, her physical therapist who worked down the hall from the morgue. He was rocking back and forth on his prosthetic legs, acquired following a motorcycle accident several years ago. He had been instrumental in helping Corey get physically and mentally healthy following her accident. “Complaints from you, Dan?”

  “No, not from me. I sure as hell didn’t want to come down here and know what you’re doing.” Dan looked green, his eyes watering. “From my patients. I had to reassure them so I called security.” He nodded to her arm. “The arm looks good without the cast. Am I seeing you this week?”

  She probably wasn’t going to be at the hospital much if she was sticking with the remains on campus. “Actually, something has come up.” She hooked a thumb behind her to the door. “And I might be on campus for the rest of the week. Going to have to reschedule for next week, I think.”

  “Well, don’t leave it too long. We gotta get working on that arm, and now that you’re on unrestricted duty. I want to make sure you aren’t doing anything to set yourself back.”

  Corey smiled apologetically. “Well, um…”

  “Hmm,” Dan harrumphed. “That’s what I thought. You’re the one who’s going to pay for it, though, not me.”

  “Great, can we wrap this up?” Kim interrupted. “Corey, it’s really good to see you and I want to catch up. You need to introduce me to your girl, but right now I want to run away and snort bleach up my nose. Can we get this done?”

  “You really want to go in there?”

  “Hell, no,” Kim shot back and edged past her, “but I have to complete the call. I’ll be quick. Believe me.” The door didn’t even have time to close all the way before she came tearing back out. “We’re good, thanks.”

  “I want to see pics of the baby,” Corey called after her and Kim waved over her head.

  Corey lasted another hour standing and watching the macabre activities as the team sliced through the fibrous ligaments of all the long bones at the joints and carefully packed them in one box. Head, spinal column, flat bones and hands and feet went in another. There was no longer a body—just skeletal remains that would be cleaned of the remaining flesh in Audrey’s lab before being expertly reassembled into the complete skeleton and analyzed.

  It was close to six when she finally had to sit down, her body aching. It didn’t help that she hadn’t eaten all day but the idea of food turned her stomach. Steph’s promise of help was torpedoed when Collier called to tell her he was keeping Officer Warren with him for a while longer and she needed to go with the remains to the university. Warren would take over later at the lab and another junior officer would observe the overnight. The remains would be processed around the clock until clean and a police officer would be in attendance the entire time.

  Everyone had cleared out, cleaning up the larger messes as best they could, but Corey sighed wearily at the smears of gore across the steel table and floor as she lined up bottles of bleach on the counter. And she still had to clean her truck.

  Chapter Six

  Thayer looked up when she heard Corey’s keys in the door and looked at the clock. It was nearly nine. Corey had texted earlier and said she was going to be late and to go ahead and eat but Thayer had never known her to work this late.

  She shuffled in and dropped her keys on the counter, kicked off her sneakers with a sigh, and took her glasses off. They had taken to keeping the lights in the condo or Thayer’s place dim so she didn’t need them at home. “Hey.”

  “Hi.” Thayer closed her laptop. “I was starting to get worried.” She rose and crossed the room to slip her arms around Corey’s waist, immediately feeling Corey tense and suck in a breath. “Uh-oh.” She leaned back and studied her face, the tightness around her mouth and eyes suggesting she was in pain. “What happened?”

  She shook her head and gave her a soft kiss on the lips. “Really long day and I may have overdone it a bit.” She slipped out of Thayer’s grasp and went to the kitchen. “You want a beer?”

  “Sure.” She didn’t really but she knew Corey would bristle if she fussed at her too soon.

  She sat back down on the sofa and waited for her, making note of her hunched shoulders and slight left cant as she walked. “Thank you.” She accepted the bottle and took a sip while Corey drained half of hers in one go. “You want to tell me about it?”

  “Nothing bad. I mean it’s bad for someone. Don’t even know who yet, but not for me.” Corey winced and rolled her shoulders. “Just a hot, labor-intensive gore fest.” She made a move to sit next to Thayer on the sofa.

  “Hold it.” Thayer set her beer on the coffee table before pushing it out of the way, making room for Corey to sit on the floor. “Down here.”

  “Babe, it’s okay. I’m just tired.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” She appreciated how important Corey’s independence was to her, but she made it known when they got back together after she was injured that she would not stand for Corey pretending she was fine or hiding when she was struggling. “Sit.”

  Corey
finished her beer before easing herself down in front of Thayer and stretching her long legs out. Since she’d returned to work, this was a near-nightly ritual: Thayer massaged and stretched Corey’s taxed and tense muscles to stave off the spasms and headaches.

  “Relax your arms,” Thayer instructed and gripped her around each bicep, gently pulling her arms and shoulders backward.

  She sucked in a sharp breath, resisting the movement.

  “That bad, huh?” Thayer released her arms and moved her hands to her shoulders, pressing her thumbs into the hard muscles where the tension often started.

  Corey arched away from her with a groan before settling back down when Thayer eased up on the pressure. “Thanks.”

  “What’s got you all knotted up like this?” Thayer asked, digging her thumbs around her scapula.

  “Recovering a decomposed body from inside the crawlspace underneath his house. It was a tight fit.”

  “Jesus,” Thayer breathed, going to work on another stubborn trigger point. “Is that why you smell like bleach?”

  “Sexy, huh?” Corey dropped her head when Thayer pressed her thumbs into her neck and worked out the triggers there. “It was either that or smell like rotting, maggot-infested viscera.”

  “Will you whisper that to me again in bed?” Thayer asked dryly and kissed Corey along the back of her neck.

  “Sorry,” Corey murmured and let Thayer manipulate her arms again.

  “I’m just teasing you, sweetheart.” Thayer pulled her arms back again slowly, this time without any painful reaction from Corey. “But I’d prefer to talk about your body when we’re in bed.”

  “Is that what you’re limbering me up for?”

  She released her arms slowly and ran her hands down her chest, cupping her breasts through her shirt and delighting at Corey’s full body shudder. “I will confess getting through my shitty day was fueled by the hope that you might want to take your new arm for a test drive tonight.”

  Corey leaned back and draped her arms over Thayer’s legs, stretching her back and giving Thayer better access to her. “I did. I do.”

  Thayer slipped her hands down the neck of Corey’s shirt and into her bra, circling her nipples and eliciting a gasp from Corey. “I have yet to experience Corey Curtis’s two-handed lady loving.”

  Corey laughed and dropped her head back into her lap, presenting her mouth. “Spiderman kisses.”

  Thayer closed her mouth over Corey’s and plunged her tongue inside. “Mmm.” She hummed. “But if you’re too sore I can hold out for the morning. I don’t have to be in until noon.”

  Corey reached up and pulled her head down again, capturing her lips upside down. “Come on sunrise.”

  Thayer sat up abruptly. “Oh, damn it.”

  “What?” Corey spun around.

  “Jim Collier left me a message this afternoon. He wants to meet with me in the morning.” She flopped back against the sofa. “I have no idea why. Probably wants some history on a patient or something I can’t even talk about—what is that face?”

  Corey’s lips were pressed tightly together and she looked almost guilty. “I know why he wants to see you.”

  “Why?”

  Corey picked herself up from the floor and joined her on the sofa. “The body we recovered today was at that fishing cabin across the lake from you.”

  Her brows shot up. “You’re kidding.” Corey’s lips thinned again in response. “You’re not kidding.”

  “I’m sorry.” Corey clasped Thayer’s hand. “Did you know who lived there?”

  “Not really, no. He was older than Nana and I doubt he’s still alive. He had some kids though, I think.”

  “Where are you meeting with Collier?”

  “My place at nine.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “You don’t have to. You have work.”

  “I want to,” Corey replied. “And I’m actually going to campus. I’ve been farmed out to help with the skeletal analysis for this case. Dr. Webster wants to be kept in the loop and he’s assigned the pathology resident he thinks is getting a fat head to cover autopsy for the rest of the week. Thinks he needs to be taken down a peg or two.”

  “Oh, god,” Thayer groaned. “I have one of those too. Can I send Watson Gregory III to the morgue?” she said in a posh accent.

  “In a body bag or out?”

  “That’s a generous offer. You know I honestly never thought I’d be able to use the label ‘dudebro’ in a sentence in reference to a professional colleague, but here I am.”

  “It’s timeless and universal, really,” Corey joked. “The senator’s son, right? The one you were mentoring?”

  “Yes.” Thayer raked her hands through her hair, which she regretted immediately when she saw Corey’s eyes narrow, recognizing it as her stress tell.

  “Babe, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” She tried valiantly to school her expression into one of calm but knew from the fire igniting in Corey’s eyes she was on to her. “I’ll handle it,” she added, admitting everything with the simple statement.

  She’d made every effort not to let Corey know, though it had been troubling her from the beginning and adding totally unnecessary stress to an already intense profession. Thayer knew Corey would react fiercely, and she didn’t want to worry her, especially when she was still healing.

  “Handle what, exactly?” Corey asked tightly.

  “Corey—”

  “Tell me, Thayer. If someone is—”

  “Corey, I said I will handle it.” She cut her off sharply, Corey’s eyes widening at her tone. She breathed deeply several times and looked away. “I’ve been dealing with men like Watson Gregory my entire life, okay? Please, trust me. This is my job, my profession, and I can take care of myself. I have to. Please, tell me you understand.”

  The muscles in Corey’s jaw bunched. “I understand.”

  Thayer exhaled and placed her hand against Corey’s cheek. “I’m okay, sweetheart. I promise. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want you to worry about me.” She dropped her head and touched her forehead to Corey’s. “Are we okay?”

  Corey nodded against her. “I trust you, babe. If you say you’ve got it then that’s all I need. But, you know, if you need anything—”

  “You will be my first call—always.” Thayer tilted her head to kiss her gently. “I love you.”

  “Ditto.” Corey grinned and covered Thayer’s mouth with her own.

  All other thoughts melted away when she slipped her hands around the back of Corey’s neck and pulled her closer, deepening their kiss. “Both hands,” she whispered.

  A bolt of arousal at her request went straight to Corey’s groin, clenching her belly and dampening her briefs as she slid both hands up Thayer’s chest, caressing her through her shirt before making short work of the buttons, popping them open all the way down and pulling her blouse open to cup her breasts through her bra.

  Thayer moaned and arched her back, her breasts straining against her bra and Corey’s hands. “You’re sore…”

  “Not as sore as you’re going to be,” Corey growled, expertly flicking the clasp on her bra and freeing Thayer’s breasts as she pulled her blouse from her shoulders with one hand and her bra off with the other.

  Thayer laughed as Corey pressed her back against the sofa, guiding her down and ravishing her throat with hot, wet kisses while she pulled at Thayer’s clothes, flinging each article away as it came free—blouse, skirt, bra, panties.

  Corey scrambled out of her jeans and briefs and tore off her shirt and bra, her eyes never leaving Thayer’s bright golden gaze as she waited, eyes flashing with arousal.

  Corey lowered herself over her, their bodies hot and trembling as they connected fully, Thayer stretched out beneath her. “It’s like my first time.” Corey grinned lasciviously as she ran both her hands up and down Thayer’s body. “How do you like me now?”

  Thayer writhed beneath her, igniting Corey’s desire to
monumental levels. She stilled her lover by sinking her weight against her, spreading her legs with a thigh between them as Thayer laced her hands through her short hair and pulled her down to cover her mouth.

  Corey broke away covering one breast with one hand, the other with her mouth and slid her right hand down between Thayer’s legs, tickling a path through her soaked curls and parting her center.

  Thayer bucked her hips as Corey teasingly stroked her most sensitive skin with her fingertips.

  “Now, Corey, please,” Thayer gasped, arching against her touch.

  Corey didn’t make her wait any longer. She wanted it just as badly and slid two fingers inside her to the sound of Thayer’s satisfied sigh as she was filled with her hand, her thumb circling her clit slowly.

  “Oh.” Thayer’s lips parted, her eyes closing to slits while Corey stroked slowly in and out of her. “That’s perfect.” She clutched at Corey’s shoulders pulling and pushing in rhythm with her hips. “Yes.”

  Corey added a third finger and pressed her knee against her own hand as she went deeper, adding to the pressure. Thayer jolted at the sensation with a cry of surprise and gasped, her eyes rolling. “Oh, god, that’s it.”

  Corey increased her pace and pressure, rocking against Thayer’s thrusts and driving deep into her with her weight while threading her left hand through her hair to hold her head back against the sofa and arch her neck so Corey could attack it with her mouth. “I don’t have enough hands,” Corey groaned, raking her teeth down Thayer’s throat.

  “Plenty,” Thayer gasped, clutching across Corey’s back, nails digging into her skin as her thrusts grew frantic and her chest heaved to draw breath. “You have...oh, shit…”

  Corey worked to keep up with her when Thayer rocked and bucked against her as her climax roared through her in waves for several long seconds before she collapsed back against the sofa with a satisfied sigh.

  “Damn, woman.” Corey grinned at her glassy look. “I kind of hoped that would take longer.”

  “I’m not sorry.” She rolled her eyes to the floor and the piles of clothes. “Though, I do wish you’d be gentler on my clothes.”