CHAPTER 35 MATT

35

Matt

SEVERAL OF THE LOCKERS were labeled, names written on masking tape in Gerald's neat script. The moan had come from the locker on the bottom left—untagged—supposed to be empty.

This time, Matt did raise his gun. He eased his finger over the trigger guard as he stepped to the locker and knelt.

When he pressed his ear to the cold stainless steel he heard it again.

Faint this time, but definitely coming from inside.

With his free hand, Matt reached for the heavy latch and tugged. The lock disengaged, and the door swung open with a belch of frigid air. The drawer slid out as effortlessly as the one on which he'd placed Norman, only this one wasn't empty—

Fully dressed, his impossibly pale skin covered in a layer of white frost, his teeth chattering, was Gerald Furber.

The tips of his fingers were bloody, and three of his nails were gone. Red streaks lined the sides of the stainless-steel drawer. There were droplets on his shirt, too, and Matt knew if he were to look inside, the ceiling of that drawer would be red. He had no idea for how long, but Gerald had tried to claw his way out and failed.

Several seconds slipped by, and Matt only stared because what he was looking at didn't seem real, couldn't possibly be real. Then his grip tightened on his gun and he looked back toward the hallway, at the stairs leading up to the residence beyond that. "Ger, is somebody else here? Who put you in there?"

The coroner looked up at Matt with unblinking eyes, unnaturally wide. A sound escaped his lips, barely a whisper, and Matt had to lean down to hear him.

" … hiding. Got locked … in …"

"Hiding from who?"

Gerald's tongue slithered out between his clicking teeth and licked his chapped lips, this dead-looking gray thing that had no business in the body of the living, as if it had already crossed over and had been waiting for the rest of Gerald's body to join it.

"They don't like … what I do to them after … they pass. They're angry … with me. They're …"

He turned his head to the side and coughed. Mucus bubbled at his nose. When he turned back to face Matt, his eyes rolled up toward the locker directly above him, labeled M ILLER . "I only wanted to be close to her. Didn't … didn't want to say good-bye … yet, but that made the others mad. Always … quiet. Quiet … until today …"

Miller was Aubrey Miller. Thirty-one. She'd died from a brain aneurysm two days ago. Her husband had found her dead on the kitchen floor. Ellie had taken that call and waited with Aubrey's husband until Gerald arrived with the hearse and brought her back here.

Matt slipped his gun back in the holster and tried to understand. "What others? What did you do?"

Gerald Furber licked his lips again. "She was so …"

Pretty.

The word popped into Matt's head only because Ellie had mentioned it. She said Gerald had taken a look at the dead woman's eyes with a penlight and immediately knew the COD, he'd seen it before—burst vessels in the left, no longer facing the same direction as her right eye, but instead pointed off to the side. He'd still perform an autopsy to confirm his theory, but he seemed absolutely certain. She was so pretty , Gerald had told Ellie. It was a shame to cut her up. It wasn't the words that bothered Ellie as much as the way he stroked Aubrey Miller's hair as he said them, the way he spoke, as if Ellie weren't in the room. As if she were a voyeur looking in on some private moment.

The revulsion flooded through every inch of Matt's body. He leaned closer to the shivering man. "Did you do something with … to … Aubrey's body?"

Gerald didn't answer.

He didn't have to.

Matt could see it in the coroner's face.

They don't like … what I do to them after … they pass , Gerald had said. They're angry with me.

Gerald sat up, jerked upright so quickly his head smacked against Matt's jaw with a painful crack. "They're coming for me … every last one of them … it's not safe here! Don't you hear them? DON'T YOU HEAR THEM?! "

Pain shot up through Matt's jawbone, where his teeth had cracked together, stunned him. If not for that, he might have gotten a better grip on the man before Gerald rolled off the side of the metal tray and dropped to the tile floor.

"Gerald, don't—"

Matt grabbed for him, but the coroner shuffled out of reach, his bloody fingers leaving dark smears on the otherwise pristine white tile floor.

"They want to take me!" Gerald shouted. "Bring me back with them! Make me answer for what I—" His voice cut off abruptly. His beady eyes locked on the door behind Matt. Still trembling, either from cold or fright, he raised his hand and pointed over Matt's shoulder with a bony finger. "Tell her she can't have me! I didn't mean to hurt her! Stop her, Matt! STOP HER! "

Matt spun around, his hand back on his gun, and found no one.

They were alone.

"Ger, you need to calm down!" Matt told him. "I think the cold is making you—"

"Delusional? Crazy?" He shook his bloody finger. "She's right there!" On wobbly legs he rose, stumbled, then steadied himself against the gurney Matt had used to bring in Norman Heaton. "Get back, Aubrey! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

With whatever strength he could muster, Gerald Furber pushed the gurney forward. It shot across the exam room, bounced off the edge of the door frame, and rocketed back toward Matt. Matt caught it, but not before it blocked his path as the coroner ran from the room. By the time Matt reached the hallway, Gerald was at the front door of the funeral parlor, fumbling the locks with bloody hands. "She's right behind you!"

There was nobody behind Matt. He bolted down the hallway, but by the time he reached the door, it was open and Gerald was thirty feet down the sidewalk, his body jerking and stuttering like a car that didn't want to start.

Matt would have chased after him if he had not seen Gabby standing kitty-corner across the street, in front of the now deserted Stairway Diner. Someone had managed to get plywood up over the broken windows. Gabby had her phone pressed to her ear, her face lined with concern.

When she spotted Matt, she waved him over. "Riley's not answering!"