Chapter 25

"Sawyer." Nan shook her head as she started the car. "You're an idiot."

From the slightly reclined passenger seat, Sawyer offered a subtle shrug. "Eh."

Nan tsked and pulled out of the parking space.

In the backseat, Bashir suppressed a chuckle at the interplay. Mostly because he was too fucking sore to risk a laugh. Though he'd done his level best to keep his discomfort out of Sawyer's sight, the truth was that Bashir hurt from his hair all the way down to his toenails.

Somewhere in the process of being hit by a weaponized kettle ball and then crashing his car through the wall, he'd fractured two ribs. Hairline fractures, fortunately, but they were going to be a pain in his ass—well, his upper back—for the next couple of months. And then of course there were the three impacts. The kettle ball hitting his chest. His body hitting the floor. The car crashing. Even though he hadn't been able to gain much momentum to crash the car, it still fucking hurt.

Whiplash. Fractured ribs. Bruises every-goddamned- where. A nasty scrape on his hip that he couldn't even remember acquiring. And how the fuck had he sprained the ring finger on his right hand? Well, whatever. He was a mess, and he was going to be down for the count for a while. The brass had already told him he was on paid leave for the next thirty days minimum, both because of the investigation into Boyce and because he was a mess.

"That would be a huge liability," the police commissioner had told him. "If one of your injuries were to get worse while you were performing your job, the city could be on the hook for an enormous lawsuit."

Nice to know it was his physical and mental well-being they were so concerned about, but he'd take it. A month off from work was a month off from work, even if he was going to spend most of it wishing for drugs. Strong drugs. Really strong drugs.

A few blocks away from the hospital, Nan took out her frustration with Sawyer on the brake, stopping harder than was necessary at a yellow light that she could have made.

"Seriously?" Sawyer asked.

She shrugged unrepentantly.

Meanwhile, Bashir gritted his teeth, trying like hell to breathe as the sudden stop aggravated every pissed off cell in his battered body.

Fuck it. He was going to spend the next month wishing for illegally strong drugs.

When the pain subsided enough for him to slowly release his breath—well, fuck exhaling hurt, too. Of course it hurt. Everything hurt. Existing hurt. God, this was bullshit.

Nan's eyes flicked up to meet his in the rearview. "You okay back there?"

Despite his best efforts, the pain made it into his voice as he croaked, " I'm good."

Sawyer gingerly twisted around, his forehead lined with deep, worried creases. " Are you okay? How bad did you get banged up?"

Bashir lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. That was a mistake, because it pulled on muscles that were near the cracks in his ribs, and his breath hitched again. Still, he gritted out, "I'm good."

Worry shifted to skepticism. "Bullshit."

Bashir rolled his eyes. Somehow that didn't hurt. Miracles never ceased. "I'm fine ."

Sawyer's lips quirked. Then he returned to his seat, muttering to Nan, "Maybe go easy on the stops?"

She huffed something Bashir didn't catch. To her credit, though, the stops and starts were a lot gentler for the rest of the relatively brief ride.

At the precinct, Bashir steeled himself for a world of pain, and he was still surprised at how much it hurt to get out of the damn car. Could he just go downstairs to the morgue and sleep on one of the slabs for the next few weeks? The stainless steel was cold, so it would be almost like an icepack, right?

He hadn't even straightened up completely—well, as completely as he could under the circumstances—when Sawyer appeared in front of him. He reached for Bashir's arm but hesitated as if he wasn't sure where he could touch without causing pain.

Voice soft, he asked, "How bad is it?"

Bashir grimaced. "You ever broken ribs before?"

Sawyer's eyes widened and his jaw went slack. "You have broken—what? Why didn't you say anything?"

"What difference would it make?" Bashir swung the car door shut, which instantly had him wheezing because, hello, Dr. Ramin—twisting motion plus broken ribs equals fuck fuck fuuuck .

Sawyer touched his shoulder carefully. "If I'd known, I'd have taken you—" He paused. "Okay, I guess home is kind of out of the question right now. Back to my place or something. You need to rest!"

"Says the guy who literally just got out of surgery."

"I'm fine ."

Bashir shot him a point look. Sawyer met it with a stubborn one.

"Jesus Christ, you two are disgusting." Nan tsked. "Can we please go inside and deal with this situation so both of you can take your carcasses home?"

That sounded like a good plan to Bashir. He took Sawyer's good hand and laced their fingers together. "Come on. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we're sitting on a couch with a pizza and a couple of beers."

Sawyer fell into step with him, both of them moving slowly on the way across the parking lot. "Are we supposed to drink with painkillers?"

"Eh. No. We're not." Bashir scowled. "Fine. Pizza and a couple of non-alcoholic doctor-approved beverages."

"And painkillers?"

"And painkillers."

Nan rolled her eyes as she opened the door for them. "Seriously, you guys are disgusting."

"Haters gonna hate," Sawyer chirped as they walked past her.

She flipped him off. Bashir laughed. Which hurt.

By the time they reached the interview room where Tami was being held, all traces of humor and banter were gone. Bashir was worried sick about his assistant, and God knew she'd been through the wringer lately. Maybe not physically like they had, but mentally? Absolutely.

He just hoped there was a way out of this for her. She was an accessory to multiple murders—the investigators had spelled that out very clearly—but it was possible there were extenuating circumstances that could earn her some leniency. The problem was that she wouldn't talk to anyone until he was there, so no one could predict her fate right now.

Another cop who Bashir had met over the years—Detective Yang—had been trying to get her to talk, and he met Bashir, Nan, and Sawyer outside the interview room.

"Have you had any more luck with her?" Nan asked.

Yang shook his head. "She's clammed up. Her attorney is in there with her, and even he advised her to talk, but she won't until Dr. Ramin is present." His eyes flicked to Bashir. "I appreciate you coming down."

Bashir nodded. "I'm happy to help." He also wanted to get eyes on Tami just to make sure she was okay. Something told him that whatever was going on, she'd gotten in way over her head. Or maybe he was just gaslighting himself into believing she wasn't capable of being part of a serial killer's plans. Because for every murderer out there who creeped people out and gave them all a gut feeling that something was wrong, there really was another who was "so quiet" and "never seemed like someone who could do such a thing."

"What do you need from me?" he asked the detective.

"Right now?" Yang gestured at the door. "Just come in and let's see if she talks."

Bashir nodded again. "All right. Let's do this."

Yang stepped into the interview room. Bashir glanced at Sawyer, who gave his hand an encouraging squeeze, and then he followed the detective.

The room was empty except for some chairs and a table with a tape recorder on it. Tami sat in a plastic chair against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest. There were heavy circles under her eyes, and she was alarmingly pale even to someone who was used to the sight of corpses.

She gave Yang a bland glance, but then her eyes landed on Bashir, and she jumped to her feet. "Oh, thank God!" She crossed the room in an instant and, before he could warn her not to, threw her arms around him, nearly bowling him over.

Bashir grunted, "Fuck!" as his vision went blurry. He staggered back a step, and for a split second, he was afraid he was about to crash into the wall, broken ribs first.

A strong hand on his shoulder steadied him. "Whoa, easy," Sawyer said.

Tami jerked back with a yelp. "Oh my God. Are you okay?" She looked him up and down. "Are you hurt?"

Bashir wanted to feed her the same bullshit he fed everyone else—that he was good—but he was still trying to remember how to breathe with that knife in his back. Fuuuck broken ribs.

"He'll be okay," Sawyer said, still holding Bashir's shoulder. "It was a, um, eventful morning."

Bashir wheezed a laugh. "Understatement."

Tami's eyes got even bigger. "But… you're okay?" Her hands went to her lips. "Andy did this, didn't he? It was him."

Bashir wasn't sure if he should volunteer any information under the circumstances, so he just leaned against Sawyer and let his obvious pain shield him from any obligation to answer. As much as everything hurt, Sawyer's arm felt nice around his shoulders. Best thing he'd felt all day aside from the relief that Boyce was neutralized and Sawyer was still alive.

Eventful morning indeed.

"Ms. Glen," Detective Yang said. "If you could have a seat, we still have some questions for you." He tipped his head toward Bashir. "Now that Dr. Ramin is here as you requested."

Tami turned uneasy eyes on Bashir.

He gave her a nod.

Someone found some extra chairs, and at Sawyer's insistence, Bashir took the soft one with the most back support. It even had one of those ring-shaped back rests, which conveniently kept all the pressure off his bitchy ribs.

Sawyer pulled up another chair and stayed conspicuously close to Bashir. They weren't hiding their relationship. Not now. Bashir was grateful for the hand gripping his, and he had to wonder if Sawyer was also seeking reassurance that they were both okay.

We're fine. We made it through. We'll be all right.

It repeated like a mantra through Bashir's head while Detective Yang updated Nan and Sawyer on what little Tami had said. She'd refused to give up much at this point, only indicating that she was absolutely sure Dr. Boyce was behind the murders, and that she had proof.

Detective Yang leaned against the wall opposite Tami and gazed down at her, arms crossed over his button-up white shirt. "Ms. Glen, what can you tell us about Dr. Boyce's involvement in these murders?"

Tami chewed her lip. She glanced at Bashir, and for a moment, he thought she might not show any cards after all.

But then she started talking.

And she held nothing back .

After a deep breath, she stared down at her wringing hands and began, "Andy hated that Bashir was his supervisor. The thing is, he always regretted that he never pursued being a forensic pathologist. He was burnt out on school at that point, and… Anyway." She ran a shaky hand through her hair. "When he started here, he was working for the old M.E. Dr. Hanley. And he was okay with that because Dr. Hanley was like seventy." She flicked her eyes toward Bashir again before refocusing on her hands. "After Dr. Hanley retired, Bashir started, and Andy was… He just wanted the M.E. position and couldn't handle a younger doctor being in charge. And not only being charge, but being an expert who everyone in the county—in the state, honestly—came to for the toughest cases, you know?"

Bashir shifted gingerly in his chair. He was aware of all that. He'd suspected it, anyway; it was unsettling to hear that Boyce had vocalized it to someone.

Tami went on, "The first year I was here, he said a few times that he wouldn't be brokenhearted if he came in and found Bashir on a slab."

That… caught Bashir off-guard.

Beside him, Sawyer stiffened, fingers tightening in Bashir's hand, and they exchanged wide-eyed looks.

Tami's chair creaked as she shifted nervously. "But then he'd go off on this tirade about how Bashir would just be replaced by someone even younger, and…" She sighed. "It just escalated over time, you know?"

Yang studied her intently. "How did it escalate to murder? And how exactly did you get involved?"

Her face turned beet red, and she glanced all around the room except in Bashir's direction. After a painfully long moment, she exhaled. "He knew I didn't work well under pressure. That's—I mean, that's why I dropped out of nursing and pursued becoming a forensic autopsy tech. I couldn't handle the fear of making a mistake and killing a person. Autopsies—they require a lot of attention to detail and stuff, and if you fuck—if you make a mistake, they can screw somebody over. But it's not the same as ‘if you don't make this decision correctly in two-point-five seconds, the patient will die and it'll be all your fault.'"

Bashir couldn't help nodding. There were a lot of reasons he'd elected to forego working with the living, and the split second literal life-or-death nature of it was on the list.

Tami moistened her lips. "So Andy knew about that. And he'd mess with me over it. Like he was always making me second-guess everything I did. Suggesting I made a mistake until I went back and checked, and then when I saw that I hadn't made a mistake, he'd act like he was just helping me learn to be thorough. It was…" Her shoulders dropped. "It was a lot. I couldn't work like that, you know? That's why I was happy to just be an assistant while he and Bashir took the more complicated cases and testified in court."

"All right," Yang said. "But… the murders?"

Tami again turned red, and she stared so hard at the floor, it was a wonder the dirty white linoleum didn't start to curl into flames. "I, um…" She gulped. "I had a crush on Bashir, okay?"

Bashir's own face burned. He'd known about that, too, but it wasn't something he'd ever wanted getting out of the morgue. She'd probably felt the same way.

"My fiancé got super jealous about it," she continued sheepishly. "He was an insecure manbaby, but he was also convinced I was sleeping with Bashir. To the point he confronted Bashir about it and…" She grimaced. "He told him. About… About my crush."

All eyes except for Tami's were suddenly on Bashir. He nodded to acknowledge that she was correct. He just hoped she didn't mention the part about "Listen, pal. I'm not interested in either of you, but if I was, it wouldn't be her. You feel me?" Bashir didn't regret shutting down the idiot's bullshit like that, but it wasn't something he needed all the cops in the precinct to be reminded about. Those who knew had hopefully forgotten, and he didn't need the rumor mill starting back up. Cops were the worst gossips on the planet.

"Things got really weird in the morgue for a while," Tami went on. "Andy found out from one of the other techs about Bashir and my ex having it out, and that's when Andy started kind of… I don't know, getting really friendly with me, I guess?" She chafed her arms and squirmed. "He was always in my business and just… very, very friendly."

Bashir swallowed bile. This part, he'd had no idea. They'd never even looked at each other when he was in the morgue.

"Last summer, we hooked up." She squirmed in her chair, lip curling in disgust. "It was only one time, and—I mean, I won't go into detail, but when he wanted to do it again…" She grimaced, shaking her head.

"Was this consensual?" Yang asked.

"Oh, yes. It was awful, and I still don't know what the hell I was thinking, but… yeah. I consented. For some reason." She fingered the hem of her T-shirt. "But as soon as he realized I wasn't going to touch him again, he changed. He kept telling me that if anyone found out, we'd both lose our jobs. I'd never find work in law enforcement ever again, and his career would be over, and it would be my fault."

Bashir ground his teeth. That sounded on-brand as hell for Boyce, but Jesus fucking Christ. If he'd known about any of this, he'd have fired the jackass in a heartbeat.

"Then he started really nitpicking my work," she went on. "Making me think I'd messed up even though I hadn't. Going absolutely apeshit on me when I did fuck up. It was…" She chafed her arms again and squirmed. "It was really hard to work. And he told me not to let Bashir even catch a whiff of any of this—that we'd slept together, or the mistakes I was making—because I'd be gone."

Everyone in the room was silent for a long moment. Bashir wished like hell he'd crashed the car just a little bit harder or pretended not to hear Sawyer when he called him off. Yeah, the ideal situation was Boyce going to prison for all these murders, but in this moment, Bashir was too angry to want anything other than that son of a bitch crushed under his tire.

Tami swiped at her eyes. "A few months ago, I made a really big mistake on an autopsy, and Andy caught it."

"What mistake?" Yang asked.

Deflating, Tami said, "I screwed up the chain of custody. On some tissue samples being sent to the lab. It…" She shook her head and sighed. "It was a stupid, stupid mistake. And it almost cost the defense their case because… Anyway, it was a huge error, and I just got really lucky that Andy caught it before the body was released to the funeral home. So, we were able to get another sample, and fortunately it hadn't degraded enough that the evidence was lost."

Fury swelled in Bashir's sore chest. He'd had no idea this happened, and he could've gone down right alongside them if it had come out. Any report either of them submitted, he'd had to sign off on, which meant he could be implicated if it turned out something was hinky. Dr. Boyce should've reported the error to him immediately, and they should've disclosed the issue to all interested parties. Something like this could call an entire autopsy—hell, an entire case—into question and get the verdict overturned on appeal.

"He started blackmailing me after that," Tami continued, her voice shaky. Her lawyer offered her a box of tissues, and she took one. Dabbing her eyes, she said, "He'd ask me to do all kinds of weird stuff—stuff that didn't seem normal or ethical—and he'd threaten to report me for the chain of custody thing. He showed me this log he'd compiled of all of my errors, including some that I know for a fact didn't happen, but he'd managed to create this history of write-ups and disciplinary action that didn't exist." Her composure was dangerously close to breaking apart. "He just had to email it to the powers that be, and both Bashir and I would be gone ."

Bashir's stomach dropped.

Yang shifted his weight. "Why would Dr. Ramin have been gone?"

She swallowed hard as she flicked an apologetic look toward Bashir. "Because all the disciplinary action, all the reports, everything—he'd done it all through Bashir's account. In his name. And there was so much stuff— major stuff—that he told me Bashir would be fired for keeping me in the morgue after doing all those things." She dabbed her eyes some more. "I don't even know if he had proof, or if… I don't know. I was just so scared of losing my career and of being the reason Bashir lost his…" A sob escaped, and she added a quiet, "I couldn't do that to Bashir."

Guilt made Bashir queasy. All this had happened right under his nose, and all because Boyce had found Tami's weakness— him .

"When did it shift to murder?" Yang asked.

"I'm…" Tami chewed her lip as a few more tears rolled down her blotchy cheeks. "He started having me receive packages for him and run errands for him. Most of it, I had no idea what most of it was. I still don't. It wasn't until I'd ordered the snake venom for him and had it come to my apartment that I figured out he was sending—God, he'd sent me at least one murder weapon, so who knew what else there was, you know? And like… I didn't know he was killing people. I really didn't. Not until…" She dropped her gaze, digging her teeth so hard into her lip, it was a wonder it didn't bleed.

"Not until what, Ms. Glen?" Yang prodded.

She took in a deep, shuddering breath. "It was after the guy who everyone thought drowned at first. After Bashir had finished the autopsy, and I'd signed off for the body to go to the funeral home. Bashir wasn't in the morgue right then, and Andy came in. He was mad that Bashir had figured out the cause of death, and then he was ranting about how it was insane that Bashir had found the bullet holes in the guy who'd been cut up with the chainsaw. Like, at first I thought he was just mad because he's always jealous when Bashir figures out the cases no one else can. But then…"

Her eyes lost focus, and she slowly shook her head. "Then he just said, ‘He won't be able to figure them all out. I promise you that.' When I asked him what he meant, he said he had an errand for me. That was the night he sent me to the grocery store. He wanted me to meet someone out back, but he was really insistent that I had to go through the store and out the employee entrance so the person would know to come find me." She groaned with frustration and covered her face with both hands. "God, I'm so stupid. I didn't even think it was so he'd have me in front of the cameras and so everyone would think it was me."

"So he sent you there to make it look like you were behind the store at the time of the murder," Yang said.

Tami nodded without looking at anyone. Then she started falling apart again. "I'm sorry. I didn't know it was him until—even when I did know, I was scared. He was going to ruin Bashir's career, but when I realized he was killing people…" She broke down, shaking her head. "I'm sorry."

Her lawyer touched Tami's shoulder and looked at everyone else. "I think my client needs a few moments, if you all don't mind."

Bashir definitely didn't mind—he needed to step outside himself, even if it hurt like hell to push himself up out of the chair.

Out in the hall, everyone exchanged wide-eyed looks.

"So what happens now?" Bashir asked. "Is she going down for this?"

"That'll be up to the D.A.," Yang said. "And without any evidence to support her claim, it's easily his word against hers."

Bashir wanted to argue, but how many murder trials had he been involved in? How many people insisted they were innocent right up until Bashir's own testimony connected them to the body? Like the guy who'd shouted from the rooftops that he hadn't killed his business partner—his brother and best friend, for God's sake!

"But if the defendant didn't kill the victim," the prosecutor had said to the jury, "then how did a contact lens matching his prescription wind up under the blood on the victim's body?"

Was there going to be a metaphorical dropped contact lens this time? Some irrefutable piece of evidence putting Tami at the crime scenes and her hands on the bodies? Some unforeseeable weirdness that would be on-fucking-brand for this case?

Yang exhaled. "We'll still need to get a written statement from her. And have her tell us everything she knows about Boyce's involvement with each murder." His gaze shifted to Sawyer, then Bashir. "And what she might know about his attempts to kill both of you, not to mention murdering a pair of officers this morning. I also want to dig a little deeper into the connection to the podcaster—apparently Boyce used her official email to leak details to the guy. I guess he wanted the cases to be getting a lot of attention and have a ton of people thinking something was shady. Then it would be an even bigger sensation when it eventually blew open that you"—he nodded toward Bashir—"were fucking them up."

Bashir's stomach knotted. How was it possible to be so simultaneously surprised and… not? Boyce was insane.

"I don't suppose he's the reason the podcaster started reaching out to my sister?" Sawyer asked dryly.

"We're not completely sure yet," Yang said. "Tami wasn't privy to that part, but Felix did indicate that his morgue contact was the one pointed him toward her. Said with her brother involved in the investigation, she'd jump all over it."

"Of course she did." Sawyer rolled his eyes. "Anyway, the rest of your questions for Tami—do you still need us for that?"

Bashir wanted to insist he could handle it, but if he was honest, the pain was ratcheting up by the minute. He was exhausted, sore, and ready to collapse .

"Let me see if she's willing to talk without the two of you." Yang stepped back into the interview room.

Nan cleared her throat. "I'm going to go get some coffee. I'll be back in a few. Either of you want any?"

Bashir and Sawyer shook their heads.

When they were alone, Sawyer faced him, and the fluorescent lights did nothing to add any color to his pale face. "How are you feeling?"

"Like one of the slabs downstairs sounds like an appealing place to take a nap."

Sawyer laughed softly. "Yeah. Same." He squeezed Bashir's hand. "Think anyone will hold it against us if we take the rest of the day off?"

"I don't really care if they do." Bashir rubbed his thumb along Sawyer's. "We're going back to your place, and—"

"Uh, actually my place is still cordoned off, too. Carbon monoxide."

"Oh. Right." Bashir's shoulders dropped. "Fine. We're getting a hotel room. A fucking expensive one with a comfortable bed. And we're going to take drugs and watch TV for the rest of the day."

Sawyer laughed with some actual feeling this time. "Sounds like doctor's orders to me."

"Damn right it is."

Thank God, Tami was willing to talk without Bashir in the room now. Yang had hours ahead of him, getting her full statement and everything she knew, but Bashir and Sawyer were done for the day.

And by the time Nan came back with her coffee, Bashir had already booked a room at the fanciest hotel in the city.