Chapter 1

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T ristan Montgomery walked into the coroner’s office and stopped on the other side of the double doors, staring in through the glass windows. He couldn’t see a whole lot from where he stood, but he was waiting to be let in. He was also waiting for Jasper to join him. When he heard a sound behind him, he turned to see a woman walking straight toward him.

She smiled at him. “May I help you?” she asked politely.

“Yes, I’m here to see a body, but I’m waiting for Jasper to get here.”

“Ah.” She reached out a hand. “I’m Dr. Amarylis Wills,” she announced, with the same brilliant smile.

His eyebrows rose slightly. “Now that’s an unusual name.”

“Not necessarily,” she replied. “My father’s idea. He thought we were the flowers of his garden.”

Tristan grinned at the mocking tone in her voice. “You are a beautiful flower, and I’m sure he’s very proud of you.” She rolled her eyes at the flattery, but he meant it. She was unique, petite, and dark. Her hair was short, almost like a small cap, but it suited her round face and huge expressive eyes. “So, you’re the coroner?”

She nodded. “I am, but I’m relatively new here. You probably want to see Dr. Cox.”

Tristan shrugged. “I don’t care which coroner is on duty,” he stated, with a careless gesture. “I came to see the body.”

Just then Jasper’s voice boomed through the entranceway. “There you are, Amarylis.”

She turned and smiled at him. “So, he’s waiting for you apparently,” she shared, “and here I thought you were never late.”

Jasper laughed. “I try not to be late.” He quickly made the formal introductions, and she nodded at Tristan. “Pleased to meet you,” she murmured. “Now come on in, and I’ll show you what you’re looking for.”

“I was hoping you would have something a little more constructive than just show and tell,” Tristan noted.

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” she stated. “However, if you’re expecting results from labs or drug testing, that’ll take longer.”

“It always takes longer than we like,” Jasper reminded him.

Tristan nodded. “We just seem to end up with more bodies than answers, is all.”

“Yeah, and you can knock that off anytime,” declared the man already inside the room, as they walked toward him. “You know I have plenty of work to do here on my own.”

Jasper walked forward and greeted the other coroner. “Dr. Cox, how are you doing?”

“I would be doing better if you quit sending me all these bodies.”

“As you know, it’s not me sending them,” Jasper clarified. “I’m just coming around, asking questions about them.”

Cox nodded. “And yet somehow they still all seem to be associated with you.”

“Oh, I won’t take responsibility for all of them,” Jasper pointed out, with a laugh, “a few maybe—Tristan as well.”

Tristan nodded, as the older coroner glared at him. “What did you want me to do?” Tristan asked, raising his hands in peace. “He was trying to kill me, while they had me locked down in the hospital.” Amarylis gasped at that, and he looked over at her. “I guess you didn’t hear about that one.”

She shook her head. “No. Here in the morgue, we tend to be fairly isolated from those types of stories,” she noted. “I can’t say I’m against it either.”

“Of course not,” Tristan agreed, with a smile. “Plus a woman was with me—who had already been through an awful lot—and he was gonna kill her too. So, when he made his move, I didn’t have a problem popping him.”

“I presume you’re responsible for that guy then,” Dr. Cox said, pointing to the sheet-covered shape of a body on a table nearby.

Tristan shrugged. “No clue who that one is, but if it’s a single bullet wound directly between the eyes,” he declared coolly, “that one’s mine.”

The coroner nodded. “I heard it was a clean shot,” Dr. Cox muttered, staring at him.

“It was a clean shot,” Jasper confirmed, behind him. “As Tristan explained, this guy was set to kill the two of them right there in the Emergency Room.”

“Good Lord.” Amarylis groaned, her face paling. “We deal with the aftermath, not so much with the process.”

“That’s probably a good thing too,” Tristan added. “Now, Dr. Cox, what can you tell me about the other guy?”

“I understand you want to see if maybe this body is really Drew Honeycutt. Yet we have Drew Honeycutt’s previous autopsy report right here and all the shit that goes with it. So I am doing the autopsy of this body and will compare it to the data on the first Drew Honeycutt. Correct?” Dr. Cox pointed to Jasper, who nodded in acknowledgment. “He also has a single bullet wound to the head.”

Dr. Wills turned and stared at Tristan, with a questioning expression.

He shook his head. “Not me,” he said, with a smile. “That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have popped him too, since we’re pretty sure he’s the one responsible for the sniper attack that dropped Mason.”

She frowned at him. “I did hear about that.… I’ve known Tesla for a long time.”

Jasper confirmed, “We’re pretty sure this Drew guy tried to take out Mason.”

“Lord.” Amarylis shook her head. “And the guy you shot?” She turned to Tristan.

“The cleaner hired to kill all witnesses involved with the same issue regarding Mason,” he replied. “We’re still trying to get to the big boss who hired all these guys. These are all pretty much just pawns in the game.”

“Damn,” Dr. Cox murmured. “I don’t have a whole lot to tell you about this latest body. He was clean too, as far as I can tell. We haven’t got the tox screen back yet, but I’m not expecting to find anything upsetting about it or different. It looks like a clean kill right through the back of the head.”

“Execution style?” Jasper asked.

“That’s what I would have said,” Dr. Cox shared, “but it’s almost impossible to tell until you figure out what the hell is going on here.”

“As far as we know, and according to the blabbermouth over there,” Tristan explained, gesturing to the body of the man he had shot in the hospital, “he was the professional crime-scene cleaner at the house of the woman who was with me at the hospital, that he was so intent on killing too.”

The coroner asked, “Not one of my forensic guys?”

Tristan shook his head. “No, he came after you were done collecting evidence. Yeah, this guy was one of the house cleaning crews we normally hired to clean up the mess left behind from the murders, the blood, and all that.”

“Jeez.” Dr. Wills stared at Tristan. “So, he would have been around there at practically the same time as our forensics people.”

“Where this particular guy is concerned—our professional crime-scene cleaner who moonlights as a professional hit man type of cleaner—I think he was probably lurking around every scene. He was definitely inside when the woman’s house was being professionally rid of blood.” Tristan nodded. “We think he was in the area when the intruder was shot at the woman’s house too. That same woman was at the hospital with me, and this guy wanted to shoot us both because it involved her house.”

Amarylis frowned at him. “There seems to be an awful lot to this story that you’re not telling us.”

“An awful lot is involved leading up to this story,” Jasper noted cautiously, “and honestly? The less you know, the better. Most of it needs to be kept under wraps anyway.”

She shook her head. “It’s awfully hard for us to do our jobs if we don’t get full access to all the information.”

“That’s true,” Jasper conceded, “but, if for any reason the bad guys decide to kidnap you, and they think that you have information they want—or don’t want you to have—wouldn’t you prefer to not know?”

She stared at him, her gaze intent. “That is one theory, but, if I don’t know anything, I have nothing to give them and nothing to save my life with. They will think I do have the information regardless.”

“But, if their belief is all they need in order to take you out,” Jasper shared, “it won’t matter what you say. Can’t argue with them, when killing people solves all their problems, or so they think.”

She shrugged and nodded. “I still would prefer to have the whole story.”

Dr. Cox looked over at her intently, “I have most of it,” he stated, his tone harsh and brash. “I’ll fill you in afterward.”

She nodded. “That would be good.” They continued to discuss the male in front of them, and, when they were done, Tristan looked over at Dr. Cox.

“Now the woman’s body,” Dr. Cox indicated, with a sigh, as he looked over at Amarylis. “That is one of yours.”

“The woman who was brought in this morning?” Amarylis asked.

Dr. Cox nodded. “She is related to this whole mess too.”

“Jeez.” Amarylis quickly walked past several other tables to reach another figure, lying on the far table. “How does she fit into this?”

“She’s the one who clubbed me over the head,” Tristan declared, his voice turning harsh, “putting me in the hospital. Then the same guy who tried to take me out at the hospital is probably the same one who took her out beforehand. He’s cleaning up loose ends.”

“Nice world you guys live in,” Amarylis muttered.

“No, not at all,” Jasper argued, “but Mason’s case is the world we have to deal with right now, so we don’t have a whole lot of options.”

“I get it,” she admitted, while scrunching up her nose. They quickly went over the details on the dead woman. “Honestly, this one died long before her time. She was in her mid-fifties, in good shape. She was healthy, no sign of any disease in her body. She was a nonsmoker, and everything looked good, except for the bullet wound to the side of her head,” Amarylis shared, looking back over at Tristan.

“I didn’t shoot her. However, just in case you’re worried,” Tristan teased, “a bullet between the eyes is standard practice for any of us who were trained to shoot properly. If you don’t know how to shoot, then you aim for a chest shot. That way you’re more likely to hit your target and to bring them down. You can always finish them off after that.” Amarylis gave a stifled groan, but Tristan kept going. “Yet those of us who can shoot and can hit our target, we take them out with a head shot. It’s faster and cleaner.”

She winced and nodded. “So, you’re not the only pros on this one. But she likely moved right as he shot.”

He smirked, wondering how a coroner could have qualms about all this. “Considering you probably don’t understand a job done by a rookie versus a pro in this context,” he noted, giving her a boyish smile, “you’re right.”

“What did I say wrong?” she asked in confusion.

“What we’re dealing with in this case,” Jasper jumped in, “are actual mercenaries.”

“Ah.” She shook her head. “That’s even uglier, isn’t it?”

“Exactly,” Tristan agreed. “It is ugly when somebody hired these guys to try to take out Mason, and some of these bad guys probably knew Mason on a personal basis, particularly Drew here,” he added, pointing back at the cadaver they’d just been looking at. “Drew was military and had worked on this base for many years. No way he wouldn’t have come into contact with Mason at some point.”

Amarylis frowned and suggested, “Maybe that’s the source of the unrest?”

“Maybe, but there’s just not enough of an evidence trail to show that,” Tristan replied. “What I do need is everything you can tell me about the female. She appears to be the weak link here.”

“In what way?” Amarylis challenged.

“She left me alive, for one,” Tristan responded, looking at Amarylis directly. “So she’s not as bloodthirsty as the rest of her team. However, that reason alone got her killed for her deemed failure on the job.”

“God,” Amarylis muttered, shaking her head. “Okay, fine. I don’t have a whole lot on her though, but I’ll run you a copy of what I have.”

“Send it to my email, please,” Tristan stated.

“I’ll send it to all of us via email,” she muttered. She looked over at the head coroner, and he just nodded.

“You do that,” Dr. Cox confirmed, with a nod. “Everything that’s just been discussed here is otherwise under wraps,” he added. “So we don’t talk about it with anybody else but the approved military investigators.”

“Unless of course we’re brought in for questioning over it,” she added.

Dr. Cox added, “In which case these guys will be there too.”

“Good enough,” she said cheerfully. She headed out of the main area of the morgue, and Tristan watched as she went into a small room off to the side.

Dr. Cox smiled. “Dr. Amarylis is new, but she’s sharp as a tack.”

“She appears to be,” Jasper noted.

“She doesn’t necessarily know how things work when you guys come around, though,” Dr. Cox noted.

Tristan gave him a hard smile.

Dr. Cox shook his head. “That’s okay. She’ll learn.”

Tristan burst out laughing at that. “Does this mean that you’re leaving us, Doc?”

“No,” Dr. Cox declared. “It’s just that you guys keep bringing me more than enough business, and I needed some help. I did have another doctor doing his practicum here, and we were looking to keep him on, but he decided, well, he didn’t want to work here with me.” Dr. Cox shrugged.

“Sorry about that,” Tristan replied. “It’s always tough when you can’t find decent staff.”

“It is, indeed.” Then Dr. Cox smiled. “Lucky for me, Dr. Amarylis came along.”

*

“Lucky for you, indeed,” Amarylis confirmed, as she walked back into the main room, smiling. “Not everybody wants to deal with dead bodies and murders all day long.”

“How can you be a coroner and not deal with murders?” Tristan asked her.

She smiled at him. “There are all kinds of places in the world where murder is not the prevalent mode of death. I wasn’t even thinking it would be here,” she admitted, as she shook her head. “But, hey, I came from Chicago, and it’s pretty damn hard to beat those kinds of numbers.”

“What brings you here?” Jasper asked, eyeing her intently.

She stared at him for a moment and finally spoke. “A change of scenery, a change of pace, wanting to do something that helps our guys.” She shrugged. “Any and all of the above. I gather I’m under suspicion now?”

“You’re not under suspicion as much as you’re new, and that means we have to look at you sideways for a while.”

She laughed. “That’s okay. You do what you have to do.” She handed them both the paperwork she had just printed out. “I already sent these to your emails as well.”

“Good enough.” Tristan nodded.

She watched them as they headed to the door. “No more bodies today, huh ? We’re a little busy.”

“Got it.” Tristan smiled. “I’ll try not to add to your workload.” And, with that, he was gone.

Amarylis still watched as the door swung shut behind him.

“That’s an interesting reaction,” Dr. Cox noted at her side.

She turned and asked, “What is?”

“ You ,” he said, with a nod at the closing door before them.

She shrugged. “It’s interesting to see the men causing all this ruckus.”

“Not causing it,” Dr. Cox corrected. “You’ll see a lot of the men who have pulled the trigger here, depending on various situations,… but they’re not the cause of it.”

“No, of course not.” She said, raising her hands in defense. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest that they were murderers or anything like that.”

“Good,” he noted, with a warning in his tone, “because that will never go down well on a base like this.”

“I’m just not used to seeing killers, and here are these men who put the bodies on my table, just walking around like that.”

“Did you not ever deal with the Chicago cops involved in shootings?”

“Most of the time they were pulled off duty after each incident, so they weren’t the ones we dealt with,” she explained. “I can’t think of too many instances, if any, where I had something like this happen.”

“Get used to it,” Dr. Cox stated, with a nod. “These guys are naval investigators, and they deal with some of the toughest aspects associated with our military bases, both domestic and overseas. They can be sent anywhere, depending on the trouble that they’re dealing with.”

“That can’t be easy either,” she muttered, shaking her head.

“No, and most of them are damn good guys, but that lifestyle, that living, takes a toll after a while,” Dr. Cox shared, staring at the door. “Anyway, we need to get moving. If you get any other results back, send a copy to me and to them.”

“Good enough,” she replied, leaving the room again. For the rest of the day it was business as usual. As she worked, it was hard to get Tristan off her mind.

Jasper was almost equally disturbing, but in a different way. An attraction was there between her and Tristan, and Amarylis didn’t want it to be anything to do with the work they did. That just sounded so wrong, and it came from a part of her history that was holding her back. Yet she didn’t see anything happening between her and Tristan. She’d dated plenty of guys who were either turned off or completely turned on by the work she did. In this case, she didn’t see any of that happening here at this base, and that was a good thing.

She walked out of the offices later that day. She was still getting used to the base, and she was getting there slowly but surely. As she walked to her car, she heard a shout and turned to see a man walking toward her, one she didn’t recognize. She frowned, hesitating, not sure she should talk to him.

As he stepped up, another man stepped out from the shadows and called out to her, “Hey, honey. Sorry, I’m a bit late.” She startled at that, recognizing Tristan. Her eyebrows shot up, and he just gave her a warm smile as he walked closer. He turned and looked at the other guy. “Do I know you?”

The other guy frowned and shook his head. “ Nah , I didn’t realize she already had a boyfriend. You know how hard it is to meet anybody in this damn place? I figured, because she’s new, she wouldn’t have hooked up with anybody yet,” he said, growling.

“Ah, that is so sweet of you, wanting first dibs, huh ?” Tristan taunted him.

The stranger turned all shades of red and faced Amarylis, adding, “Anytime you want to ditch this clod, you give me a call.” Then he quickly handed her his phone number on a card.

Stunned at the speed in which the circumstances had just evolved, she waited until the other man disappeared, frowning at the card. “ Garran . What do you know about Garran that you seemed to think I needed saving from?”

“I wasn’t so sure you needed saving at all,” Tristan stated, “but what I do know is that, until we get to the bottom of this shooting-Mason mess that we’re in, everybody involved needs to be careful.”

She frowned. “Yet how do you know that I didn’t want to go out to dinner with him or something?” she asked, her gaze assessing Tristan.

“Because you didn’t know him and instinctively didn’t trust him,” he replied. “I saw that from your expression and your body language. Besides, I reacted on sheer impulse and called out to you.”

Her eyes opened wide. “Do you often do things like that?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes instincts are a huge boon.”

“It can also get you in a hell of a lot of trouble.”

He burst out laughing at that. “It can, but, given the amount of trouble we’ve got going on right now on this base, I didn’t want to take the chance.”

“There is that,” she agreed. “Do you know who that guy was and what he was doing here and whether he was looking for me or not?”

“He was coming for you. Whether that’s because you are fresh blood on base,” he explained, “or you just took up a position in the coroner’s office, it’s hard to say.”

“It sounds terrible when you put it that way.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean it to, but I’m a straight shooter. Plus, I’m not prepared to see anybody else get hurt, especially since we already have several bodies in your morgue.”

“What about Dr. Cox’s safety?” she asked.

“He was escorted home earlier,” he shared.

Her eyes squinted at the word escorted .

Tristan shrugged. “Jasper had a guard on him, but we didn’t realize you were staying on so late tonight.”

“So you got the unlucky card?”

“I would say, I got the lucky card.” He chuckled. “Besides, if you want to go out with Garran , we can call him back right now. Or you can call him. You’ve got his number right there.”

“He was a little pushy, wasn’t he?” she asked, frowning as she stared again at the card.

“I don’t know.” Tristan shrugged. “From a guy’s point of view, he was just getting in line first. He probably thought I might take things over.”

“Would you? Would you just take things over?”

“Of course not.” He chuckled, as he nudged her toward her car. “I would give you an option first.”

She sighed. “I’m here at my car, so now what?”

“Now you will go straight home,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“What if I want to go out for a meal because I don’t have any food at home?”

Tristan stopped and whistled. “How new are you here?”

“Two weeks,” she said. “Sure, I’ve done some shopping, but I don’t have a fully stocked kitchen yet. Plus, I haven’t figured out where all the best food places are.”

“Oh, I can help you out with that,” Tristan offered. “Considering I just made it appear as if you and I are together, it wouldn’t hurt to show anybody else who’s watching that we’re a couple.”

At that, she faced him. “Is this all just for show?” she asked. “Is this what you do?”

“If I have to do something to keep you safe,” he replied, with his wolfish smile, “then I’ll do whatever it takes.”

She shook her head. “This isn’t what I signed up for.”

He gave her a grim look. “None of us signed up for a military sniper taking down a beloved leader like Mason. But, when trouble finds you, you can’t sit around and do nothing.”

She winced, and his saying how he hadn’t signed up for this either stuck out like a sore thumb. “Meaning that you didn’t sign up for this either.”

“Meaning that I didn’t either, and neither did the other women involved,” he added, “like Tesla.”

Amarylis nodded, now frowning.

“Didn’t you say you know her?”

“I do know her. I’ve talked to her a couple times since I arrived here, but I have not gone to the hospital to visit her.”

“Has she asked you to?”

“No, she knows how I feel about hospitals.”

He frowned at her and asked, “Seriously? You work in a morgue, for heaven’s sake.”

“Exactly,” she agreed, “and, all too often, the people I see in a hospital, they end up in my morgue. I would just as soon not see them in a hospital. If they show up dead on my table, well, that’s something I couldn’t help. Yet, if I’ve seen them in the hospital first, I always worry I could have done something more for them.”

He gave her the gentlest of smiles and nodded. “And yet that’s not your field, is it?”

“No, it sure isn’t,” she agreed, “but that doesn’t mean I feel the pain any less.”

“No, of course not. That just means you’re all heart.”

“ Too much heart,” she muttered, with a headshake. “Such a sensitive heart can make life pretty tough.”

He smiled. “Absolutely it can. However, I won’t say it’s a bad thing because I think there’s a lack of heart in this world.”

She nodded. “I won’t argue with that either.”

“Good. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s go eat. I know a place just down the road. Do you want to drive, or do you want me to follow you home, and then I’ll pick you up from your place? Or we can leave your car here, and I will bring you back afterward.” When she hesitated, he added, “You know that I’m trustworthy. You also know that at least two others are aware that I’m assigned to you tonight, including Dr. Cox, so you also know that I’m safe.”

“Why do I feel like there is more to this than just a dinner?”

“Right now, before there’s any trouble, we just want you to be safe and sound,” he explained. “It’s always calm before shit just gets sprung on us. I would feel a whole lot better if you had somebody you could call on.”

“Wow.” She let out her breath with a heavy gust. “This is definitely not the reception I was expecting here.”

“No, but the minute you got those bodies on your table, who knows what will happen.”

“Do you think they will come after the bodies?” she asked, as she got into her vehicle and closed the door, rolling down the window now.

“I don’t know that they will come after the bodies, but they might come looking for more information.” He shrugged because what more could he say? She was already reeling. “I also wanted to ask you privately if you saw any sign of either of them being a drug mule.”

“Good God, I didn’t see any sign of that. I did a full autopsy and found no packets in the stomach or intestines, nothing in that area that would indicate something like that.” She was clearly unnerved by now. “I’ve certainly done updated training, and the drug trade is always trying new things. However, only so many body cavities exist where they can hide drugs.”

“I get that. I just wanted to confirm, that’s all.”

“You couldn’t have asked that this morning,” she noted, with a note of humor.

“If I’d thought of it then,” he admitted, flashing her a grin, “I would have. Now, what’s your choice?”

“Meaning I don’t have a choice, or I do have a choice of transport or regarding dinner?”

“Yes, of course you have a choice,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I can escort you straight home, if that’s what you want, or we can go out for a meal, or I could just shadow you while you go do your thing.”

She turned on her car engine and asked, “Do you seriously think I’m in any danger?” When he hesitated, she added, “What are you not telling me?” He stared at her and didn’t respond right away. She shook her head and spoke impatiently, “What is it?”

*

Tristan was good at casual, but he was no hand holder. Yet he couldn’t see the point in scaring her.

“Come on. You need to tell me. If I don’t know what’s going on, I can’t protect myself.”

He nodded. “That’s part of the problem. I don’t know why anybody would want to come after you,” he replied, raising his hands, stopping her before she opened her mouth again. “I just know that it’s a possibility, and my instincts are telling me to keep you safe. I don’t want to scare you or to freak you out. I’m here unofficially, yet I also followed Dr. Cox home today to ensure he got there safely.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“I did,” he confirmed, with a nod. “I gave him a full warning that… this case is ugly and that he needs to take extra care.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No, I am not. He has no family and lives alone,” Tristan shared.

“And so do I,” she noted. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“It’s hard to say, but, should you unwillingly disappear, not a whole lot of people would know immediately. And maybe, from the bad guys’ point of view, not a whole lot of people would care.”

She paled as she glared at him. “Sounds like scare tactics.”

“It is, and I’m known for being overly cautious. I get it. However, I also want to see that this mess doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“You’re still not making any sense as to what connection there could possibly be to the coroner who’s looking after these cases,” she pointed out. “I get that you don’t want to tell me, but we’re not going anywhere until you do.”

He grinned. “I do like feisty people.”

“You mean, feisty women ,” she clarified, raising an eyebrow.

“That too,” he agreed. “The thing is, I don’t have any proof for you, but I can tell you that I’m very well known for my instincts, and right now my instincts are telling me that whatever is going on in that morgue with those bodies is bad news for you, and I would just as soon keep you out of it.”

Before she could open her mouth in protest, he added, “You don’t have to agree, but the mistake of not listening to me could have huge consequences.” She glared at him, and he nodded. “I know it’s not fair, and I don’t have anything concrete to tell you. All I can say is that something’s wrong, and I want to confirm you’re safe. Is that so hard to believe?”

“If it wasn’t for the fact that Dr. Cox and Jasper were here earlier, I would think that you’re on the same level as the Garran guy who just left,” she pointed out, staring at him.

“You don’t think it’s odd that he was waiting right here in the parking lot for you to leave?”

She nodded. “I think it’s very odd, but, honest to God, since everybody got loose from COVID restrictions, there’s been a lot of odd and desperate people, wanting to hookup, to make friends, to get out, and to just have a life again, you know? So, is it odd? Sure, but it’s not the oddest thing I’ve had happen.”

“What was that?”

She shrugged. “A couple days ago, I came out of my apartment, and somebody was staring at me the whole time. I smiled at him and was friendly, but he was just very strange.” When Tristan raised one eyebrow, she got nervous. “Oh, surely that’s nothing to be upset about.”

“I guess it depends on the guy. Does he know what you do?”

“He did ask me what I did and if I was new here and working and all. When I told him that I was the new coroner, he nodded. Although,” she added, with a wince, “he did say, too bad .”

“ Too bad , as in he didn’t want anything to do with you because you were a coroner, or too bad, as in too bad for you?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, staring up at him, “but now you’ve got me wondering.”

*

Tristan followed her back to her place, and as soon as they got into the apartment parking lot, he pulled ahead and parked, then got out and walked toward her. “Would you recognize this guy again?”

“Sure, he had a fairly distinctive expression on his face when we first met, so I had a good look at him.”

“What kind of expression?”

“Like I surprised him.”

“I’m guessing you probably did. Not everybody sees a pretty young thing , like you”—deliberately drawing it out in a joking manner—“as being in that field.”

“Not the first time I’ve dealt with that discrimination,” she admitted, “and sometimes this work gets me into trouble in terms of relationships.”

“Of course,” he murmured. “Do you think the guy lived here?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. Why?”

“I just wondered.” He turned around, looking at the apartment buildings. “I would like to know who you were talking to.”

“He was leaning against an older black truck, though I don’t know anything about trucks,” she shared apologetically. “So I can’t tell you what kind or model it was. I can tell you that he had a scar down the right side of his face.”

“Did he appear to be waiting for you or in any way interested in you?”

She winced. “You know how to make a girl feel special.”

“What I want to know is if somebody is interested in you for you , not because you might have been seen somewhere.”

“Where would I have been seen?”

“I don’t know. Were you at any of the crime scenes?”

She grimaced and then nodded slowly. “Yes, of course. It’s part of my job.”

“Exactly, and that’s why I’m asking. I’m not sharing this to scare you, but I do want to know more about whatever is going on, so we’re very clear as to what it entails.”

She sighed and raised her hands, and he ushered her to his car. “It’s frustrating, and I have zero clarity to give you.”

Just then his phone buzzed. He pulled it out, checked the screen, and nudged her toward his car as he answered the call. “Hey, Jasper.… Yes, yes. I did drive behind him.… I know, overly cautious and all that. Yet Amarylis here,… yeah, Dr. Amarylis Wills,” he clarified quickly, wincing at the overly familiar tone that she hadn’t told him that he could use. “She’s had two guys focused on her. One guy in her apartment parking lot seemed to be staring at her, who made an odd comment about how bad it was too bad that she was a coroner. Maybe it was innocent, maybe not. I don’t know.” He looked right at her and nodded. Then Tristan went on to explain about Garran, the latest guy who had rushed up to talk to her tonight as she left the office. “I was just asking her if she had been at any of the Mason-related crime scenes.”

She half listened, as she thought about it. When he got off the phone, she added, “I was on scene, picking up Drew’s body. Then I was sent back out to collect your mystery woman.”

Tristan nodded. “Do you think you were being watched either time?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t alone each time though.”

“I don’t suppose you noticed anybody who showed up at both scenes, like a civilian or someone not official?”

Her eyes widened at that. “Again I have no idea. I don’t know anybody here.”

“That’s partly why I’m concerned.” Tristan surveyed the area. “Let’s go get some food, and we’ll talk about it.”

As he got into the driver’s seat, she noted, “I don’t understand what could possibly be an issue.”

“An issue would be if you picked up something at a crime scene that the bad guys know about and were hoping to get themselves.”

“But then it would be back in the morgue, with forensics, and part of the inventory.”

He nodded. “How much security do you have at the morgue overnight?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “That would be a question for Dr. Cox. I’m still pretty new here.”

“Will do.” He drove down a series of roads and came up to a small restaurant she hadn’t seen before.

“What is this place?” she asked, staring at it.

“It’s Italian, a small hole-in-the-wall place. Do you like Italian?”

“I love Italian,” she replied, with a smile, “and I always love hole-in-the-wall places.” She laughed. “Anything that makes the food a little more family-oriented.”

“That’s definitely this place,” he stated. “Come on. Let’s go get something to eat.”

As they got out and walked into the restaurant, he quickly introduced Amarylis to Rosita, who was serving tables.

Rosita smiled at her. “Welcome to town,” she greeted her in a cheerful manner. “Let’s grab you guys a table.”

As they walked to the table, he felt Amarylis’s gaze on him, and he shrugged. “I come here sometimes. I know the family.”

“She seems to know you quite well too,” she teased.

“I don’t know about her knowing me well ,” he clarified, “but I helped her brother when he was in a spot of trouble.”

“Ah, back to the Good Samaritan thing.”

“Not sure I do that whole Good Samaritan thing very well,” he murmured. As Rosita pointed them to their table, he said, “Thanks, Rosita.”

“Do you want the usual or menus?”

“As this is Amarylis’s first time here, let’s not push it, so how about menus?” Rosita nodded and quickly disappeared. He looked over at Amarylis and asked, “What’s the matter?”

“I’m just wondering about something,” she replied. “You know when you mentioned picking up a few things?”

“Yeah. Did you go through Drew’s clothing?”

“I didn’t. We’re not fully done, remember that.”

“Forensics isn’t done either,” he noted, “but it does make me wonder.”

“I did see something and picked it up. I’d forgotten about it until now.”

“What was it?”

“A key.”

He looked at her over the top of the menu. “As in a USB key or a door key?”

She nodded. “A USB key. It went in with a bunch of other items to forensics. They would have it on record.”

“So, you’re not handling that part yourself?”

“No, a forensics team goes to scenes here, particularly right now,” she explained, with a shrug. “I don’t know if there always is one. On several of my Chicago jobs, I gathered forensics as well as managed the forensics team, but that doesn’t appear to be part of my job here.”

He nodded. “No, we have a full contingent here, so chances are it won’t be your job.”

“But not everybody would know that,” she pointed out.

“Meaning that anybody who saw you pick up the USB, or thought you might have picked it up, wouldn’t know that it wasn’t your job?”

“Exactly, so, in theory, what you’re saying about me potentially being in danger is a real possibility.” She put her menu down with a hard slap and glared at him. “And I won’t thank you for that because now it’ll be damn hard to sleep.”

He studied her features. “Still, we’re always better off knowing, so we can do something about it.”

“Says you,” she muttered. “I’m beginning to feel like I’ve walked into Alice in Wonderland , you know? Right down the rabbit hole, with absolutely nothing good about it.”

“We can certainly make some phone calls and see what’s happening with that key.”

“That would be good,” she stated in a hard tone.

“Who did you give it to?”

“It went into an evidence bag and was handed off to the forensics team. I don’t even know if anybody recognized it for what it is.”

“In what way?”

“It didn’t look like a typical key. You know how you have all these novelty designs and things?”

“So, if nobody recognized it, then how did you spot it?”

“This one was in the shape of a little car. My father sold a lot of computers and accessories, and he used to give away promo stuff like that all the time to his clients. When I picked it up, I knew what it was. I didn’t open it or even look at it very long, but I did put it into evidence.”

“So, as soon as we’re done with dinner, maybe you can make a few calls, and we’ll see what is on that key.”

“The lab guys don’t work twenty-four hours a day,” she said, looking at him.

“Unless they need to, and, if I need them to, then we will get them in there.”

“Oh, crap.” She gave him an eye roll. “You know how to make me popular, as the new person on the block.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” He waved his hand. “I’m always happy to be the bad guy. You can blame it on me.”

She burst out laughing, just as Rosita walked over to take their orders.