Grave Secrets

Keeping my back to the wall, I followed a corridor past a roll-on gurney scale, an office, and a small room with a curtained window.

My lab in Montreal has a similar chamber. The dead are wheeled to the far side of the glass. The curtains are opened. A loved one reacts with relief or sorrow. It is the most heartbreaking place in the building.

Beyond the viewing room, the corridor dead-ended into another. I looked left, right.

Another light show behind my eyes. I closed them, breathed deeply, opened them. Better.

Though it was dark in both directions, I knew where I was. To the left I recognized the autopsy rooms, to the right the hall down which Angelina Fereira had led me to her office.

How long had it been since she’d given me Eduardo’s CT scans? A week? A month? A lifetime? My brain couldn’t compute.

I started right. Maybe she was there. She could tell me about Lucas.

A stab to the gut doubled me over. I took quick, shallow breaths, waited for the pain to subside. When I righted myself, lightning burst behind my eyes and the top of my head exploded. Bracing against the wall, I vomited in great, heaving spasms.

Dr. Fereira? Ryan? Galiano?

A lifetime later, the contractions stopped. My mouth tasted bitter. My sides ached. My legs felt rubbery, my body hot and cold at the same time. Dr. Fereira would send someone to clean this up.

Using the wall for support, I pushed on. Her office was empty. I reversed direction toward the autopsy rooms.

Autopsy room one was dark and deserted.

Ditto for two.

I noticed violet-blue light spilling under the door of autopsy room three, the one in which I’d examined Patricia Eduardo’s skeleton. She was probably there.

Gingerly, I opened the door.

There’s a surreal stillness to a nighttime morgue. No sucking hoses, no whining saws, no running water, no clanking instruments. It’s like no other silence I know.

The room was empty and deathly quiet.

“Dr. Fereira?”

Someone had left an X ray on an illuminator box. Fluorescence seeped around the film like the blue-white shimmer of a black-and-white TV in the dark. Metal and glass gleamed cold and steely.

A gurney sat by a stainless steel cooler at the back of the room. On it, a body bag. The bulge told me there was someone inside.

Another spasm. Black spots danced in my vision.

Lurching to the table, I dropped my head, breathed deeply.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

The dots dissolved. The nausea backed off.

Better.

A body outside the cooler. Someone had to be working.

Dr. Fereira?”

I reached for my cell phone. It wasn’t in my pocket.

Damn!

Had I dropped it? Had I forgotten it at the hotel? When had I left the hotel?

I looked at my watch. I couldn’t see the digits.

This was not working. I needed to leave. I was in no shape to help them.

Help who?

Leave where?

Where am I?

At that moment I felt more than heard movement behind me. Not a sound, more a disturbance in the air.

I whirled.

Fireworks flared in my brain. Fire shot from my groin to my throat.

Someone was standing in the doorway.

“Dr. Fereira?”

Did I speak or imagine I was speaking? The figure held something in its hands.

“Señor Díaz?”

No answer.

“Dr. Zuckerman?”

The figure remained frozen in place.

I felt my hands slip. My cheek struck the metal lip of the gurney. Breath exploded from my lungs. The floor rushed toward my face.

Blackness.

29

I HAD NEVER BEEN SO COLD IN MY LIFE.

I was lying on ice at the bottom of a deep, dark pond.

I wiggled my fingers to bring back feeling, fought to rise to the surface.

Too much resistance. Too far down.

I breathed in.

Dead fish. Algae. Things of the deep.

I spread my arms like a child doing a snow angel.

Contact.

I followed the contour with my hands.

A vertical rim with a rounded lip.

I explored the rim. Not ice. Metal, surrounding me like a coffin.

A tickle of recognition.

I took a deep breath.

The stench of death and disinfectant. But the proportions were inverted. The odor of rotting flesh had the upper hand.

Refrigerated flesh.

My heart shriveled.

Oh God!

I was lying on a gurney in the morgue cooler.

With the dead!

Oh my God! How long had I been unconscious? Who had put me on the gurney?

Was that person still here?

I opened my eyes and raised my head.

Shards of glass blasted through my brain. My insides contracted.

I listened.

Silence.

I pushed to my elbows and blinked hard.

Inky black.

I rose to a sitting position, waited. Shaky, but no nausea.

My feet were dead weight. Using my hands, I drew my ankles to me and began rubbing. Slowly, feeling returned.

I listened for signs of activity outside the cooler.

Stillness.

I swung my legs over the edge and pushed off the gurney.

My knees were liquid, and I collapsed to the floor hard. Pain shot through my left wrist.

Damn!

My right hand came down on a rubber wheel.

I crawled on all fours and pulled myself up.

Another gurney.

I was not alone.

The gurney held a bag. The bag was occupied.

I recoiled from the corpse. My mouth felt dry. My heart pounded.

I turned and stumbled in the direction I thought the door should be.