Читать книгу The Keepers - Heather Graham, Heather Graham - Страница 11

The coroner’s office never closed. It employed all manner of forensic specialists, along with financial and clerical staff. Under the Napoleonic Code of Law still in effect in Louisiana, the New Orleans coroner’s office was responsible not only for the classification of death, but also the evaluation of sex crimes and the overall general health of the citizens of the city, specifically recognizing serious threats from disease. It was a busy place. By day pathologists, forensic psychiatrists, patient liaisons, nurses in charge of sexual assault exams, forensic anthropologists, forensic odontologists and more clogged the corridors.

Death didn’t stop at any particular time of day, so naturally a morgue couldn’t close.

But by nightfall the accountants, assistants and usually even the experts in such fields as toxicology, entomology and more had called it quits for the day, and only a skeleton crew—if the pun could be forgiven—were on duty. The dead, after all, were dead.

Usually.

Fiona headed down Martin Luther King Boulevard and arrived outside the building’s entrance while it was still early; she watched as people came and went, and then kept on watching as they mainly went.

There was no choice then but to go through the change, to concentrate and enter as a vampire would, in a shroud of mist.

The guards never suspected a thing as she went by; the outer offices, where a few doctors were still working, were easily breeched; and she breezed by the night attendant sitting outside the morgue without being noticed. Because several people had died in recent days, she took a chance and searched through the records to find the right body.

Then she headed into the dim, chilly room.

To her surprise, the body of Tina Lawrence had not been slid away neatly into a refrigerated slot but she was stretched out on an autopsy table.

The room smelled heavily of antiseptics and chemical compounds, not so much of death itself, yet the very antiseptics made it seem that the scent of death was prevalent in the air.

She slipped in and concentrated hard on regaining her customary form, aware that during the good times she should have been practicing her transformations techniques. But all the while she couldn’t help wondering why they had left Tina Lawrence as she was.

Fiona knew that the tenor of the investigation had changed; the news media had released the woman’s identification and touted her past record. Reporters had a knack for finding out what the investigators had barely discovered themselves.

While the media had no doubt thought that releasing the victim’s background was a good thing—a reassurance to most citizens that they were safe—Fiona was certain that Jagger considered the knowledge to be dangerous. It was hard to catch a killer when everyone knew too many details about the victim and the crime. Cranks, crackheads and anyone else looking for a little notoriety might decide to confess to the crime. But New Orleans was still raw, still learning painful lessons after Katrina’s devastation, and Fiona was certain that most of the media believed they had done a good thing by releasing the information that the victim had led something much less than a blameless life. A majority of the city’s women would be able to think, I’m safe. I’m not a stripper or a prostitute, and I’ve certainly never been arrested.

On the other hand, the news about the victim’s past had made Fiona incredibly nervous. Tina Lawrence must not be allowed to go through the change. Fiona had known what she had to do from the beginning; the information about Tina’s past had only made it all the more urgent.

And so, as she retook her human form there in the autopsy room, she worried that the medical examiner assigned to the body might come back any minute to begin working on it still, that the assistant she’d passed in the hall might step in at any time, or that she might be caught by someone else entirely unanticipated who could enter any second.

A sheet covered the body, and all she had to do was pull it back and use the stiletto sharp stake she had brought, making sure that she pierced the heart.

She wasn’t surprised that Tina Lawrence wasn’t yet marked by the Y shaped incision of autopsy. Given the circumstances, Fiona was certain that it had taken some time to transfer the body to the morgue, and then the victim would have been fingerprinted, photographed and …

She wasn’t sure what else.

She actually didn’t want to know what else.

All she had to do was make sure that Tina Lawrence did not wake up.

But as she approached the corpse, she heard a noise in the hallway and the door started to open, so she dived behind a stainless table holding an array of instruments, most of them totally unfamiliar.

The night attendant stuck his head in, looked around briefly, then closed the door and left.

She started to breathe a sigh of relief, then realized that she was hearing something in the room. No, someone. She glanced quickly up at the table, but the corpse hadn’t moved. She held her ground, listening, her heart pounding.

Nothing. She looked around in the dim light and waited. Still nothing. She started to rise and saw a flurry of motion behind her.

Instantly alarmed, she started to change, but she wasn’t quick enough.

Someone tackled her hard and forced her down to the ground.

She instantly went into combat mode, lashing out with her arms and legs, delivering one solid punch that brought out a startled “Oomph,” from her attacker before he caught and secured her arms, straddling her.

She found herself looking up into the eyes of Jagger DeFarge.

“Fiona!”

“DeFarge!” she lashed back angrily. “Get off me.”

He didn’t comply, though he released her arms as he remained straddled over her, staring down at her angrily.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.

“It’s obvious what I’m doing here—cleaning up the mess,” she replied.

“It’s my concern,” he told her.

“No, it’s mine. I’m responsible in circumstances like these, and I have no guarantee that you’ll do the right thing,” she replied.

“Well, I’m here, and I’m handling the situation,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest and staring down at her.

“Will you please get off me?” she inquired.

Before he could respond, the door opened. The young night attendant walked in, flicking on the bright overhead lights.

Jagger and Fiona stared at one another as the attendant let out a startled cry.

Jagger rose instantly to his feet, shushing the man with authority. “It’s all right. I’m Detective DeFarge, just looking for Dr. Dewey and the results of this autopsy.”

“I’m about to put her on ice for the night,” the attendant said. “Dr. Dewey will be in first thing in the morning to start the autopsy.”

As he spoke, the corpse on the gurney jackknifed into a sitting position, the sheet falling to reveal her naked torso.

The young man opened his mouth to let out a scream, but Jagger leaped over the table in an instant, slipping behind him and silencing him with a hand over the mouth, pulling the door shut with his other hand.

Tina Lawrence glared around, a hissing growl coming from her lips.

Then she parted those lips to reveal dripping fangs.

Despite her calling in life and the way she’d died, Tina Lawrence was still beautiful. Her blond hair cascaded over the white flesh of her shoulders, and despite the terrifying distraction of her fangs, she had lovely wide blue eyes, which settled on the attendant with hunger.

He spoke from beneath Jagger’s hold, his words muffled but audible. “She’s alive. She’s alive!”

Jagger stared at Fiona. “Take him—quickly. Silence him.”

She hurried over to where Jagger was struggling with the attendant—both to hold him still and to keep from hurting him. She grasped the young man’s arms, staring into his eyes. “Quiet now, quiet. It’s all right. You’re dreaming this. You’re asleep at your desk, and you know that you have to wake up, that you have a job to do….”

She kept speaking softly. Jagger apparently assured himself that everything was fine and turned toward the corpse of Tina Lawrence, but as he did, the corpse leaped naked from the table, ready to pounce on Fiona and the young attendant.

Jagger slipped between them just in time.

As she continued trying to calm the attendant, Fiona saw that Jagger had taken a weapon from his jacket.

It was far superior to her own, a long stake, honed to a sharp point, even narrower than hers. He took Tina Lawrence into his arms, and, just before her newly grown fangs could tear into his throat, he struck hard, delivering the lethal blow directly through the wall of her chest and straight into her heart.

The corpse collapsed against him.

Despite her prowess with hypnotic mind control, Fiona began to lose the young morgue attendant.

He began to emit a low moaning sound and started to slip lower in her arms.

She had a feeling then that he must be a football player—a blocker or a tackle—with Tulane or Loyola, because she simply didn’t have the strength to stop him from falling. Though she tried to hold him upright, she began to slip to the floor.

She heard Jagger swearing softly as he shoved the corpse of Tina Lawrence quickly back onto the table and came to help her.

But by then the attendant had passed out cold.

“We’ve got to get him back to his desk,” Jagger told her.

“What if someone else is in the hallway? There are still people in the building,” she warned.

“Get out there and make sure no one is coming,” he told her. “Quickly.”

“Why me?”

“Well, you obviously can’t lift him.”

“All right, all right, I’m going,” Fiona said, and pointed an angry finger at him. “But you don’t give me orders. I am the Keeper!”

“And you’re going to have a hell of a lot to keep if you don’t get moving,” he told her.

She wanted to reply; she wanted the last word.

But they needed to hurry. She rushed out into the hallway.

It was clear.

“Now,” she told Jagger, sticking her head back into the autopsy room.

Luckily the attendant’s desk was just down the hall. She rushed toward it, ready to fend off anyone who might come by.

Jagger had lifted the attendant as if he were no more than a ten-pound lapdog and was hurrying toward the desk. Just beyond the desk, Fiona saw a door opening. She rushed toward it just in time to see an older man in a lab jacket about to come through.

“Oh!” she said, staring at him, trying to lock her eyes on his and demand his attention.

Apparently she succeeded, because he stared curiously back at her.

“Hello,” he said weakly.

She smiled. “You’re so tired—you’ve been working very hard. Go and get your things, then go on home and have a nap. You’re hallucinating, you’re so tired.”

“I’m so tired,” he echoed. “You’re a lovely hallucination.”

“Thank you.”

He was of average height and weight, with close-cropped white hair. He was usually very dignified looking, she was certain, but right now he was staring at her with wide-eyed wonder.

“You’re daydreaming, sir. You have to go home. You need some rest.”

“Yes, yes, but … why don’t you come, too, and make this a really good daydream? An erotic daydream, maybe. Please?”

Fiona groaned inwardly.

“That wouldn’t be a very good idea. You probably have a wife, and I think she’s your daydream.”

“All right.”

He stepped back the way he had come, closing the door.

As she turned, she almost screamed herself. Jagger had come up quietly behind her.

“He’s at his desk. He’ll wake up confused. Poor boy may never be the same. He’ll have some memory … but he’ll just think that he imagined everything,” Jagger told her. He was staring at her with amusement, and she could tell that he must have heard her conversation with the middle-aged man in the lab coat.

She pushed against his chest. Like a rock, but he moved back. “This is a disaster,” she said, her voice a low and angry whisper. “You need to let me handle things.”

“With what? A sledgehammer? So you could let the whole world know something was going on in here?”

Fiona ignored that. It was true that he had definitely … taken care of things.

But he was a vampire. And a vampire was normally loath to kill another vampire.

“The corpse?” she asked briskly.

“The corpse will have nothing but a tiny hole through the heart. If you had done this, it would have been obvious that someone had been here. Do you understand?”

“Your weapon is the right one. I’ll see that I improve on my arsenal,” she snapped.

“We need to finish up quickly,” he said.

He hurried back to the autopsy room, checking the hallway after she followed him in, then closing the door.

“The sheet,” he said, which irritated Fiona, since she was already returning Tina Lawrence to her original position on the table and covering her with the sheet.

Jagger just had to straighten it.

“Now let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.

He changed in a split second, appearing to be no more than mist, and heading out. Cursing silently, she did her best to make the change as quickly and efficiently.

Still, he looked impatient when she met him back on the street, though she couldn’t have been more than a few seconds behind him.

“You could have caused a real problem in there tonight,” he told her.

They had met on the street corner, beneath the shadow of a giant oak that dripped moss. He was tall, dark, lean, strikingly handsome—and deadly—in the glow of the flickering electric streetlight. Powerful in a way that was frightening, that stole her breath.

She wasn’t afraid of him, she told herself.

She was the Keeper.

“I was there to see that the right thing was done,” she said with dignity. “And I would have managed just fine—if you hadn’t come in and messed everything up.”

“I’m a cop, and I know how to manage any situation—especially one that has to do with vampires.”

“I repeat. I am responsible. I am the Keeper. Your Keeper.”

He bristled at that, and took a step closer to her. He used a body wash or aftershave that was subtle and masculine, and despite herself, she took a step backward, not sure if it was because she was intimidated—or because she found herself too attracted, too tempted to lay her hands on the broad expanse of his chest.

She forced herself to stay still as he took a step closer to her, pointing a finger and touching her just above her cleavage.

“You are the Keeper. But you’re overstepping your bounds. You’re supposed to step in when we can’t handle a situation ourselves. In this case, I was handling the situation just fine.”

She shook her head. “I can’t trust you to kill a vampire,” she said, her words soft.

“You have to trust me.”

“A vampire has committed murder,” she reminded him.

“That’s not proven,” he insisted. “Look—we’re on it. Give us a chance, Fiona. Good God, learn from your parents. They were amazing, because they understood delegation.”

“My parents are dead,” she reminded him angrily.

She was surprised when he seemed to soften, when something in his eyes became gentle, almost tender.

“I’m sorry. Please, give me a chance … as a cop—and as a vampire. I will get to the bottom of this, but none of us will be in good shape if we get the city abuzz with rumors, and all the underworld starts getting edgy and worried. Please.”

She nodded. “I don’t want a panic erupting, either, but that’s the point. I have to keep watching—that’s what Keepers do,” she reminded him. She was overwhelmed by the sense that she needed to get away from him. She didn’t want to be this close, didn’t want to be noticing his physique or realizing that his scent was extremely evocative. She wanted to be irritated from a distance; she wanted to solve the problem herself, because she was the Keeper.

“I have to get home,” she heard herself say a little nervously.

“I’ll drive you.”

“I have my own car,” she told him quickly.

“I’ll walk you to it,” he told her.

“I’m all right. This is my city.”

“And like every city, it has crack houses, drug addicts and plain old thugs. I’m a cop—I do my job even when the denizens of the underworld aren’t out causing trouble. I’ll walk you to your car.”

“Honestly, Jagger, I’m a Keeper.”

“And a Keeper—just like a vampire, werewolf, shapeshifter, pixie, pooka, leprechaun or even a lamia—can be taken by surprise. Why the hell do you think our kind had to escape the old world, then flee places like Salem, to find a place where we could blend in? We’re all vulnerable, Fiona, despite whatever strengths we have. We’re all vulnerable—in so many ways.”

He took her arm as they walked down the street. She wanted to wrench from his touch, but …

The lady doth protest too much, methinks, she thought.

But she was so acutely aware of him!

They reached her car.

“Good night, Fiona,” he said, as he opened her door for her.

“You’ll keep me apprised—of everything going on? From a cop’s standpoint and a vampire’s?” she inquired.

He nodded.

“I have to follow up and investigate. You know that.”

“Have some faith in me, please,” he said.

“I’m having faith. But I’m using what I’ve got, too, that’s all.”

“I’ll report in daily,” he said.

“Yes, you will.”

He smiled suddenly.

She frowned, looking at him. “I don’t see anything to smile about in any of this, Jagger.”

“Oh, certainly not. Not in the situation.”

“Then?”

“You just have to have the last word, don’t you?” he asked.

She didn’t reply, just slid into the seat, and he closed the door. She stared at him and turned the key in the ignition. He stepped away quickly as she gunned the engine, then started to ease out onto the street.

A good exit, she told herself.

Except that she could hear his husky laughter even as she drove away.