Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 72561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Ahh, a Mrs. Rose Abernathy, 23.
I blanched when I saw the cause of death.
God, I hated suicides.
I guess all I could be thankful for was that she hadn’t shot herself. Instead, she’d hung herself, which was nearly as bad, but easily covered with makeup and clothing.
Pulling up the picture the family had sent over, I set the lap top on the table beside the work area I’d be making Rose beautiful at, and walked over to cooler number three.
You’d think that after five years at this job I wouldn’t be so paranoid, but every single time I opened the coolers, I held my breath.
I don’t know what I expected. To find her alive?
One thing I didn’t do was watch shows about zombies. I had enough of an imagination as it was, I didn’t need to be adding to that over activeness.
Rose was a cute girl, and it made my heart hurt to think that something so awful had happened to her that she thought the only way out was by taking her own life.
Once I had her at my station, I washed her hair.
The hardest thing about working on dead people was that they didn’t sit up, which made it infinitely harder to do anything. I also had to have a lot of upper body strength, because picking her up to wash her was quite literally dead weight.
When I had her about two inches off the table, a belch of air released from her lips, startling me.
Once again, after five years of this shit, you’d think I would be expecting that little puff of released air. But no, not me. I shrieked and stepped back.
“Gets you every time,” a dry voice said from the doorway.
I turned, not surprised to see her there watching me and glared.
“Go fuck yourself,” I snapped.
Brittany laughed.
She had a smoky laugh that sounded so sultry and smooth. At 53, she was a bombshell. Tall, much taller than my own 5’7. She had the most to die for body with big boobs, long legs, and a narrow waist. I liked to call her the real life Ethnic Barbie doll.
Her black hair emphasized her Guatemalan heritage. Long and silky. She reminded me of Laura Croft: Tomb-raider, with the way she always wore her hair in a ponytail, and the long main hung to her ass even then.
She didn’t dress like Laura Croft, though.
As a mortician, she had a very ... gross job. Which was why she lived in Carhartt Overalls. She looked cute, and she hated when I pointed that fact out to her.
“You don’t say that to your boss!” She mock glared.
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Where have you been?”
She grimaced. Her eyes screwed up at the corners as she pursed her lips, as if she tasted something foul. “The owner wanted to see me about my hours.”
“What about your hours?” I asked in surprise.
“He says I haven’t been here as much as I used to and wanted to see why. He said Joshua complained about how much he was having to do since I wasn’t ‘doing my job.’”
Her face showed the disgust in her tone.
I looked at her sympathetically. “Joshua is a dick, and always has been. You’re here nearly fifteen hours a day. Your husband already doesn’t see you enough as it is. Your kids either.”
“Ever since JJ left, I haven’t had much to go home to. Cabe works all day long. We’re lucky to even see each other some days. But I get tired of no human interaction. That’s why I’ve cut down my hours. I’ve been going to a bookclub. We discuss romance novels. You should come with me some time,” She said happily.
Brittany was married to The Chief of Police for Benton, Cabe Warren. He was a beast of a man, and took no crap. But he had a lot of responsibilities, and worked well into the night. Although, it worked for them. They’d been together since they were sixteen and seventeen. They’d had kids when they were 18 and 19. And their youngest, JJ, had just graduated from college and moved into her own place.
They were ‘free’ according to her. Not that they utilized that. They still worked just as much now as they did when their kids were young.
“Anyway, he wanted to make sure I was ‘alright,’” She shivered. “Yick.”
She felt the same way about Gustavo as I did. Although, she hadn’t shared those feelings with her husband.
Wanting the get the subject off Gustavo, I changed the topic. “Did you get anything good today?”
“There’s been a suicide, which I see you already found. And a couple of MVAs. They’re going to need some...work.” She grimaced.
Yick.
I hated watching her work, but she sure was a genius. She was a magician with putty, wire mesh, and cardboard. She could fix pretty much anything deformity wise, and I made them pretty once she was done. We worked well as a team.
We’d worked together for a little over a year now, and I couldn’t imagine working with anybody else.
“What time are you leaving?” I asked.
She looked at her watch when a deep voice said from the doorway behind her, “Now.”
We both jumped.
Her husband was standing at the door looking forbidding.
He had on a simple pair of jeans and a black t-shirt. It wasn’t the clothes that made him look authoritative. He just was. And the badge on the front of his jeans, with the large black gun at his hip only added to the effect.
When I was sixteen, I’d been pulled over by what I thought was a cop, and then nearly sexually assaulted. If it wasn’t for some kids from my school hearing me scream, and then coming to investigate, I would’ve been raped.
Ever since, I’d had a deep fear of cops; Cabe was no exception.
I knew it wasn’t a rational fear. I knew the guy who’d done it was only dressed in a costume, but everything that happened left a stain on my sixteen year old soul that told me I couldn’t trust cops. No matter what.