“Neither do I. It’s more like a feeling,” Deanna murmured. “I’m sorry. I know I sound…confused. It must be the sleepwalking.”
“It’s okay. I’m just trying to understand.”
Deanna stopped suddenly, looking around. “It’s gone.”
Lauren hesitated. “It?”
“Whatever was watching us.”
“
Deanna shivered. “No.
5
L ooking for Stephan’s hideout was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, Mark thought. He might have chosen a basement in a deserted housing complex almost anywhere. Or an old warehouse. Or abandoned industrial park.
Somehow, he had to get a better sense of where his nemesis was making his home base.
His next self-imposed task didn’t seem to be any easier.
Mark wasn’t at all sure how he was going to gain access to the morgue, and it wouldn’t help him in the least if the attendants brought out Polaroids of the deceased or digital images, as was so often the case these days.
He was pretty good at mesmerizing people, and on someone trusting, like innkeeper Lilly Martin, he could almost guarantee success. But at the morgue, there were clerks, assistants, attendants, gurney pushers…all kinds of people to get past.
Luckily, he started out with a young woman in her mid-twenties, a picture of her husband and baby on her desk.
The entire business world knew that confident, direct eye contact brought about the best results. And she was easy to engage. Without telling too many lies, he convinced her that he had an official reason to be there and got her to agree to let him in to see the body that had been pulled from the Mississippi.
As it happened, the remains were in one of the autopsy rooms. Bad luck. But he was able to get into the back, and put on scrubs and a mask. With a clipboard in hand, he moved down the hallway, knowing exactly where he was going.
To his surprise, there was a roadblock. A human roadblock.
Most of the time that would have meant little, but this roadblock was different. It was the cop. Sean Canady.
Canady looked up, saw him and, despite the mask and the scrubs, recognized him instantly.
Hell. Now, there was a chance he would be arrested. Not good.
But Canady only strode down the hallway to greet him.
No sense playing games. “Hello, Lieutenant.”
“Musician and writer, huh?”
“I swear. You should hear me play.”
Canady studied him for a long moment, looking into his eyes.
To Mark’s amazement, the cop shrugged. “You feel you need to see the body? Let’s go.”
One of the assistant’s brought Canady some gloves. He thanked the assistant, then asked, “Who’s on?”
“Doc Mordock.”
“Great.”
The autopsy room was like every other one of its kind. Sterile. Tile and paint in soft powder blue. Same smell of death, antiseptics and preservatives. Water running to keep the stainless steel tables as clean and germ-free as possible, and to enable the doctors and technicians to work on human bodies, with all their messy fluids and tissues.
Only one of the gurneys in the room held a form beneath a sheet. A man in scrubs and a mask was standing behind it.
“Sean, hey,” he said.
“Doc Mordock, hi,” Sean replied.
Mordock looked at Mark, a question in his eyes. “Mark Davidson,” Sean said in introduction. “He’s seen victims found in a similar situation. He may be able to tell us if we’re looking at a killer who has struck elsewhere,” he went on to explain briefly.
“Hey, he’s with you. That’s good enough for me,” Mordock said as he pulled back the sheet.
There was always something sad and eerie about a naked corpse on a stainless steel gurney. When the head was missing, the effect was intensified.
Mark knew there were things that Mordock could determine from the damage inflicted by the water, and the fish and crustaceans that made the Mississippi their home. He should be able to determine a time and date of death, what she had eaten for her last meal, and much, much more.
None of that mattered to Mark, though he did listen to the conversation between Mordock and Sean Canady.
“You got an ID yet?” Mordock asked.
