been at her place, and his memory was spotty. Those dead men with the marks were all connected to Velocity, and so was he. Had he stumbled upon a criminal activity where someone would kill a cop to keep it secret? Was Julie part of a conspiracy?
A ghost of Julie’s image on the YouTube video of Nadine’s death seemed impossible, but right now Grant could almost believe she’d been there. Right now, all he knew was that something was wrong with him.
He flashed his badge to the guard at the morgue parking lot and called Moira O’Donnell.
“Hello, Detective, miss me?” she asked, exaggerating her Irish accent.
“Meet me at your hotel.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I have questions.”
“Okay, when?”
He looked at his dashboard clock. It was nearing the lunch hour. He had the morgue, then needed time to cross town and find food somewhere, though the thought of eating made him ill. “Two o’clock. Your room.”
“We checked out-”
“I told you not to leave town!”
“It was a little pricey for me. We’ll meet you in the Palomar lobby.”
“Fine.”
“What’s going on-”
He hung up. Her voice was so damn unique, so seductive with that Irish lilt, his penis began to throb painfully and he reached down to adjust it. Grant had the overwhelming urge to jerk off. He was so hard that he was afraid someone would see, or that he’d have some sort of waking wet dream.
“This is ridiculous,” he muttered to himself as he got out of his car and walked in through the employee entrance, flashing his badge to the receptionist. He found the bathroom; there was no lock on the main door. Fortunately, no one was inside. He went into the stall, slid the lock in place, and pulled down his pants. His penis was large, red, and painful to the touch. Damn, this couldn’t be natural. Something was wrong.
What could he tell his doctor? That he had a perpetual hard-on all day? Maybe someone at the station spiked his coffee with Viagra or something. Some sick joke because he’d stepped on some asshole’s overly sensitive ego. Not Johnston-but there were a couple of cops who didn’t like Grant. He
He couldn’t live like this. He reached down and, embarrassed and angry and in pain, he jerked off. He pictured Julie last night and the things that he’d done to her, and he felt ashamed. He’d never been that callous before, that unconcerned about pleasing her. He closed his eyes and pictured himself fucking her, over and over, and then Moira O’Donnell’s face replaced Julie’s and Grant moaned, then bit his tongue so hard his mouth filled with blood as he spurted semen into the toilet.
He stood there, head down, flushed, ashamed at what he’d pictured, what he’d done, and what he wanted to do. He spat into the toilet, a bright red wad of saliva.
Still feeling ill, Grant washed his hands and face with icy water, then went to the main morgue level and asked the desk to page Fern Archer.
While he waited for Fern, he called Julie on her cell phone. No answer. He hoped she wasn’t angry with him about last night. She had every right to be. He wanted to make it up to her, but didn’t know how-or if he could.
How could he do that to Julie?
How could he not? He was a cop first.
He called Jeff. “Hey, Johnston, I need you to track down Julie. I have some questions for her.”
“About what?”
He couldn’t very well tell Jeff the truth because he didn’t know what the truth was, and his theories were insane. Sure, tell his partner that he’d been drugged and assaulted last night. That he practically raped his girlfriend. That he was so sick he jerked off in the bathroom and was still hard and uncomfortable.
“Don’t tell her why, just find out where she’ll be this afternoon. Tell her we need to ask her some follow-up questions.”
“What are you thinking, Grant? I’m your partner-tell me what’s going on.”
Fern walked into the lobby. Grant used her as an excuse. “I’m at the morgue; I can’t talk now. It’s about Nadine and drugs,” he added to get his partner off his back.
“I’ll let you know what I find out.”
Grant hung up. “Hello, Fern.”
She smiled, her nose ring of yesterday now an emerald green stud. “Hey, Detective, what can I do for you?”
He glanced at the receptionist and said, “I wanted to ask you some questions about the woman who was brought in yesterday, as well as Erickson. And I need an older autopsy report.”
“Sure.” She hesitated. “I could have faxed you a report. You didn’t have to come all the way over here.”
“I wanted to take another look at the marks on the bodies.”
“Whatever floats your boat. Right this way.” Fern handed him disposable cloth booties for his shoes and he slipped them on. “We finished the suicide yesterday.”
“She was a suspect in the death of George Erickson.”
“Yeah, I saw the video on YouTube.”
“Shit, who hasn’t seen it?”
“No one in L.A., that’s for sure. It’s rare that you get such a fabulous, public confession.”
“What did the autopsy reveal?”
“She died from massive internal bleeding-a no-brainer since a bus ran over her. She didn’t live through it, which I suppose is lucky for her. She obviously was suffering enough before she went over the edge. Her ribs were crushed. A mess, really.”
Grant didn’t need to know the details. “Blood tests?”
“Not back yet. We ran a few in-house-no alcohol in her system-but the biggies won’t be back until the end of next week. We’ve been sending more than our usual number of blood tests to the lab, and they’ve been complaining, damn lab bureaucrats.” She shook her head. “We have a pool going here among the pathologists. PCP is leading, though without the alcohol chaser I don’t see it having the effect I saw on the video. She was paranoid and panicked. I think it’s a newly engineered LSD, probably made in some kid’s basement, and she tripped. She was lucid and disoriented at the same time. She spoke clearly, but she sure wasn’t acting sane. She was also dehydrated and hadn’t eaten in more than twelve hours.”
Grant really didn’t care about the morgue’s betting pool. “Did she have the same mark on her body as Erickson, Monroe, and Galion?”
“No, but I found a tattoo.”
“You’re certain it’s a tattoo?”
Fern glanced at him as she stood outside the crypt. “Of course I’m sure. High-end, too. Quality ink, intricate design. Gorgeous, really. Almost makes me wish I were white.” She laughed. “Not.”
She opened the door to the crypt. “Monroe’s family is taking possession of the body today. It’s being shipped back to his home state; the transport company will be here this afternoon.” She pulled off the sheet. Grant stared at the mark on the pale body, dull but still red against Monroe’s skin.
“Have you figured out what that mark is?”
“No, but the coroner is going with a tattoo.” Fern frowned. “His theory is that it’s a new kind of process that uses an organic ink.”
“That’s bullshit. We’d be able to know whether it was a tat or not.”
“I agree, but he didn’t want to hold up the body when it’s clear Monroe died of cardiac arrest.”
“You’re certain.”
“Well, we know his heart stopped. We have the initial drug panels back. We’ve sent the blood for additional screens, and the coroner is agreeing to cardiac arrest with a possible secondary cause unknown narcotic since his endorphin levels were high. Which makes sense. If your suicide victim comes back with something else, we have
