Page 73

Nate

S leep didn’t come easy. I was too hyped up to relax. After tossing and turning for an hour, I finally fell into a fitful sleep, which only resulted in me feeling more tired when I woke up.

Cameron and I quickly got ready, then headed out.

We arrived at the coroner’s office an hour later, both of us anxious.

As soon as I parked, I sniffed the air, searching for threats.

Nothing. At least not right now. Even so, I’d keep my head on a swivel, checking for whatever might be coming for us.

I didn’t think Rick or his father knew we were here, but we couldn’t afford to let our guard down.

“Do you think he’ll show up?” Cameron asked as we got off the bike.

“He sounded pretty heartbroken last night,” I replied. “He wants answers as much as we do. He’ll turn up.”

A few minutes later, a truck pulled into the parking lot. When Mitch got out, he had the pale skin and dark circles under his eyes of a man who’d barely slept a wink.

“Good morning,” I said, trying to be as cordial as I could, given the circumstances.

Mitch shook my hand, then Cameron’s. “Hey. So, uh, what do we do now?”

Cameron gestured toward the building. “We’ll need to head inside. Did you bring anything that proves you’re the next of kin?”

Mitch nodded absently, patting his back pocket. “Yeah. I have a copy of Lenny’s birth certificate and an old ID he left at his apartment.”

“That should be sufficient.” Cameron put her hand on Mitch’s arm. “I’m sorry you have to do this.”

He shrugged half-heartedly and looked at his feet. “I’m the only family the guy has. Someone’s gotta do it.”

We led him into the coroner’s office. The bleary-eyed man behind the desk looked up in surprise when we approached.

“Can I help you?” he asked dumbly.

“Yes,” Cameron said, her tone businesslike and no-nonsense. “This is Mitch Gagnon. He’s here to identify a body. It should be listed under the name Lenny Nash.”

The man blinked at her from behind thick glasses. “Uh, I’m sorry?”

I rolled my eyes, but let Cameron take the lead.

“I said , we have the next of kin to one of the bodies you have here. Are you going to let him see the body or not?”

Chastised, the man fumbled his way to a standing position and clicked around on the computer.

“Sorry, we don’t usually have things like this happen.

” He glanced at Cameron and winced. “Most identifications happen at the hospital before bodies are brought here. Um, are either of you with the Toronto PD?”

“I’m a consultant to the police,” Cameron said, not missing a beat.

“Sure, sure,” the man muttered. “Fine.”

A few minutes later, the desk clerk had made copies of Lenny’s documents as well as Mitch’s ID. He had Mitch sign a few forms, then filed them away and picked up a ring of keys from his desk.

“Well, uh, follow me,” he said.

Mitch had remained composed through all the administrative tasks.

Now, though, he looked more anxious than ever—eyes hooded, mouth pinched, fists clenched at his sides as he walked.

It looked like he was trying to change the nature of reality.

Like he could make it not be true by focusing hard enough.

“Row three, tray two,” the clerk said, mumbling under his breath as he counted the refrigerated drawers. “Here we are.” He pulled the drawer open.

The metallic rasp of rolling ball bearings broke the silence as, inch by inch, the table slid out, revealing a black body bag.

“Autopsy has already been done,” the man said, reading from a clipboard. He unzipped the top of the bag, peeled the plastic back, then backed away to the door. “I’ll give you a few minutes.”

Mitch sighed. “You were right. That’s Lenny. Holy shit,” he hissed, burying his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Cameron said with that perfect combination of compassion and professionalism. She really was good at what she did.

“Do you have any idea why Lenny was in Toronto?” I asked. “All your cousin had on him was his ID, an empty wallet, and a business card for Keeble and Jax Construction.”

Mitch shook his head absently, still staring down at his cousin. “No idea.”

“Did Lenny have any issues that we should know about?” Cameron asked, angling for some shred of evidence that could connect Lenny directly to Lincoln or Rick Masters.

Mitch took a deep, chest-inflating breath as if trying to clear his mind with nothing but air. “Lenny had…” He shook his head, then rubbed his jaw. “He had problems.”

“What were they? If I may ask?” Cameron asked.

“Drugs. Back when we were in our early twenties, he bounced in and out of rehab four or five times. It was a rough time. Most of his issues started when his parents died. He sort of spiraled, and I was the only one there to help him back out of it. He struggled like hell, but he’d beaten it.

He was clean for nearly ten years. This is fucking awful.

” He ran a hand through his hair. “Is that what happened? An OD?”

Cameron shook her head and flicked a glance at me before responding. “He was hit by a car while walking on the side of the road.”

The lie made me feel dirty, but JC had assured us it was the best way to keep Ollie out of trouble.

Nothing else would have accounted for a dead body in his truck, other than that he was a fucking serial killer or something.

The idea of them hauling this man’s body out of the truck bed and tossing it in the road had bile crawling up my throat.

Yesterday, I’d have spit on the corpse without blinking, but after meeting Mitch and seeing Lenny as more than a monster, it was hard to reconcile the lie in my head.

All I wanted to do was tell the truth, yet the circumstances prevented it.

“Christ,” Mitch cursed. “What a damn waste.”

Guilt wormed its way through my chest, leaving a dark trail on my soul.

I’d killed the man Mitch was mourning. Killed him, and here I was, acting like I hadn’t.

In the moment, my only thought had been about keeping Cameron safe.

Now, without the threat and the surging adrenaline, I couldn’t help but feel ashamed of what I’d done.

The guy had been feral, out of his mind, and suffering.

I’d had no other option, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

A man was dead because of me, and that stain would mark me forever.

“Did anything strange happen in the months before Lenny disappeared?” Cameron asked.

Mitch wiped his eyes. “No. Not really. He was doing so good the last few years. Shit, he’d even gotten his GED. He was thinking of signing up for some classes to get his contractor’s license.” Mitch shrugged. “We’d talked about leaving Keeble and Jax and maybe starting our own company.”

“That doesn’t sound like someone who’s about to vanish,” I said.

The first thing that occurred to me was that Rick and his daddy had somehow manipulated this guy. Had they known about Lenny’s past drug addictions? Twisted that by tempting him and then supplying him with drugs? That would be the best possible way of controlling a feral.

It all lined up. They’d isolated him from Mitch—the only support system he had—then, when he was all alone on drug-fueled benders, he slowly succumbed to being feral. The supply of drugs to keep the pain and sickness of detox away would be better than any whip when it came to control.

I had no proof of that, of course, but it was exactly what I’d do. Well, it’s what I’d do if I were a soulless, heartless, and deranged prick.

Mitch was still talking about all the plans he and his cousin had been making, but a movement from Cameron caught my eye.

She’d reached down surreptitiously and lifted the clipboard the morgue attendant had left behind.

The heading of the top page showed a toxicology report, but I couldn’t make out anything else.

“What did Lenny like to do for fun?” I asked, hoping to keep Mitch focused on me and not Cameron.

Mitch blinked, pulling his eyes away from his dead cousin’s face to mine. “Huh?”

Cameron gave a faint, almost imperceptible nod.

“He sounds like he was a great guy. What did he do for fun?” I asked.

“Oh, uh.” Even through his shock and grief, Mitch managed a slight chuckle. “It’s gonna sound weird.” He put a hand on Lenny’s cold shoulder, and a tear slipped down his cheek.

“You can tell me,” I said. “Honor your cousin. The world should know about people. They shouldn’t fade away; they should be remembered, celebrated. Right?”

Mitch peered into my eyes, and the intensity of his stare sent chills up my spine. Was it wrong to do this? To use his cousin’s life to hide Cameron’s search?

The doubt vanished as quickly as it came. It was okay. A man was dead, and by all accounts, he’d been twisted into a weapon. He deserved to be memorialized, even if that was right here, right now, in a discussion over his inert body.

“Well, you’re gonna think this is crazy, especially given his age, but he was really into Dungeons and Dragons. Like, obsessed,” Mitch said.

Cameron took a step back, scanning the clipboard.

“No way,” I said, a very real grin crossing my lips. “For real?”

“Yeah. He was totally into it. The guy was a geek.”

I had to rack my brain to think of a way to further the story. All I knew was that Dungeons and Dragons was some sort of game that had been huge in the ’80s, but other than that, I had no clue what it was.

Over the next several minutes, Mitch spouted words that meant nothing to me—“Dungeon Master,” “Mage,” “twenty-sided dice,” and “map creation.” From the sound of it, Mitch was pretty into the game as well.

The clerk came back just as Cameron slid the clipboard back into place. “You folks done?”

“We are,” she said, then put a hand on Mitch’s shoulder. “Are you ready?”

The smile on Mitch’s face faded. With one last look at his cousin, he followed us out to the parking lot. Mitch put his hands on the hood of his truck and exhaled loudly.

“Are you going to be okay?” I asked.