Page 10 of The Sin Eater
Is that what’s going to happen to me?
I stuff that thought away hard. “I’m guessing there’s a reason Baby Mama doesn’t want him around.”
“Can’t argue with that.” Zach shakes his head. “How far had you made it?”
“I’d just hit the sixth floor when I heard the overhead page.”
“You want to keep going, or do you want the ER desk?’
I shrug. As much as I like working the desk, I’m missing leg day. “You take the desk. I need to bump my step count.”
We bump knuckles. “I’ll ask the new guy to hang out here for a while to make sure my dude doesn’t come back.”
Our phones buzz simultaneously. It’s Candy from Admissions, letting me know there’s a guy in the lobby causing a ruckus. “Fuck. Dude’s not done.” I head for the stairs with Zach on my heels.
As we jog downstairs, he’s on the phone with SPD while I’m fighting a battle with annoyance. I worked late last night, I’m picking up overtime today, and all I wanted was to take a lap around the hospital and head for the Brew.
Well, a lap that includes a trip through the lower levels. Ezra Morgue’s not gonna be there unless he’s working overtime too. I just have this awkward need to make sure he’s okay.
Fortunately, it doesn’t take much to convince Baby Daddy to take his shenanigans elsewhere. Once he’s gone, I leave Zach to deal with the cops when they arrive and go back to my rounds. We can rock-paper-scissors over who files the report later. Walking from one unit to the next, it’s not like I have todovery much. I’m just a presence, a reassurance. I let the staff know they’ve got backup if they need it and let patients and visitors know basically the same thing.
Dudes in uniform: We’re not real cops, but that doesn’t mean you should mess with us.
I also make sure doors that should be locked are locked and note any other potential trouble spots. My only otherinterruption is a quick trip to the NICU to reset the infant abduction monitor. The system is so sensitive that it’s easy to trigger false alarms. I just need to check in with the charge nurse and, assuming it’s not a real alarm, hit the reset button.
I take the stairs to the lowest level, and the whole way down I’m making a list of all the reasons I don’t need to visit the morgue. Doesn’t stop me. I’ll stick my head in the door and, when my favorite morgue tech isn’t there, I’ll go on about my day.
And after all that buildup, he’s not, in fact, there. The place is quiet and cool and it smells of cleaning solution. One of the techs is sitting at a desk, typing something on her computer. She glances over her shoulder at me, one eyebrow raised.
“Uh, hey. Just me, checking in.”
“Sure,” she says. She’s blond, with a strong chin and a no-bullshit attitude. “What’s up?”
It’s clear she’s alone, which makes me feel even more awkward. “I was just wondering if, uh, Ezra was working.”
“Nope. He’s got the weekend off.” Her tone is calm, her eyes full of curiosity. She’s shifted in her seat so I can see her badge. First name Geneva, last name covered by a strip of black electrical tape, same as Ezra’s. I have to wonder why. It’s not like their patients would be able to track them down after discharge.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Even as I’m speaking the words, I realize how dumb they sound. If I thought he wasn’t going to be at work, what the hell am I even doing here? “I just... “ I pause, wondering how to explain myself. I didn’t come down here intending to talk about what happened last night. Not really. Sort of. And I do recognize Geneva. She’s worked here at least as long as I have, and she probably knows Ezra pretty well.
“I brought a nurse down here last night at like ten or ten thirty and found him next to one of your—” I gesture at the row of cadaver cabinets.
“Wait. What?” I’ve got her full attention. “He should have left well before that.” She catches her lower lip between her teeth, her gaze on the floor. After a minute, she shakes her head. “That’s weird. We’d finished our last case and had everything organized before nineteen hundred. He had, like, one more thing to do, then he was going to lock up.”
I shrug. Her confusion is almost reassuring—the scene didn’t make sense to her, either. “I could see through the window that he was sitting next to one of your, uh, patients. He jumped up as soon as we opened the door, shoved the body back into the cabinet, and then he was kinda, I don’t know, upset or something. He worried me.”
I probably let too much truth slip out with that last line.
“What the hell?” She shakes her head again, giving me a confused smile. “I don’t know, man. Ezra’s a quirky dude, but that sounds like a lot even by his standards.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how it is.” She waves a hand, as if she wants to dismiss this whole conversation.
I’m not quite ready to give it up. “Does he have some kind of medical problem?”
That makes her laugh. “Only the lung cancer he’ll eventually develop. As far as I know, anyway. It’s just... “ Her expression grows serious, as if she’s trying to figure out if she can trust me. She must decide in my favor, because she keeps talking. “More than once, I’ve come in to find him standing by a corpse, talking to himself.”
I blink. “Talking to himself?”