Page 2 of Vital Signs (Wayward Sons #7)

He was still there, smoking under the lamppost.

The same guy had been across the street all morning, leaning against the lamppost like he belonged there.

High cheekbones, dark hair buzzed military short.

Asian, maybe mid-thirties. Sharp jawline with a small cleft in his chin.

The canvas jacket looked like it had been through hell, but everything else about him seemed controlled, deliberate.

Beautiful, in a dangerous way. The kind of dangerous that made smart people keep their distance.

I'd never been particularly smart.

I moved closer to the receiving bay window, where I was sure he'd see me.

My reflection stared back from the glass, dark curls still holding their shape despite the long night. The morning light washed me out, made me look like I needed more sleep. I loosened my tie and pushed back a few strands that had escaped their careful styling.

Come play, I thought, tilting my head to catch the morning light better. I learned this game from bigger predators than you.

The man across the street took a long drag of his cigarette. I smiled just enough to show teeth and waited to see if he'd take the bait.

After a moment, he pushed off the lamppost. But he didn't leave. Instead, he moved to a new position for a better view, settling against a tree like he had all the time in the world.

Persistent. I respected that.

My phone timer buzzed, announcing the end of my break. I silenced it with a sigh, casting one last glance at the watcher before turning back to work. The newly arrived body from the county morgue couldn't wait, even for this intriguing game of cat and mouse.

I walked downstairs and pulled on the white lab coat.

It fit differently from the designer jackets I'd worn on Parisian runways, but it still served the same function: armor.

The disposable face mask came next. I pulled it into place followed by the secure hair net, my apron, booties, gloves.

My reflection in the steel cabinets showed only my eyes now, dark brown and sharp.

No longer the pretty face that Paris fashion houses had bought and sold.

Just a professional. Just someone who spoke for the dead.

The intercom crackled. "Misha, have you started on that county delivery yet?" River asked. "I'm in the embalming room if you need me."

"About to," I replied.

I approached the body bag that had arrived earlier that morning.

The paperwork beside it listed minimal details: female, mid-twenties to early thirties.

Found deceased near the Hocking River. Suspected overdose.

Dated three weeks ago. The county morgue had finally run out of space and offloaded their overflow to us.

To them, this was just another Jane Doe nobody had claimed.

The zipper came down in one smooth motion, and I frowned before reaching to double-check the paperwork.

Then I glanced back at the body. The body on my table had subtle masculine facial features and the faint shadow of a beard.

Not telling in itself. But the tattoo...

That gave it away. This wasn't a woman. Not with a tattoo that clearly read: he/him and a date stamped in black letters for all to see underneath.

"Those incompetent bastards."

They'd misgendered a dead man. Sloppy work that would compromise the entire chain of custody. Unacceptable.

I stared at the tattoo for a long moment. Then the anger shifted. Became personal.

He'd gotten that tattoo to be seen correctly.

Had it inked permanently into his skin because people kept getting it wrong, kept refusing to acknowledge who he was.

Just like I had. I understood the desperate need to make your identity undeniable, to write it on your body since the world refused to read it in your face, your voice, your existence.

I forced my hands steady and began documenting everything they'd missed.

His belongings sat in a plastic bag. Torn jeans, a threadbare t-shirt, a single sock, a worn chest binder and a cell phone that was out of battery.

I carefully set the items aside. The decedent's belongings normally weren't supposed to come to us.

They should have been placed in a sealed bin in holding at the county office, but clearly nobody gave a damn about the chain of custody in this case.

My fingers trembled as I cleaned the body.

This young man, whoever he was, had been misgendered, mistreated, and grossly mishandled in death. There were bruises and marks that suggested he hadn't had an easy life. The casual cruelty of it—not just the death, but the erasure afterward—made my chest tighten.

A flash of memory. Roche's voice, smooth and clinical: "They'll never see you as a real man, Misha. Not like me."

No. Focus. This wasn't about me.

But it was, wasn't it? This could have been me on that table. If Roche had succeeded.

The flashback slammed into me harder this time. Roche's lab. The examination table. Pills forced down my throat while I struggled. "This is for your own good. Hush now, darling. You'll get bruises if you fight. And nobody wants to photograph a model with bruises."

My knees buckled. I gripped the examination table, knuckles white against the metal edge. The coldness grounded me, unlike Roche's warm hands or soft leather restraints.

"You're safe now," I whispered to myself, the word "safe" still strange in English.

But was I? Standing here with another victim, rage built in my chest like a living thing.

It wasn't clean, professional anger anymore. This was something darker. More personal. The kind of rage that came from watching systems fail people over and over again.

This person had been someone's child. Someone's friend. He'd had a name, dreams, a life worth living. And the county had treated him like trash. Like his death didn't matter. Like he didn't matter.

The same way Roche had treated me. Roche had walked free from their trial while I'd watched from the gallery, terrified of what they’d do to me. The defense had dismissed my testimony as “confused rambling from a spoiled model with gender identity and addiction issues.”

The world had looked away from me. And now it was looking away from the man on my table.

Both of us had been betrayed by systems meant to protect us. The only difference was I'd survived to tell my story.

There but for a few twists of fate lie I.

I imagined my hands around someone's throat. Squeezing. Watching the light fade from their eyes the way they'd watched Tyler's life fade without caring enough to even get his name right.

I forced myself to breathe. To document. To be professional.

I snapped photographs of the evidence of drug toxicity, the multiple pill bottles in the evidence bag, the signs of cardiac arrest the coroner had noted. Each click of the camera became a promise. Or a threat.

The cheap smartphone lay at the bottom of the evidence bag.

My hand hovered over it.

I wasn't supposed to do this. We had strict protocols. Document, store, release to next of kin. Never access. Never examine. Privacy was sacred, even in death. Especially in death.

Roche had gone through my things too. My phone, my messages, my photos. He'd read my texts out loud, analyzing my relationships, violating every boundary.

I'd sworn I would never do that to someone else. My fingers curled into a fist, pulling back from the phone.

But who would speak for this man if I didn't? The county had already failed him. They weren't looking for answers. They'd filled out their forms and moved on.

His tattoo flashed in my mind. He/him. Someone who'd fought to be seen correctly, only to be erased in death.

I reached for the phone again. Stopped.

This was exactly what Roche had done. Justified violation with noble purposes. "I'm preserving beauty," he'd said. "I'm creating art." Making it sound like he was doing us a favor.

Was I any different? "I'm helping," I told myself. "I'm fighting for justice."

The rationalization tasted like ash in my mouth.

I glanced toward the door. River trusted me to do this right. But "doing it right" had left Tyler Graham as Jane Doe. "Following protocol" meant no one would investigate. "Respecting the dead" meant letting whoever killed him walk free.

Maybe no one had even looked at the phone. Maybe it held all the answers.

My hand was shaking now. I plugged the phone into our charger and set it aside, positioning myself between it and the door.

The screen lit up.

I'm doing this FOR him, not TO him.

The thought rang hollow even in my own head. But what was the alternative? Let Tyler stay nameless? Let his killer go unpunished?

I almost put the phone down. Almost walked away. Almost did the right thing.

Then I thought of that tattoo again. Someone had to see him correctly. Someone had to fight for him the way no one had fought for me during Roche's trial.

The phone grew warm in my palm. My other hand trembled as I lifted Tyler's right hand from the table. The skin was cool and waxy against mine.

One more chance to stop. One more moment to be better than Roche.

I pressed Tyler's finger against the sensor.

The phone unlocked, screen glowing in the dim room.

My stomach twisted. I'd crossed a line I swore I never would. But I was looking. I was seeing. And maybe that made all the difference.

In his messages, I found brief exchanges with someone named Hunter about meeting locations and side effects.

I opened his photos and started scrolling through them, pausing on the familiar image of a fierce-looking man with striking Asian features.

The same man I'd seen lurking outside the funeral home earlier that morning.

My breath caught. Dangerous-looking. Handsome—no, beautiful—in a way that made my pulse quicken.

Heat crept up my neck. I was looking at a dead man's phone, finding photos of someone I had no business thinking about like this. Tyler's friend. Tyler's connection. Not mine to want.

But I wanted anyway.