She sighed. “Coop, the ring was a total shock to me. I didn’t make Peter any promises.”
“So he’s like me, operating on hope?”
She met his level gaze. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I don’t want you to say anything until you know what you want.” He curved his hand around her neck and pulled her mouth to his for a hard, slanting kiss that held all the passion they might have shared last night if things had gone differently. When he pulled back, his expression was unyielding.
“I’m not Jack, Carlotta, and I’m not Peter. I’m not willing to share you. But I am willing to wait.” He climbed out of the hot tub and reached for a towel. “See you in the morning.”
16
T he one good thing about visiting a morgue, Carlotta realized, was that it made your own problems seem small. Even with her having a dysfunctional family, an empty bank account and a confused heart, every person in the crypt would probably trade places with her if given the chance.
They had passed through an impromptu checkpoint a quarter of a mile from the entrance, on the other side of which sprawled countless TV news crews. The morgue, a four-story, nondescript stucco structure, sat in a boggy area surrounded by scrub foliage—not exactly prime real estate. The inside was filled with disinfectable surfaces of linoleum and glass and stainless steel.
They were sent to the second floor, which bustled with activity. Coop was handsome in dress jeans and a sport coat over a shirt and tie, and he’d loaned Wesley a shirt and tie to look presentable. Carlotta wore slacks and a dark blouse, with her hair pulled back.
Coop’s behavior to her this morning had been friendly, but cool. She had lain awake most of the night replaying his parting comment. His intensity spooked her. Part of what had attracted her to Coop was his laid-back attitude. She hadn’t counted on his feelings running so deep, so soon.
Sometimes the quiet ones surprised you.
The three of them walked up to the check-in desk, and Coop flashed his credentials to the woman there.
“I’m Dr. Craft. I’m here to pick up body 3050.” A code, he had explained to Carlotta and Wesley, predetermined so that Kiki Deerling’s name would not be used.
The clerk frowned. “There must be some mistake. Someone else just arrived to claim that body, a tall, bald man.” She checked a sign-in log. “A Dr. Talon. He’s with Dr. Shores, our chief medical examiner.”
“Take me to Dr. Shores.” Coop turned to Carlotta and Wesley. “Stay here. The family might have changed their minds.”
“I’ll go with you,” Wes offered.
With her broken arm, Carlotta knew she would be of little help, so she stayed behind. Although she wished she’d asked for directions to a bathroom. Her bladder was at the brim, a by-product of riding in the car with men, who never seemed to have to pee no matter how much they drank.
She crossed her legs and leaned on the counter, flipping through an entertainment magazine the clerk had left behind. Kiki Deerling was on the cover and nearly every page inside. She was—had been—stunningly beautiful, with white-blond hair, a willowy frame and a wide, sexy smile that had driven men crazy. It seemed impossible that her radiant smile had been snuffed out forever.
“Excuse me.”
Carlotta looked up to see a young man, maybe twenty, with bright red hair and pale blue eyes, wearing a dark suit and a priest’s collar. He carried a small ornate box.
“Yes?” she asked.
“I’m here to bless the body of Kiki Deerling.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “And you are?”
“Father Albert Morgan, minister to the Deerling family.”
She took in details. He wore black combat boots, not exactly what she’d expect from the clergy. And he had tattoos on his knuckles. Sure, priests could have a checkered past and make questionable fashion choices, but he did not strike her as someone the Deerling family would have sent on such a delicate errand.
Carlotta pretended to check the log behind the desk. “Your name isn’t on my list, Father Morgan. May I see some identification?”
He smiled and nodded, then turned on his heel and bolted for the exit.
“Kook,” she murmured. He probably had a camera in that box. And how had he gotten through security? Even their cell phones had been held at the checkpoint.
She rolled up the magazine and went in search of a bathroom, wandering down what looked to be a likely hall, since a pay phone and a water fountain sat at the end. She found the ladies’ room and relieved herself. When she emerged from the bathroom, a man stood at the pay phone, his back to her. He wore the uniform of an orderly, but his shoes were Ferragamo. More strangely, next to him was a gurney, with a body bag on it—an occupied body bag.
“It’s time,” he said into the phone, talking fast. “Bring the SUV around to the west entrance now. Tell the helicopter pilot to stand by.”
Carlotta frowned. Helicopter? The man slammed down the phone, then saw her, and his eyes narrowed to a point. He reached for her and managed to grab the end of her ponytail. She wrenched loose, minus a few hair follicles, and ran to find Coop.
She burst through the glass double doors that he and Wesley had gone through, racing down hallways, calling his name. A couple of orderlies stopped her, and she asked to be taken to the chief medical examiner, that it was an emergency. At the sound of hurried footsteps, she looked up to see Coop, Wesley, a man who fit the description of the doctor the clerk had described, and another man she assumed to be the coroner running toward her.
“The body is gone,” Coop informed her quietly.
“There’s a body on a gurney next to the pay phone on this floor,” she said. “Hurry! I heard the guy say a helicopter is standing by.”
She led them back to the phone, but the gurney and the man were gone. They took the stairs to the first floor and ran outside to see a long black SUV peeling out of the parking lot, but heading away from the paved entrance and toward an open, marshy field.
“I’ll radio security,” the coroner said, looking completely panicked.
Coop ran to his van. Carlotta and Wesley followed and vaulted inside. Coop turned over the engine and slammed the vehicle into gear, then turned it toward the black SUV and gave chase over the bumpy field. She and Wesley hung on while the gurney and other equipment in the back clanged noisily. Ahead of them, the SUV blew a back tire and slowed, but kept going. Coop pulled close enough to ram the back of the SUV, and sent it spinning into a shallow, sandy ditch. The driver opened the door and jumped down.
“That’s the guy I saw by the pay phone,” Carlotta confirmed.
Ferragamo Shoes made a run for the tree line without looking back. By the time they stopped the van and climbed out, he had disappeared.
Coop opened the back door of the SUV to reveal a body bag. He checked the tag on it and nodded. “It’s her.”
He unzipped the bag a few inches and his jaw hardened. Carlotta glanced at the girl’s startlingly white, famous face. Her hair looked freshly washed, the only thing about her that still seemed alive. The area around her nose was swollen and irritated, probably where tubes had been inserted. Her neck was bluish, and a red circular imprint stood out on her collarbone.
Coop zipped the bag closed. “Give me a hand, Wes.”
While they loaded the body into the back of the van, Carlotta heard a helicopter in the distance. She looked up and saw a chopper come into view, then veer away from the property.
Security vehicles descended on them. The shaken chief medical examiner emerged from one of the cars and verified the body was the correct one. In the melee, Dr. Talon, the other man who had come to claim the body, had vanished.
“If that was even his name,” the coroner said, clearly distraught. “He said he was Ms. Deerling’s personal physician, that the family wanted him to view the body. His papers seemed to be in order.” Dr. Shores wrung his hands. “This is highly unusual. I’m going to need all of you to give a statement to the police.
”
“I understand how you feel,” Coop said to the medical examiner in the same voice she’d heard him use with victims’ family members. “But if the police get involved, then it’s a matter of public record and will reflect badly on your morgue. Do you really want to feed the media frenzy and put the Deerling family through that? We have Ms. Deerling, and that’s what’s important, isn’t it?”
Dr. Shores considered Coop’s words, then nodded. “You’re right. And the sooner she’s out of my morgue, the better.”
“There’s just one thing,” Coop said. “I noticed the body hasn’t been autopsied, and I understood I was to take it directly to the funeral home. Has there been a mistake? Do I need to take it to the Atlanta morgue?”
“No,” the man said. “The family objected to an autopsy, and because of the young woman’s history of asthmatic attacks, I agreed to it, after examining the body. Like you said, there was no use putting the family through unnecessary suffering.”
Coop nodded, but from the set of his mouth, Carlotta knew he wasn’t satisfied with the doctor’s explanation.
They waited another hour while paperwork was processed, the body was placed in a box with dry ice, and a Florida license plate was added to the van. Then they made the long drive back to collect their phones at the security checkpoint, and exited with two other vans. The vehicle behind them was sparkling clean, with a pink bow tied on the antenna—the decoy van.
“Don’t look at the cameras,” Coop said. “Don’t give the vultures any footage.”
They pulled away and, as hoped, the media descended on the van behind them. Coop turned toward the interstate and they were all quiet for a long while, conscious of the pop-culture significance of their cargo. Wesley, especially, was silent. He was probably thinking how close in age he was to Kiki Deerling, and realizing that a young life could end just as quickly as an old one.
Carlotta’s heart was still thudding overtime in her chest. “Have you ever had anything like that happen before?”
Coop shook his head, his expression solemn. “This is a first.”
“Do you think those two men were in cahoots?” Wesley asked.
Carlotta leaned over to pick up the rolled magazine she’d accidentally lifted from the check-in counter and then dropped on the floorboard during the chase. “There were three men.” She told them about the nervous redheaded “priest.” “Maybe they were all in on it together.”
“Maybe,” Coop said. A muscle jumped in his jaw.
“What would someone do with a body?” Carlotta asked.
“All kinds of bad things,” he replied. “There are a lot of sickos out there, especially when a celebrity is involved.”
“What are the penalties for stealing a body?” Wesley asked.
“Abuse of a corpse is a felony,” Coop said. “Stealing a corpse, receiving it illegally, all felonies.”
“So if those guys were caught, they’d go to prison?”
“For several years,” Coop confirmed.
“What paparazzo would risk going to prison?” Carlotta asked.
Coop shrugged. “Someone who was going to be paid well for photos, or for the body itself.”
“That’s so vile,” she said. “Coop, you saw the body. Did it look like she’d had an asthma attack?”
He answered without looking at Carlotta. “I don’t have enough information to form an opinion.”
“But why was her neck so bruised?”
He shrugged. “She could’ve fallen and bruised herself during the attack. Or it could have been caused by someone in the hospital holding her down, or a piece of equipment they used to try to resuscitate her. There are a lot of possible reasons.”
“What happens during an asthma attack?”
“The muscles in a person’s airways start to spasm, and to make matters worse, the respiratory system produces a thick mucus.”
“Why?”
“There are many different triggers, some of them environmental, such as chemicals.”
“What about pet hair? She had a pug.”
“That can be a trigger, too, and pugs are notoriously heavy shedders. Drugs can also be a trigger, both over-the-counter and illegal ones. And sometimes there’s no obvious trigger at all.”
“But don’t most people with asthma have an inhaler?”
“They’re supposed to. Quick-relief inhalers will help relax the spasms and reopen the airways.”
“So she must not have had her inhaler with her.”
“Or maybe she couldn’t get to it fast enough, or perhaps it was out of medicine. There are lots of possibilities.”
“So her death might have been prevented.”
“If it was an asthma attack, then yes, with the right treatment administered as quickly as possible, her death might have been prevented.”
Carlotta frowned. “If?”
Coop shifted in his seat, then glanced in the rearview mirror. “Let’s all be alert. I won’t relax until we’re back in Atlanta.”
“This has been a wild trip,” Wesley offered.
Coop glanced over at Carlotta and murmured, “You can say that again.”
She warmed at his reference to their near miss in the hotel room, and felt a pang of guilt for deceiving him about the Daytona stopover. “I really do appreciate you inviting me to come along.”
“Glad you were at least able to get some business done,” he said quietly, so Wesley wouldn’t hear.
“Business and pleasure,” she said.
“You don’t have to humor me.”
“I’m not.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but Wesley’s head suddenly appeared between them. “When are we going to stop and eat lunch?”
Coop pushed up his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose as if in pain. “This trip can’t be over soon enough.”
17
I t was a couple of hours before Coop gave in to Wesley’s wheedling and pulled off on an exit ramp to find a restaurant. Coop picked a table next to a window where the van was visible. They placed an order, then Wesley excused himself to go to the men’s room.
“He’s probably stealing a smoke,” Carlotta said.
“You think so?”
“It’s what I want to do,” she said with a laugh.
“So you both smoke, but are trying to keep it from one another?”
“Apparently.”
“To be so close, you and Wesley aren’t very honest with each other.”
“I think that’s our secret to staying close.”
“Why didn’t you want to tell him about your father leaving you the note? Or that his fingerprints were found in Daytona?”
She sighed. “You’ve been around Wesley long enough to know that he doesn’t exercise the best judgment.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
“He thinks our dad is completely innocent of everything he’s accused of. He has this fantasy that one day our parents are going to come home and we’ll all be one big, happy family again. I just don’t want him to get his hopes up.”
“He’s not a kid anymore, Carlotta. You can’t protect him from disappointment.”
“I know. But now he’s old enough to react recklessly and get himself in real adult trouble. If I’d told him about the hotel robbery, he would’ve crashed in there and complicated things.”
“Or he would’ve helped you,” Coop said. “You said that Jack underestimated your father. I think sometimes you underestimate Wesley. He’s smart. And he has as much at stake here as you do.”
Carlotta opened her mouth, but she didn’t know how to respond.
The waiter delivered their drinks and Wes reappeared. She studied her brother as he sat down. He was looking a little gray—maybe the smoking wasn’t agreeing with him. Sometimes he seemed so mature, but other times, he was all teenager. Still, he wasn’t a malicious person. Even when he did bad things, it was usually with good intentions.
Or was that the mother in her taking up for him again?
“So is being out of town for a couple of days going to make your problem with The Carver go away?” she asked him.
“I hope so,” Wesley said, busying himself with a bendy straw.
She sent a look to Coop that said, See what I mean?
“Don’t you start your community service tomorrow?” Coop asked.
“Yep.”
“What exactly will you be doing?” he pressed.
“Helping the city beef up its database security to keep out hackers like me.”
“Do you think maybe you’d like to study computers in college someday?”
Wesley frowned. “Are you a career counselor now?”
“Wesley!” Carlotta admonished.
Coop shook his head and gave a little laugh. “I just told your sister that she treats you like a kid, but the more I’m around you, the more I understand why she does.”
The waiter brought their food on a big tray and passed out plates of burgers and fries. When he left, Wesley looked at Coop with remorse. “I’m sorry, man. I’m in a bad mood because my arm is hurting again.”
“Fair enough. Are you still taking those antibiotics?”
“Yeah.”
“Promise me you’ll see a doctor if your arm isn’t better by tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
Carlotta ate her burger, looking back and forth between the men as they talked about music and movies, marveling over how Wesley responded to Coop. How many times had she wished for a man’s stronger presence to back her up when she was doling out discipline while Wesley was growing up? She wondered if Coop wanted a family someday. He would be a great father, she acknowledged. The kind of father any kid would want to have.
He glanced her way and caught her staring. She looked down and concentrated on removing the onion from her bun. Her gaze strayed to a large man outside in the parking lot. Something about him seemed familiar…
While she sipped her soda, the man walked up to Coop’s van and, in a flash, inserted a slim-jim tool into the window seam and popped open the door. It was the guy from the morgue with the Ferragamo shoes, the one who’d driven the SUV.
3 Men and a Body Page 11
