Andy pulled onto the highway, the Yukon’s engine roaring as they merged onto the quiet, darkened road. “Right now I think he’s a politician who is worried about his daughter,” Andy said carefully.
“Instead of a worried father who happens to be a politician,” Kate clarified.
“Exactly. Is that what you see?”
Kate took a moment before answering. “That’s my first instinct. But I think when people are under stress, they tend to fall back on what they know, what’s safe. If pushing people around and using his considerable charm and power to take control of a situation is what Cardiff is used to, it’s not exactly surprising he’s trying that now.”
They were both quiet, thoughtful, Kate watching the lines disappear underneath the car in the headlights without really paying attention.
“You think Cardiff is charming, do you?” Andy asked. Kate detected the slightest smile in her tone.
“Very funny. You have to admit he’s persuasive.”
“He’s a bully.”
“That, too. Did you ever find out who’s going to be performing the autopsy tomorrow?”
“No. Ferris couldn’t find the information either. People keep telling me that it’s not that unusual, but it seems odd to me.”
Kate shrugged. It didn’t really matter to her who was performing the autopsy. She just knew she had to be there. Hopefully, it was someone who didn’t mind a lot of questions. Kate considered the questions she had, already beginning to prioritize them as Andy pulled off the highway onto a side road, winding around in the forested darkness until they came upon the large white sign with blue letters, proudly proclaiming the Sea to Sky Inn. Outside of prime tourist season, either summer or ski, the place was pretty quiet.
The room was plain and clean, the king-size bed with its blue and green striped cover dominating the space. A desk with a high-backed chair was in one corner, with a tiny kitchenette across from the bathroom. Andy put down their bags and immediately pulled out her laptop, setting it on the desk and powering it up. Kate put her bag down on the bed as she looked around.
“This seems vaguely familiar, doesn’t it?” Kate said.
Andy looked up from logging into the hotel’s Wi-Fi. “What does?”
“You and me in a roadside motel. You typing up reports for Finns late into the night while I sleep.”
Andy smiled, tucking her now loose hair behind her ears. “I imagine it will be a little different this time.”
“You think?” Kate asked, pulling out her pyjamas from the top of her bag. Andy was quiet and Kate was about to check on her when she felt Andy’s hand on her back. Kate turned around. She hadn’t even heard Andy cross the room.
“For starters, I couldn’t do this last time we were together in a roadside motel.” Andy ran her hand down Kate’s face, from her temple down her jaw until one finger grazed over her bottom lip. Kate shivered at the touch. “Or this.” Andy pushed Kate’s hair away from her neck and kissed her there, lips travelling up to Kate’s ear, then back down towards her shoulder.
“But you thought about it, didn’t you?” Kate asked. Her eyes were closed, the familiar, delicious pulse that Andy excited in her coursing through her body.
Andy pulled back, and Kate opened her eyes.
“It took every ounce of willpower I had not to think about it,” Andy said with a smile.
Kate sighed and reached up to tangle her fingers into Andy’s hair. “I know the feeling.”
Andy laughed, and then she leaned down to kiss her, very gently at first, slowly. It built like a slow wave, the pressure of her lips, the depth and urgency behind it, the way their hands moved across each other’s bodies in rhythm to the kiss. Soon there were no thoughts of reports or autopsies or patients. Soon there were no thoughts at all.
Chapter Five
Kate woke the next morning to early dawn light in the motel room. She was only briefly disoriented by her surroundings, taking a moment to shift facts and reality and place them in the motel outside of Hidden Valley. She looked up to see Andy was already awake, lying on her back with her arms crossed under her head, apparently staring at nothing. Kate ran her hand across Andy’s stomach, fingertips travelling over the ridges of her scar. She pulled herself in closer and watched the slow smile she loved so much spread across Andy’s face.
“No run this morning?” Kate asked, her voice still gravelly with sleep.
“Maybe tomorrow.”
“You didn’t run last time. When we were in Seattle, I mean.”
Andy traced a light pattern on Kate’s arm. “Turns out I couldn’t force myself away from you unless it was absolutely necessary.”
They lay in bed, listening to the sound of each other breathing and the logging trucks on the highway in the distance.
“What are you thinking about?” Andy said, breaking the silence.
“The autopsy. It’s been a while since I’ve seen one.”
“Are you worried?”
“No, not at all. It’s just been a long time since I dealt with a coroner and even longer since I’ve observed an autopsy.”
“Well, it’ll be my first.”
Kate looked up, studying Andy’s face. “Are you worried?” Kate had a hard time imagining anything that could throw Andy.
“Maybe. A little,” Andy confessed. “What’s it like?”
Kate thought back to her med school years. “Cold,” she said finally. “Surprisingly bloodless, which makes the whole thing very unreal.”
“Cold and bloodless,” Andy repeated, like she was mentally preparing herself.
Kate watched the room become brighter by imperceptible degrees, the light seeping in and around the curtained window.
“Is it strange that I like that I can lie in bed with you even though our conversation is about dead people?” Kate said.
Andy laughed lightly. “Definitely. But I know exactly what you mean.” Andy looked over Kate’s shoulder to the clock on the bedside table. “We should get moving. Showing up together and late could be a bad start.”
They showered and dressed quickly, Andy stopping to pick up the piece of paper that had been slipped under the door during the night on their way out.
“Message at the front desk,” Andy read. “I’ll ask them about where we can get breakfast this morning.”
The day was cool and cloudy. A damp wind lifted Kate’s hair off her neck and wormed its way under her layer of clothes. Kate had a flash of regret at leaving their warm bed behind, a quick image of spending the day in bed with Andy lighting up her thoughts. She shivered with the cold, waiting for the Yukon’s heater to kick in while Andy picked up their message at the front desk. Andy pulled open the door, balancing two large white Styrofoam cups.
“Judy,” Andy explained, passing Kate her cup. It felt wonderfully warm, and Kate wished she could wrap her body around it. “There’s a diner one exit down the highway. We’ll head there.”
The diner was more of a truck stop. The actual building was dwarfed by the dozen or so eighteen-wheelers that surrounded it. They received a brief moment of silence when the two of them walked in, Andy in uniform with her bulky storm jacket and hat pulled low, but then the buzz of conversation picked up again. Their breakfast came fast and hot, Kate burning her tongue on her perfectly cooked over-easy eggs. Andy took a few bites of her bagel, then pushed the rest of it around her plate.
“It will be better with something in your stomach,” Kate finally said. “Trust me.”
They were in and out of the diner so fast that Judy’s coffees were still warm in the truck. They drove in silence to the hospital, fat drops of rain beginning to hit the windshield just as they pulled off the exit for Hidden Valley. As they drove through town, the only sound Kate could hear was the Yukon’s wipers streaking loudly across the glass.
“I’m having a serious case of déjà vu,” Kate said, earning a small laugh from Andy. “All that’s missing is Jack’s chatter from the backseat.”
“He wasn’t
very happy about being left behind.” Andy sipped her coffee as she navigated the slick roads.
“He texted me yesterday. Said he was working on a project?”
“Yeah, but I made Finns promise we could have access to Jack for anything we need.”
They pulled around the back of the hospital, following Constable Ferris’s directions. Only two other cars were in the lot. One was a nondescript minivan, and the other was a bright orange Volkswagen bug, which seemed garish in their dark, wet surroundings. Kate could just see the vanity plate attached to the orange car: DM MD.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Andy said suddenly.
Kate turned quickly to look at Andy, who was staring out at the cars with a look of loathing. “What’s wrong?”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding.” Andy seemed to be talking to herself as she parked the Yukon as far from the other cars as possible and pulled out her phone.
“Andy?” Kate felt the alarm rising in her chest.
Andy dialed. “I need to call Finns.”
Kate waited, fidgeting, wanting to know what had Andy so rattled. Andy muttered another curse, then stabbed at the numbers on her phone again.
“Lydia, it’s Andy. I need to speak to Finns and he’s not answering his…With Heath? I need to talk to him. Either one, then, thanks.” There was a pause, Andy still glaring out the windshield. Kate jumped when Andy spoke again, her voice loud and harsh. “Do you want to explain to me what Mona Kellar is doing here?” A pause. “Then who did? Pulling strings, then…no, I wasn’t aware of that. You see no conflict of interest?” Another angry pause. “Given our history? I don’t think it’s possible.” Kate watched Andy drop her shoulders and run her free hand over her eyes. “Yes. No, I’ll make it work. Yes, I’ll report by the end of the day. But you’ll be getting my off-the-record report later.” Andy hung up the phone, eyes grim, staring down at nothing. Kate waited, the unease in her stomach increasing the longer Andy went without speaking.
Minutes ticked by, the rain a constant, heavy backdrop. Andy finally looked up. “Cardiff decided that the local coroner would not be sufficient, so he called in the only forensic pathologist in all of western Canada. Dr. Mona Kellar.” Andy spat out the name. She pointed out the windshield at the orange VW bug. “That’s her car, I recognize the license plate. DM MD stands for dead man’s doctor.”
“Nice,” Kate said. “But a forensic pathologist seems like overkill for suspected influenza.”
“Apparently her family is connected to Hidden Valley, to Nicholas Ozarc himself.”
Kate waited, but Andy fumed silently, her body rigid with tension. “You mentioned a history,” Kate said softly.
Andy looked up at Kate, her grey eyes bleak. “I don’t have time to get into it now, but Mona Kellar hates me. Absolutely loathes me.” Kate was dying to know why, but held her silence. She watched as Andy convulsively gripped the steering wheel. “And I have no doubt that she’s going to take it out on you.”
“Me? I’ve never even met her.”
“Doesn’t matter. Look, this woman is a sociopath. She’s aggressive and underhanded and intelligent. She has no respect for personal boundaries and takes pleasure in hurting the people around her.”
Kate continued to stare at Andy, barely able to keep up with the torrent of hate that poured out. She’d never heard Andy talk like this about anyone. Mixed in with the anger was an edge of desperation and fear, but Andy didn’t seem to be worried about herself.
“What should I do?” Kate asked. She was trying to keep a semblance of calm for Andy’s sake.
Andy spoke with her hands still clenched to the wheel. “Keep all conversation about the autopsy. Try not to reveal anything about your private life. Chances are she’s already dug up as much as she can on you.”
“Then she knows we’re together.”
“Undoubtedly.” Andy ran her hand over her eyes again, took a breath, and then she unexpectedly slammed her fist against the steering wheel. “What the hell have I gotten you into?”
Kate waited until Andy’s breathing had calmed before she spoke again. “I don’t think I have the energy to deal with this Dr. Kellar as well as your stress and your guilt. So let’s assume I can handle two out of three. Drop the guilt.” She reached over and ran her hand lightly over Andy’s knee, feeling the tension in her body.
Andy picked up Kate’s hand. She ran her fingers around Kate’s wrist, prying her hand open gently with her thumb before entwining their fingers together.
“I can’t protect you in there. Coming to your defense will make things a hundred times worse. But if you want me to, if you need me to, I will.”
Kate squeezed Andy’s hand. “I know. Let’s get this over with.”
Kate and Andy signed in at the reception area. Andy showed her badge to the bored-looking man behind the desk, and Kate held up her temporary RCMP ID Judy had given her. This area was almost never seen by the public eye, so it lacked the comforting elegance that the rest of the hospital boasted. The morgue and autopsy areas were overlit, the unnatural whiteness leaching everyone and everything of colour. As if all bodies passing through this area must take on the cold semblance of the corpses it serviced.
They were led by an assistant in green scrubs to a change area where they were given surgical gowns and thin paper booties to slip over their shoes. They hung up their jackets and pulled the green surgical gowns over their clothes, the tight-fitting cuffs stretching around their wrists. The forensic technician, who introduced herself as Olivia, came a moment later to collect them and lead them down the hall.
The autopsy room had the same white look, even more so given that the light reflected off the countless stainless steel surfaces. It was much smaller than the ones Kate had seen in Vancouver, the walls covered by racks and rows of implements, bottles, trays, and tools. Kate looked around, refamiliarizing herself with the processes and implements for examining the dead. As she checked out the oversized sinks, the tile floors sloping down to a drain, the deep-set tables with troughed edges, she thought about how much of an autopsy was about the preservation and analysis of bodily fluid. It was so different than Kate’s trauma rooms, where blood, urine, and vomit regularly leaked out, only to be impatiently wiped away.
Kate checked on Andy, who stood just inside the doorway, arms stiff at her sides. She wanted to say something, smile, anything, but the door swung open and Olivia returned. She held the door open for a woman in her early fifties, slightly taller than Kate with wiry bottle-orange hair that frizzed around her face. As she clomped into the room, Kate could see her face was slightly puffy with the shadow of a double chin and mean brown eyes that somehow seemed to clash with her alarmingly orange hair. She wore an oversized black T-shirt tucked into high-waist jeans and heavy lace-up work boots. Kate wasn’t sure exactly what she had been expecting, but this woman was not it.
The woman clomped over to Kate and held out her hand. “Dr. Morrison, I’m Dr. Kellar. I hear I get you as assistant today.”
“More of an observer.” Kate shook the woman’s hand and attempted a smile, trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“Assistant,” Dr. Kellar insisted, not raising her voice but taking a very small step in towards Kate.
Kate resisted the instinct to lean away, and instead she looked over at Olivia, who was prepping the table.
“Sure,” Kate said. “Assistant.”
Dr. Kellar gave what supposedly passed as a smile, though it somehow made her eyes more mean than friendly. “Excellent, glove up. Olivia, get the body.”
Dr. Kellar walked over to the table, pulled a surgical gown over her clothes, and added a heavy white plastic apron that tied around her back. She still had not acknowledged Andy, who was standing perfectly still near the door. Olivia returned wheeling a metal gurney with a body wrapped in white plastic. She expertly positioned it by the table and Kate, pulling on her gloves, walked over to help transfer the body to the table. The body was stiff and heavy, cold and uny
ielding, under Kate’s hands. The name Roberta Sedlak flashed across Kate’s mind as she remembered the name of the dead woman.
Kate stood back as Dr. Kellar prepped. She adjusted lights, lined up trays, and repositioned tools attached to tracks in the ceiling overhead. She then gestured for Olivia to unwrap the body, keeping her gloved hands against her chest like a surgeon. It seemed a curious pose to Kate, as this position was usually held to keep a surgeon’s hands sterile. Here, though, it was to prevent contamination of evidence.
Once the body was exposed, Dr. Kellar reached up to a plastic-wrapped instrument attached to a black wire. It was a microphone, Kate realized, and Dr. Kellar paused before switching it on.
“Tell me Dr. Morrison, how do you feel about assisting in an autopsy while your lover watches?”
Kate knew she should have been prepared for this. Hadn’t Andy given her enough warning out in the car? Kate looked into the light eyes of the forensic pathologist staring at her over the surgical mask. They were bright, they were calculating, they were interested.
“I’m ready whenever you are, Dr. Kellar,” Kate said, her voice steady. She could see Andy out of the corner of her eye, but she refused to look over. Olivia looked between the two doctors, unsure, and then focused her eyes on the tray of instruments in front of her, head down. Smart woman, thought Kate.
“But I’m curious. Given the nature of your occupations, I wonder if you ever lie in bed together and discuss the gruesome details of your day.”
That was so close to her earlier conversation with Andy that she suddenly felt very exposed, as if this twisted woman had been witness to their private moment. Kate took a breath.
“I’m ready whenever you are, Dr. Kellar,” Kate said again. Then she dropped her gaze to the table between them. No one moved. The moment stretched, and Kate forced herself to keep breathing slowly, steadily. The sound of the microphone clicking on echoed loudly in the silence.
“Wednesday, October 6, 9:03 a.m., at Valley General morgue. Present are Dr. Mona Kellar, Dr. Katherine Morrison, Nurse Olivia Peterson, and Sergeant Andrea Wyles.” Kate heard no change in Dr. Kellar’s tone as she repeated their names for the official record. Kate thought for a moment maybe the worst was over, maybe she could focus on the autopsy about to take place. She then thought about what Andy would have to say about that, remembered the look on her face in the car. Kate decided to not let her guard down once through the whole procedure. It was going to be a very long few hours.
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