Almost as if I’d interrupted her.
Was she sleepwalking?
“Katy?” I called, placing my hand down on both dogs’ heads.
They were each quivering in excitement. I doubted that either one had been this close to a wild animal before, and German Shepherds were curious by nature.
This was likely unheard of for them to remain still while there was such a delicious distraction standing only feet away from them.
“Katy,” I repeated again.
She didn’t move a muscle. Not a twitch. Not a deep inhale. Nothing.
She just stood there, looking ominous.
“Stay,” I called to Sister.
I didn’t know if Lou would follow my directions or not, but I was going to pray that he would.
Because if he spooked these deer, they could literally tear Katy apart if they weren’t careful.
Luckily the moment I moved toward them, my booted foot sinking all the way past my ankle in the mud, they started to turn and walk away.
Not run, either.
It was almost as if they knew that the dogs were being good just because they weren’t running away, because had they ran, I was sure that the dogs’ alpha instincts would have taken over and they’d have pursued whether they wanted to or not.
That was a dog’s nature—and specifically, a German Shepherd’s in particular.
My other foot sank into the mud, and I was within arm’s length of Katy when she started walking toward me, again not noticing that I was inches away from her before she hit me smack in the chest.
The moment she felt my body, something inside of her seemed to break, because she started to scream.
And scream.
And scream.
Blood-curdling—I’m about to die—screams.
I placed my hand over her mouth and whispered softly in her ear, telling her who I was in a vain attempt at calming her down.
She didn’t.
The only thing I could think to do was let her go, and the moment she was back on solid ground, and my hands were off of her, she stopped.
It was like a light was switched off, because the moment I was no longer near her, her voice stopped the awful racket, and she started back the way she’d come as if she hadn’t just scared the absolute shit out of me.
Lou looked at me accusingly, and I shook my head.
“I didn’t do a damn thing to her, boy,” I told him. “You saw me.”
He gave a rumbled growl and started back in the direction of where Katy was now walking—now back up the steps that led to the apartments.
“Hey, Mama,” a voice called out from ahead of me.
“Leave her alone,” I growled.
My growl was offset by the dogs at my sides, and the man that’d just spoken so suggestively toward Katy held his hands up in surrender.
“Just seeing what all the racket was about, man. No harm, no foul.”
I could tell he’d thought that I’d done something to the woman, and it sickened me that he wasn’t going to call the police or tell someone that he thought there might be a crime being committed.
Fucking gross, filthy piece of trash.
I made a mental note to look for the man tomorrow but didn’t dwell on anything as I made my way back up the stairs and followed Katy back to her apartment.
The moment she was inside, she collapsed onto her bed, mud and all, and was deathly still moments later.
Mother. Fucker.
The moment I walked into her bedroom, I wondered what I should do. Should I leave her like that and go back to my apartment? Should I leave her at all?
I chose to stay. It might be a really bad idea, but for now, I wasn’t comfortable leaving her by herself. I needed to know if this was an isolated episode, or if this was something that happened all the time, and to do that, I had to wait until she was up.
***
“What’s going on?”
She sat up in bed, and I was worried that this was another episode.
Yet when she didn’t make a move to get out of bed, but instead stared at me like I’d committed the ultimate act of treason, I realized that she was with me.
“You sleepwalk.”
She blinked and then dropped her head.
“Yes, and no.”
“Yes and no?” I repeated.
She nodded.
I waited, wondering if I would need to go ahead and tell her that I didn’t understand her non-answers when she started to expound.
“A long time ago, right after I’d graduated high school and was knee-deep into furthering my education, I met a man.”
There were so many things I wanted to say about that statement. To ask. To have her clarify.
But instead, I let her talk, because she sounded like she was telling me something that was pulled straight out of the depths of hell—her hell.
My heart clenched.
“He was great. Funny, smart, sweet. The best of the best…and then he did a complete one-hundred and eighty degrees. He was never again the same man I’d fallen in love with.”
I waited, having a sinking feeling I knew where this discussion was going.
“The first time I realized he was abusive, he beat the shit out of my dog.”
I looked at Lou, who was laying at the foot of the bed next to Sister.
“Not him,” she whispered. “I have another dog. Had another dog. She lives with my best friend. Or my old best friend. When I realized that my puppy wasn’t safe, I begged my best friend to take her, and she did. That was the night that I said goodbye for the final time to the both of them.”
My head tilted.
“Was the dog okay?”
She nodded, swallowing hard.
Her feet were still caked in dirt, and the bed surrounding her was covered in the same brown dirt as well.
It was likely driving her crazy, but she continued to talk.
“I used to have these night terror/sleepwalking episodes when I was a child, but my dad realized early on that if I had a dog in there with me, my nightmares would be less traumatic, if I even had them at all. He bought me my own dog that stayed in my room with me and kept me from having the nightmares.”
“What causes these night terrors or sleepwalking episodes?”
“The first time I had an episode was two nights after my father brought his good buddy home, who accidentally shot my father when they were looking at his friend’s new gun.
“He recovered, and honestly it was only a flesh wound, but it still scared the shit out of me.” She shook her head. “Anyway, these attacks always happened after something traumatic happened to me. Or if something extremely emotional—good or bad—happened to me the previous day.”
“Let’s get back to this boyfriend of yours,” I suggested.
“He beat me. Religiously.” She didn’t beat around the bush, just let it all hang out there. “If I dropped a crumb and he saw it, he’d beat me. If I walked in front of the TV and he missed a play of the game he was watching, he’d throw the beer bottle at me. At first, it was only little stuff, but the longer it went on, the worse it became.”
“Until…”
“Until one night a detective that paid particular attention to me decided to drop by the house to ask if I was ready to report it yet—my dad worked with him, and he was the night guard at the hospital where I was getting clinical hours—and even though I said no, Jakobe beat the absolute crap out of me moments after he left. Broke my jaw, and femur. Ribs. I finally filed charges against him, but since he was a cop, he got off easy. Well, easier. My dad being who my dad was got him some jail time, but it wasn’t enough. The moment he was convicted to six years in prison with the possibility of parole in two, I left the courtroom, and didn’t look back.”
“And today you heard that he was being released,” I guessed.
I’d touch on the topic of her dad being who her dad was in a moment, because the few things that I’d caught her saying here and there, I had a feeling
I knew him.
Kilgore was a small town, and I was a cop. I knew quite a few people.
I’d gone and investigated why Katy had been in the building in the first place after her complete meltdown in the station parking lot, and I’d been informed about the man getting out of prison. What I hadn’t realized was the significance of this man to Katy.
“Do you have any safeguards in place so you don’t wander out in the middle of the night?” I asked.
She nodded. “I had to tie myself to the bed when I was living with Jakobe. When I did it with him, he’d let me wander, and then beat the shit out of me when I was having an episode. I’d wake up and be battered and bruised, but have no recollection of it at all.”
“You don’t wake up to being beaten?”
She shook her head. “No.”
That concerned me. If pain didn’t wake her up, this could literally be a very, very bad thing for her health.
“I sleepwalk almost every night now,” she said. “Lou’s pretty good about keeping watch over me.”
I snorted.
“Tonight, you walked down the middle of the parking lot, down the trail stairs, and almost half a mile down the pathway before you came to a meadow filled with deer that were drinking from a puddle in the middle of the field…”
“And?” she asked, biting her lip.
“I came around the corner, and you were just standing there. You had fucking six deer around you, just watching you curiously.”
She blew out a sigh.
“Shit balls.”
I couldn’t help the grin that tipped up the corner of my lips.
I knew that she didn’t think it was as bad as it was.
But Jesus, when I thought about that man that had called out to her as we were coming back, it made me wonder what would’ve happened had I not been there.
“Pretty much my sentiments exactly,” I admitted. “I think your nighttime habits are a little worse than my nighttime habits.”
Katy snorted. “My habits don’t keep people up at night, though.”
My brows rose. “If you lived with someone that actually cared about you, your habits would keep them up. I know that if I was living with you, I would damn well be concerned about you leaving the house. And the idea of tying yourself up doesn’t sit well with me. I’d be constantly worried that you’d get up and disappear.”
She rolled her eyes. “Which I guess works out well seeing as you’re awake anyway, right?”
She got up off the bed and walked into the bathroom, closing it mostly all the way behind her.
I listened as the shower turned on, and I took that as my cue to go.
I didn’t want to go, though.
What I really wanted was to join her in there.
Even dirty and covered in brown mud, she was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
Chapter 7
I’m going to get some glow in the dark shoes so I can enlighten your ass.
-Katy’s secret thoughts
Katy
I bit my lip as I looked at the dead person I was about to perform an autopsy on, then back at the two women that were standing there like they were waiting for the show to begin.
Jubilee McGrew owned Bear Bottom Funeral Home. Turner, however, only worked there.
Though, from what I’d been told about her, she didn’t need to work there.
She was doing this as a side gig to her other side gig—a porn translator.
Yes, you heard that correctly.
She was a porn translator.
She worked as a person who watched porn, then added subtitles to it for the hearing impaired…or just those individuals that didn’t like watching their porn with sound but still wanted to know what was being said.
They were both watching me as if I were highly entertaining.
“Are you just going to stand there and watch the entire time?” I asked curiously, scalpel in hand.
She nodded once. “I am. Though, saying that, I’ve never actually ‘watched’ one before. I mean, I’ve seen the aftereffects and all since I’m an undertaker, but I’ve never watched it from start to finish. I’m curious.”
“And I’m just here because I want to be here. Not because I’m actually interested in watching. I’m fairly sure when all the blood starts flowing, I’ll be out of here.”
My lips twitched into a semblance of a smile.
Then, deciding that they probably weren’t going to leave, I began.
“I know this one wanted the autopsy due to the family thinking she had a heart condition,” Jubilee pulled out a bag of popcorn from a bag I hadn’t realized she had, and started munching away. “Do you think that she has one?”
That wasn’t aimed at me, though. That question was aimed at Turner.
Turner stole some popcorn and hopped up onto the stainless-steel countertop at her back, her legs starting to swing.
“I’m going with no.” Turner nodded once. “I’m thinking that she just died of a stroke. Not from anything that has to do with a heart condition. The files that I read didn’t say anything about a heart condition.”
“Should we be talking?” Jubilee asked. “I just realized you’re recording this.”
I shrugged. “I don’t mind you talking. It’s just protocol to record the autopsy. I’m sure that it won’t be reviewed. Talk away.”
Jubilee nodded once. “Good. I forgot about that. I’ll try not to talk about anything that could be considered bad.”
I grinned at her. “Thanks for that.”
She gave a mock bow and then went back to her popcorn, staying silent as she watched me.
It was about an hour into it that Jubilee sighed. “I have to go. Zee’s on his way. We’re going on a hot date tonight.”
“Hot date?” Turner asked. “What’s that?”
“That,” Castiel said, “is what we’re doing, too. Let’s go, woman. I don’t have all day.”
Turner shook her head. “No, it’s just getting to the good part.”
Castiel, Turner’s husband, looked over at me and what I was doing with the dead body on the table.
“Pulling out the heart?” he asked.
Turner nodded, her mouth pinching shut tightly as she said, “I’m not even hungry anyway.”
Castiel sighed, then leaned a massive shoulder against the doorway as he said, “How much longer?”
“About two or three more minutes until we figure out what she really died of,” I said, sounding distracted. “Or, at least, this particular part. They want me to search for heart disease or other related causes. I’m likely not going to find that because this heart looks really freakin’ good. Like, if they’d donated her organs, this heart would’ve kept on ticking for another thirty years if given the chance.”
So that was how I had an audience, Castiel and Turner, Jubilee and eventually Zee, her husband.
By the time I’d determined she didn’t pass from any sort of heart disease, all were watching enraptured.
I also knew after what was discussed, the recording of the autopsy would at least be a fun one to re-listen to.
“So now what?” Turner asked after I’d finished inspecting the heart.
I set it into the metal bowl next to the body and grinned.
“Now I do the same thing to the rest of the organs. After I’m done with that, I’ll get her fixed back up,” I said. “Then she’ll be ready for you.”
“Will having her here bring in more business?” Zee wondered.
I was about to say no when Jubilee pulled out her phone and showed him something.
“Other than the fact that having a medical examiner in house will help,” Jubilee said. “While Katy was performing her first autopsy at Bear Bottom Funeral Home, I took a picture of her and created her an Instagram account. Look how many likes she already has.”
I felt my belly jolt at that.
“They like the blonde bombshell who also has a brain,” Jubilee giggled. “Look at that comment.”
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I felt my mouth get tight.
Not because I was mad that she created the account, but because I was scared of what everyone might have to say.
That was one Instagram account I was staying away from.
“Hey, there’s a policeman at the door,” Turner said suddenly.
I looked over in the corner of the room to where the video monitors were.
Apparently, a while ago when Jubilee was in here alone, she was almost hurt very badly by a man that wasn’t supposed to be here. Now her husband had wired the entire funeral home, meaning from any given spot you could see exactly what was going on in each section of the building from the morgue to my room all the way up to the funeral rooms that were on the top floor.
My heart skipped a beat when I saw that strong jawline.
Holy shit.
What was Logan doing here?
“Ahh, I asked Logan to bring me a few things,” Zee said, standing up and leaving the room without another word.
Castiel walked to the monitor and stared down at it for a few moments.
“Do you know who Logan is?” Jubilee asked curiously.
I assumed that question was aimed at Castiel, because how would she know that I knew him? Unless my face shared that detail.
Which it might, because holy hell, did the man look good in his uniform.
“When the hell did police officers start dressing like that?” Turner asked, walking to the monitor and popping it up onto the big screen, focusing on that one camera instead of nine smaller views.
“Logan is part of the motorcycle crew that just started with Kilgore Police Department,” Castiel answered. “And I know of him.”
“Why do you say ‘of’ like that?” Turner asked curiously.
Castiel’s lips twitched.
“Of him because he is pretty famous in our world right now. The whole damn motorcycle crew is, actually,” he admitted. “Though all for different offenses. Logan’s was the most amusing, though.”
“What reason would that be?” Jubilee asked, squeezing in so I could no longer see the monitor.
“Hey, I can’t see now!” I called out teasingly.
Hide Your Crazy (KPD Motorcycle Patrol Book 1) Page 5
