Diamond Before Dying (Reapers in Heels #4)

by Krumbine, Jason

  Avery didn't say anything.

  Brooke looked at her in surprise. "What? Nothing?"

  "I told you I'd give you a break," Avery said.

  "And this is you doing that?"

  "This is me doing that."

  Brooke exhaled, pulling at the scrunchie holding her hair. Once freed from it, her dark hair tumbled down around her shoulders. It made her look a little older. "Stanley knows I'm not perfect and that hasn't stopped him yet."

  "How many times did you cheat on him?"

  "Honestly, I wasn't really keeping count," Brooke said, not meeting her sister's gaze. "And Stanley's forgiven me."

  "And the future?"

  "I don't know," Brooke said. "I know that I messed up. I know that Stanley forgave me. I know that I messed up some more and Stanley still forgave me." She turned to Avery. "What else can I say?"

  "Well, you can start with what you see in him," Avery made a disgusted face. "I don't think I've ever met an uglier man."

  Brooke waved her hand at the ER. "Can we not speak ill of him while he's fighting for his life?"

  "I'm just saying, as you yourself have pointed out on a numerous occasion, you enjoy a certain kind of man."

  Brooke smiled. "I do, don't I?"

  "He has to meet certain qualifications," Avery continued. "And I know this because you're so fond of going on and on about the qualifications they have to meet. Usually you go for the trifecta: looks, talented tongue, and, you know..." Avery trailed off as she turned a little red.

  Brooke cupped her ear. "I'm sorry, what was that last part?"

  "You know," Avery said, not looking at her sister and growing progressively redder.

  "I'm not sure I do," Brooke said. She took too much enjoyment out of embarrassing her sister.

  Avery stared at the ceiling, feeling her cheeks heat up. "All I'm going to say is that you enjoy a man of a certain size."

  Brooke grinned from ear-to-ear. "I do indeed."

  "And last time I checked," Avery continued, trying to get herself calmed down. "Stanley doesn't meet any of those."

  "Well," Brooke waved a finger. "He does have a way with his tongue."

  "One out of three?"

  "And his dick is-"

  "No!" Avery held up a hand, cutting her sister off sharply. "No, I don't want to know."

  "You brought it up."

  "I was making a point."

  "I was trying to make a counter point," Brooke offered. "I was trying to help you understand."

  "Find another way to help me understand," Avery said.

  "Well," Brooke said. "You're not going to like my answer."

  "Oh, boy," Avery muttered.

  "I don't know," Brooke said. "I don't know what it is about Stanley Morris that keeps attracting me to him. Whatever it is, it works. I just don't know what it is and, honestly, I gave up trying to figure it out."

  "That does nothing to ease my concerns," Avery replied.

  Brooke shrugged. "Well, at least I'm consistent."

  "What about this stupid skull Dicky Ramburg wants?"

  "That I know even less about," Brooke said. "It's old and worth a lot of money. Stanley wouldn't tell me anything else."

  "Well, it can't be good if Dicky Ramburg wants it," Avery said.

  "Why can't we just turn him into the Council?" Brooke asked.

  "Dicky Ramburg?"

  "Did we start talking about somebody else and you forget to tell me?" Brooke asked. "You threatened to turn him in last night. Why don't we just carry through on it?"

  "Well, making that threat and following through on it are two very different things," Avery replied, fidgeting uncomfortably in her seat.

  "Which means?"

  "It means that Dicky Ramburg is a complicated issue."

  Brooke just shook her head. "And you get on my case when I don't make any sense."

  Avery sighed. "Look, here's the deal with Dicky Ramburg. Above all else, he's a dirt dealer."

  "Above all else?"

  "Yeah, before everything else that he does," Avery said. "He's a dirt dealer."

  "What else does he do?"

  Avery started ticking off on her fingers. "Illegal reaper goods trafficking. Drug trafficking. Human trafficking. Protection rackets. I'm pretty sure he also runs one or two illegal fighting rinks around town. But all that is peanuts compared to his dirt dealing. Dicky Ramburg has dirt on everyone."

  "Everyone?"

  "Everyone," Avery said.

  Brooke pointed at her sister. "Including you?"

  Avery fidgeted again. "Yes. If I had dirt, including me."

  "If you had dirt."

  "Which I don't."

  "And you know Dicky through Dad's old contacts?"

  "I'm not the one on the hook for anything to him," Avery pointed out.

  "So, last night," Brooke said. "When you made the threat."

  Avery waved a dismissive hand. "It was a bluff."

  "A bluff?"

  "Just a bluff."

  Brooke made a face.

  "It also gave Dicky the one thing he craves over everything else," Avery added.

  "Dirt."

  "Dirt," Avery echoed.

  "Dirt on you."

  "Yep."

  "So if we try to turn him in to the Council," Brooke started.

  "He goes ahead of us and tells the Council that I've been buying illegally traded reaper goods off the black market and we're out of a job," Avery finished.

  "Well, this is not good."

  "Not it's not." Avery tapped her fingers against the armrest. "We need to find out what the deal is with this skull."

  "It'll be one of the first things that I'm going to ask Stanley," Brooke assured her.

  "I don't like this," Avery said.

  "You don't like it?" Brooke looked at her sister like she had grown a second head. "I'm the one that's being traumatized here."

  A tall man in a doctor's coat exited the ER. He's got a frazzled, weary look about him. His clothes are wrinkled, as though he's been sleeping in them for days. There's dark circles beneath his brown eyes. He scratched at his left cheek, there was some light acne scarring left there from his teen years. His thin lips were pressed so tightly together that they almost disappeared. His dark hair was thinning out in the back, but after the last few days he had just such a bedraggled look, you could hardly tell. His name is Dr. Jack Ellis and he's been Avery's boyfriend for the last two years.

  Upon noticing Avery in the waiting room, his appearance brightens a bit.

  "Hey," he greeted her with a hug and a quick kiss. He turned to Brooke. "I checked in on Stanley. He's still in surgery, but it looks like he's going to be okay."

  Brooke breathed a sigh of relief.

  "He's gonna be in there for at least another hour, minimum," Jack continued. "He suffered a skull fracture and they've been working like crazy to get the bleeding in his brain under control. Both of his legs were broken, but they've been set. In addition, he's got a punctured lung and three broken ribs."

  Brooke frowned. "You're not making it sound like he's going to be okay."

  "I know," Jack agreed. "But so far he's stable. It may not sound better, but they're getting a handle on it."

  Brooke exhaled, glancing worriedly back at the ER. "Another hour?"

  "At least," Jack said. "The bleeding in his brain is what they’re most concerned with right now. They're trying their hardest to get it under control." He gave his best bedside manner look. "But I think he's gonna be okay. That's what you need to focus on."

  "Easy for you to say," Brooke replied. "The only thing I can focus on right now is his bloody face."

  Jack frowned, but he didn't know what else to say.

  "Hey," Avery said, cupping his face in her hands. "You look like crap."

  Jack pulled off his wire rim glasses and rubbed his eyes. "I feel worse. It's been a nightmare around here. I can't remember the last time I saw the outside world. It feels like days. Thanks to those idiot doctors we canne
d, my workload has tripled. And if that wasn't bad enough," he shook his head. "Crappy calls."

  "Crappy calls?"

  Jack replaced his glasses. "You're not going to believe this, but we've had, like, six miscalled time of deaths today."

  "Are you serious?"

  Jack nodded. "Yeah. Started with an old guy upstairs. Attending called ToD. A minute later, grandpa sits up in bed wide awake, like nothing happened. Doctor swears the old guy had no pulse. If this keeps up, my workload's gonna end up quadrupling."

  Avery's confused. "This has happened more than once?"

  Jack pointed to the loud speakers. "Every time you hear a call for security? It's probably because somebody who was supposed to be 'dead' just popped back to life and freaked everybody out."

  Brooke and Avery looked at each other. They were both thinking the same thing: the morgue.

  The Graves sisters rushed down to the morgue, leaving behind a slightly confused Jack back in the waiting room.

  "This is crazy," Brooke said as they made their way down the empty hallway.

  "Crazy is the world we live in," Avery said. Their footsteps echoed loudly behind them against the tile floors.

  "What's that supposed to be?" Brooke looked at her sister. "Is that some kind of new mantra? Like lipstick feminism."

  "Except lipstick feminism wasn't a thing," Avery pointed out. "That was just an excuse you used to feel good about whoring around." She pointed to her sister's hoodie. "Zip that all the way up. I don't want them to think you're an escapee or something."

  Brooke glanced down and saw that the dried blood on her tank top was peeking out. She pulled the zipper all the way back up. "Now that I think about it, I should have asked you to bring me a change of clothes."

  "It probably would have been a good idea," Avery agreed.

  "I was in shock," Brooke explained.

  "Totally understandable." Avery glanced at her hair. "You might want to, you know," she mimed running fingers through her hair.

  Brooke made a face. "Is it that bad?"

  "Not if you were going to be hanging out in a waiting room all day," Avery said. "But if you're going to investigate some dead bodies that are up and walking around you might want to, you know, not look like you've got a rat's nest in your hair."

  Brooke ran her hand through her hair hastily. She quickly ran into knots. "Okay, this feels awful."

  "That's because it is."

  "Why didn't you say anything before?"

  "Because before, I thought we were just going to mope around the waiting room," Avery said. "Who cares if you look like a mess if you're moping around a waiting room?"

  "I care," Brooke said, pulling at the knots. "I don't want to look like a bum."

  "You don't."

  "You're making it sound like I do."

  "Maybe you have some self esteem issues?" Avery suggested. "It would explain why you're always throwing yourself at men."

  Brooke just shook her head. She took the scrunchie from her wrist and quickly pulled her hair into a half-ponytail. She turned to her sister. "How do I look now?"

  "Better," Avery said. "You still look like you've been up all night and spent the last few hours in an ER waiting room, but at least you're presentable."

  Brooke frowned. "That means I look terrible."

  They reached the entrance to the morgue, but their path was blocked by two security guards.

  The guard on the left held up his hand. "Sorry, miss. Authorized personal only. I'm gonna have to ask you to step back."

  "We are authorized personal," Avery replied.

  The guard on the right stifled a laugh. "Sure. And I'm the King of England."

  The guard on the left smacked his partner's arm. "Hey," he chastised him. "Come on." He turned back to Avery. "Sorry about him. But unfortunately, I can't let you through here."

  Brooke frowned and took a step forward. Avery grabbed her sister by the elbow, holding her back. "Don't worry. I've got this one." Avery reached into her pocket and pulled out the brass badge she carried. "We're reapers. As in grim. I'm pretty sure we're authorized to be in there."

  The guards looked at each other uncomfortably. It was the kind of look you might have if you found out that you and your best friend were actually sleeping with the same girl.

  The guard on the left twitched nervously. "Yeah, sorry about that."

  They stepped aside and let the girls past.

  Avery pocketed the badge and gave her sister a smug smile. "Told you I had it."

  "Yeah, but that's not nearly as fun as flirting your way past," Brooke said, following Avery up to the morgue doors. "Your way was super creepy. Do you want to be known as the fun and flirty grim reaper or the super creepy grim reaper who causes men's penises to shrivel up whenever you're around."

  "Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration," Avery started.

  Brooke pointed back at the two guards. "Were you paying attention back there? The expressions on their faces? That was the expression of men's penises shriveling up in fear."

  "I'm not even listening to you anymore," Avery replied.

  "You should," Brooke said. "I know things."

  "You know crazy things because you're a crazy person," Avery said, holding open the door for her sister. "And all you ever say are crazy things."

  "That's very uplifting."

  Inside the morgue there were two more guards and an important-looking doctor. The assistant coroner, Betty Marlins, sat off to the side, hyperventilating into a brown paper bag. Brooke raised a curious eyebrow at the sight of her hastily buttoned blouse and smeared lipstick.

  "Looks like somebody was getting freaky in the morgue," she said under her breath.

  "Now's really not the time," Avery whispered, trying to be sensitive to the mood.

  "When is it ever the time to get it on in the morgue?" Brooke pointed out.

  Across from the pretty assistant coroner sat Larry Murphy, trying to look everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He looked like the guy who stole the last cookie in the cookie jar and then saw a dead girl standing behind him and was promptly scared off cookies for the rest of his life.

  Despite the shellshocked look on his face and the nervous sweat that was covering him, Brooke could see his appeal. He had a certain, rugged, pretty boy look about him. It was a mix that he wore well. She whistled approvingly. "Okay, now I know when it's a good time to get it on in the morgue," she said, pointing to Larry. "When you're doing it with that guy."

  "Come on," Avery said.

  "What?" Brooke asked. "I'm just saying what we were all thinking."

  "I was not thinking that," Avery replied. "And you're supposed to be an emotional wreck or something over your boyfriend's brutal beating. Remember? Or have you forgotten already?"

  "Hey, just because I'm an emotional wreck, doesn't mean I've also turned into a frigid ice queen," Brooke said. "I'm still a woman, you know. I still feel the way a woman feels. I still-"

  Avery held a hand in Brooke's face. "Okay, I'm just going to stop you there because this is already getting super uncomfortable."

  The important looking doctor walked over to them. "And who the hell are you two supposed to be?" he asked, looking down at the sisters like they were a couple of prostitutes that had wandered into a debutante ball.

  Avery flashed her badge again. "We're grim reapers."

  The doctor's demeanor immediately changed. He shrank back from the girls slightly. "I wasn't aware that anybody had called you."

  "Nobody did," Avery said, looking around the otherwise empty morgue. "We happened to be here on other business."

  "Other business?" the doctor echoed nervously.

  "Okay, tip," Brooke whispered to her sister. "Don't make us sound like creepy workaholics."

  Avery shot her a look and turned back to the doctor. "I understand you have a problem with people not staying dead down here?"

  He pulled nervously at his gray tie. "Yeah, it's, uh, a problem alright."

  Avery g
estured to the storage drawers where the dead bodies were kept. "How many have this problem?"

  “Just the one."

  Avery raised an eyebrow. "Just one?"

  "Do you need anymore?" the doctor asked. "I would think one's enough."

  "So," Avery said. "Nobody else has gotten up and started walking around down here?"

  The doctor frowned. "Don't sound so disappointed."

  "I'm not disappointed."

  "You kind of sound disappointed," Brooke said. "Maybe you need something else in your life to focus on other than work?"

  "Hey, here's a thought," Avery said.

  "Yeah?"

  "Let's not talk about my personal life in front of strangers." Avery nodded at the doctor. "What happened?" she asked him.

  "Well, this really isn't my area of expertise," the doctor explained hesitantly.

  "It's not that hard to figure out," Avery said. "Either somebody was dead and came back to life. Or they were never dead to begin with. It's usually a pretty easy call to make."

  The doctor snorted and nodded at the office window. "Like I said. Not really my area of expertise."

  Brooke and Avery turned to the office window. There they saw a sixteen year old dead girl sitting at the desk. Half of her skull was exposed and the dead skin was hanging limply down around her neck. She gave the sisters a little wave.

  "Oh, boy."

  seven

  "It's a flipping zombie."

  "It's not a zombie," Avery said, taking her sister out into the hallway.

  "Are you crazy?" Brooke asked, pulling at her hair.

  "I'm not known for being the crazy one," Avery replied. "That's usually you."

  Brooke shook her head. "Oh, it's definitely a zombie." She started examining her hands and wrists closely.

  "What are you doing?" Avery asked.

  "What does it look like?" Brooke said, rolling up her sleeves. "I'm checking for bite marks."

  "Seriously?"

  "Seriously."

  "You weren't even in the room with her," Avery pointed out.

  "Don't tell me where I was and wasn't," Brooke said, twisting around as she tried to get a better look at her back.

  "You look ridiculous," Avery said. "You look like a dog trying to chase its own tail."