SIX

Chapter 3

Three hours of sleep was not nearly enough before a ten-hour shift. My own fault for f*****g a guy all night. I was paying for it in many ways. Walking was difficult, my thighs sore and weak, and there was a nonstop, pulsing ache in my p***y.

Fucking worth it.

“So, who was the guy you ran off with last night?” Sandra asked, surprising me when she leaned on the counter right next to me.

I blinked at her. “What?”

“Don’t what me. I saw you sneak off with tall, dark, and handsome. His hands were all over you.”

My mind wandered back to said hands. “He had great hands.”

“So, you did do some in-depth examinations.” She waggled her eyebrows, her brown eyes sparkling.

“He puts all other guys I’ve been with to shame.”

Her eyes bulged. “Even Digby?”

I used to call my ex-boyfriend Digby my Norwegian pile driver. He was huge all over and known to bruise sensitive areas with how hard he pounded my p***y, but it was worth it. However, his memory was being eclipsed by Simon, though I wasn’t sure what about him made it better.

“Okay, he doesn’t put Digby to shame, but he may top him.”

“Damn.” She blew out a breath and fanned herself. “You, me, wine. Thursday at my place and you are telling me every last detail. I think the men in my life just met a new standard.”

I smiled at her and shook my head. “Wine sounds like an excellent idea.”

“Perfect. I’ll see you then.” She waved as she pushed off and headed out the door.

With Sandra gone and Damon staring at me, I grabbed the top bin and began to process another vial. With one down, three more appeared, and I stepped up the pace. Plugging in my earbuds helped get me in the zone and I was off.

“Hey, Paisley, got a good one for you,” Micah said as he walked up holding the basket containing a file and three vials of blood.

“Is it mutant?” I asked as I pulled out my earbuds and set them on the counter.

He laughed. “Better. John Doe.”

I didn’t often know patient names, even less about the person or how they died. They were all a series of barcodes attached to each vial.

I quirked my brow at Micah. “John Doe?”

“Yeah, Dr. Mitchell can’t ID the guy. He’s got no prints, no dental records, nothing.”

“No prints?”

He shook his head. “Burned off.”

“His fingertips are burned off? That’s weird.” So strange. It was the first I’d heard of it outside of Hollywood.

“Tell me about it. He showed up two days ago and there’s not even a hint. Wonder if he’s a spy or something.”

I rolled my eyes as he headed back out the security door and down the hall. Micah’s words came back to me, and a deep curiosity took over.

I loved a good mystery, after all.

Pushing against the floor, I rolled my chair over to a computer where I pulled up John Doe’s electronic file, and clicked on the ME’s report.

Almost everything about his physical aspects was average: height, weight, hair and eye color. Though his body composition noted an overly strong musculature. He was probably a fitness buff who spent a lot of time in the gym. Estimated age of late thirties to early forties. But, then there were the fingerprints, or finger smudges in his case.

His wounds consisted of a few scrapes on his knuckles along with bruising on his face and torso, indicating he’d been in some sort of fight. The killing blow was a single gunshot wound to the head from close proximity. The placement and angle suggested the oh-so-well-known, but rarely seen, execution-style.

I double clicked on his X-rays and stared in shock. I’d never trained in reading X-rays, but after looking at them for years, thanks to a combination of morbid curiosity and a constant need to know more, I’d learned to spot calluses: the signs of bone remodeling.

The extent of calluses on our Mr. Doe’s skeleton was staggering. I’d seen the X-rays of jumpers who didn’t have as many broken bones as this man had accumulated in his life.

Maybe Micah was right.

I wanted to laugh at the stupidity of that thought. A spy? In Cincinnati? Was he here to steal Skyline’s chili recipe? Or find out why people were obsessed with goetta? Because I’d like to know the answer to that one.

Then again, GE Aviation was based here and they did have government contracts…

Really, Paisley?

I shook my head and closed out the X-rays. There was one identifiable mark Dr. Mitchell found, so I pulled it up. When it opened, I squinted at the screen, trying to figure out what I was looking at and how Dr. Mitchell even noticed it.

Behind Mr. Mysterious’s left ear, underneath the backside of the concha, in the crease where the ear and the skull meet, were three dots. Permanent markings on the skin, almost like freckles, but they were black.

I sat back and stared at the screen.

What a strange marking.

I’d heard about gangs having a three-dot tattoo, but those were mostly in a triangle and in a noticeable place. His was in an almost invisible place. Plus, besides the bodily damage he’d suffered over the years, nothing about him—tattoos, apparel, et cetera—suggested any gang relations. Christ, the man was wearing a suit when he was killed.

For the next few hours, I went about my job and obsessed about John Doe in the back of my mind. Who was he?

Later, close to my clock out time, when the tests were done—thanks to my curiosity moving it to the head of the class—I pulled up the results and shook my head.

The tests brought up a startling and confusing combination of drugs in John Doe’s system. “This isn’t right.”

I printed off the results and walked over to where Damon was sitting.

“This can’t be right, can it?” I asked, shoving the piece of paper in his face.

He scowled at me as he grabbed the paper and looked down at it. The annoyance on his face morphed into confusion.

“How are the other tests coming out?” he asked, his eyes never leaving the page.

I shrugged. “Normal for this place.”

“Do we need to recalibrate and rerun?”

“That’s what I was wondering.” I turned back to my station and looked at the stack of completed, all normal tests from before and after.

The telltale beep and click of the door’s security flickered in the back of my mind.

“Holy shit.” Damon’s low curse was unusual, and my head popped up as I turned back and looked toward the door.

I barely had time to even comprehend who was standing there and why.

Time stopped.

The only thing I registered was the gun in a man’s hand and each snap as it fired off. Precise shots from its silenced barrel that ended emerging screams.

In my peripheral, three of my lab mates fell to the ground. Five shots in all, but I was still standing, staring straight down the dark, life-ending barrel. I shifted my eyes to focus behind the gun to the man, to see my killer before I died, and my heart stopped.

Simon?

His expression was calm and serious—a man on a mission.

His finger lingered on the trigger, but then his arm relaxed to his side.

My heart raced, beating against my chest so fast it felt like it was trying to break out from my ribs. I couldn’t think, couldn’t move. Could only stare at him. Complete shock had hijacked my system.

He reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the door. “I need you.”

Words that made my knees weak the day before made them weak again, but for a completely different reason. I stumbled, my feet seeming to have lost all memory of how to function. He was strong, and there was no resisting, even if I could.

As we moved through the door, I turned back and stared in wide-eyed horror.

The walls were dripping with red. Marcy, Damon, Murphy, Dr. Alma, and Ian were sprawled out on the floor. Their eyes were empty as blood pooled beneath them.

A scream built in my chest, but it wouldn’t come out. The world fell from beneath me as I tried to understand, to process what was going on, that they were all dead.

Pain in my arm brought my attention back to the man who just last night was a dream come true. Now he seemed to be a thing made of nightmares.

I was still asleep. That had to be it. None of it was real.

“Open it.”

I blinked up at him, then at the sign above the door—Morgue. The shock started to wear off, and I shook my head as I pulled back. “No.”

He held his gun up again and pressed the still warm tip to my forehead. “Open it. Now.”

I was going to die.

My life ending in a mess.

I didn’t want to die. Not today. Not for a long time.

Why is this happening?

Tears began sliding down my cheeks as I prayed that it was empty, that all the bodies inside were dead. My hand shook as I reached out and slid my card through the reader, then entered in the six-digit code.

There was no pause in his stride as he entered, only a cool, deadly killer.

Meticulous.

Three snaps.

Cheryl.

Dr. Mitchell.

Micah.

They all slumped to the ground.

My stomach dropped. An explosion of screams was held in by the coiling suffocation around my chest. Squeezing. Choking.

He released me, and I fell back against the wall. Harsh, gulping breaths burned my lungs. The world spun, and my fingers dug into the wall for support.

Loud slams of the fridge doors opening and the ratcheting thumps of the drawers sliding out blasted in my ears. I flinched with each one. He wasted no time opening them all, exposing the bodies, disturbing the dead.

I wanted to scream at him to stop, but fear had me planted in place.

All of his focus was on whatever he was looking for, paying no attention to me. It was my chance to get away.

Run.

I reached out to the side with a trembling hand, using it to guide me to the exit. My feet shuffled in slow uncooperative steps, praying to any higher power that was listening to let me make it out alive.

With a sudden flex of his arm, the gun was pointed straight at me again, and I froze in terrified horror.

“Don’t.” He didn’t even look my way.

I whimpered, my teeth chattering, frozen. “P-Please, Simon.”

“Shut up.”

When he opened one of the last doors and pulled back the sheet, his movements stopped. It was only a brief second, but it seemed he’d found what he was looking for.

“Three?”

He flipped up the earlobe of the man. I couldn’t see, but that one action told me that was the body of John Doe.

For a few seconds the silence was deafening, then the calm demeanor slipped. A string of curses exploded from him, echoing off the tile walls. Then the calm was back as quickly as it had disappeared.

A beeping went off, and he walked straight forward, pointing his gun once again at my head.

“I have information about him you don’t.” My mind raced, my mouth spitting out words I wasn’t sure I could back or would matter to him, but I’d say anything to buy more time.

“Tell me.”

I shook my head, the only movement I seemed to be able to manage.

The beeping went off again. “Fuck.” His lip curled up into a snarl, and he snatched my arm again.

His grip was severe, bruising. We practically ran down the hall, him walking briskly ahead of me and me being dragged along.

After multiple turns I realized we were headed to the parking garage.

“Simon?”

He looked back at me, his eyes narrowed to slits. “Stop calling me that.”

“W-Why?”

He turned from me, scanning the garage. “Six.”

My head tilted to the side and my brow scrunched. “Six?”

“My name. It’s Six.” He let go of my arm and reached into his pocket for keys as we neared a black sedan.

I continued to follow, knowing if I stopped, he’d shoot. “Why Six?”

Was he a secret agent or something? Like James Bond?

Scratch that. I probably didn’t want to know. He had just murdered everyone I worked with. Innocent people.

He let out a frustrated sigh and pushed me into the side of the car. “Because I’m your motherfucking Satan. Now, get your ass in the damn car before I throw you in.”

I stared at the car for a brief second, then slid in. The moment the door was closed, he had my wrists in his grip and was spinning a roll of duct tape around them, binding my hands.

He started the engine and pulled out, but not in the speeding rush I anticipated. Slow. The speed limit of the parking garage. Once we’d driven a few blocks in frightening silence, he pulled something from his pocket and pressed it.

A few seconds later an earsplitting explosion rocked us and everything around. I snapped forward, then slammed back into my seat as a shock wave hit. Smoke and flames reflected in the rearview mirror, emanating from the spot where my building resided—there was nothing remaining.

Everything was gone.

All the shock, the pain, the confusion, and the fear built up and I erupted. “What the f**k is going on?”

He was unfazed by my outburst, absorbed with the I-275 exit in front of him. “Better put your seatbelt on. I don’t care if you live or die, but you may.”

Hands bound, it was hard to maneuver the belt across my body, but after some tugging, it clicked in place.

The words of an ex of mine came back to haunt me as I stared down at the gray around my wrists: never get tied up.

It probably didn’t matter because he could’ve killed me multiple times over, but I knew nothing good would come.