Chris Redding - Corpse Whisperer

Dolores’ car was in her driveway when Grace arrived home. Not a good sign. During the ride home, Grace wondered why Dolores hadn’t lost the baby this time. Why were things going in a different order?

Something niggled at the edge of her brain, but she couldn’t catch it. If she could see it, she knew she’d have the answer.

She knocked on the back door, not even bothering to go up to her apartment first.

“Oh, Grace, hello.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m just feeling under the weather. I’d invite you in, but I’m about to go down for a nap.”

Grace flashed to her vision of Dolores bleeding on the bathroom floor. “Are you bleeding?”

“Why would you ask that?”

She shook her head. “Just curious. You look pale.”

“Just fatigue. Too much gardening. How about I come over when I wake up,” Dolores said.

Grace nodded and backed down the steps, her instincts screaming for her to stay. The sun had gone behind a large dark cloud and she expected it would rain again. She couldn’t sit out in the yard. She needed to be in Dolores’ house.

Her mind reeling from the complications, Grace went up to her apartment. Mark sat at her kitchen table, devouring a burger.

“How’d you get in?”

She dropped her keys on the counter, then plopped her tired body into the chair opposite him.

“Your landlady let me in.”

“Why are you here?”

“I was hoping you’d know that.”

She snorted. “I don’t know anything this time.”

“This time? Why is it different?”

“Don’t know, but you said something about the butterfly effect.”

“Yeah? I’m pretty deep when I’m toasted.”

“Why did you show up here, drunk?”

“Because I feel as if we have unfinished business, Gracie.”

She stood and paced away from him. “I don’t feel about you the way you feel about me. Life would be simple if I did. Jeez, you’re the only one who knows about my thing.”

Unable to categorize her power as a gift, she’d never decided on a label.

Mark patted the table beside his plate. “Join me and tell me how it was last time.”

***

Zach maintained the speed limit to Dolores’ house, but just.

The sky had cleared, but the air still held the scent of a storm. Maybe Grace could tell him if there would be another one soon. Then he could plan a picnic.

Pulling into Dolores’ driveway he knew her car would be there. He’d already called her at work and they told him she’d gone home, sick.

Grace rushed up to him, with Mark on her heels. This guy was spending too much time with her.

“Zach, she isn’t answering.”

“I have a key.”

His heart stopped when he saw Dolores in a pool of blood. Her bathroom reeked of death, but her chest still rose in shallow breaths.

Grace commanded Mark to dial 9-1-1, while she knelt by Dolores. “I have a pulse, but it’s thready.”

“She shot?”

“No, I think she’s hemorrhaging. Maybe she lost the baby.”

Zach blinked for a moment. His heart ached for the child that wouldn’t be. Then he went back to cop mode, analyzing the scene clinically. “Why didn’t she call?”

“Maybe she woke up this way.”

“On the floor?”

“No, bleeding. She was under the weather when I saw her. She was going to take a nap.”

A siren wailed in the distance, a welcome sound to Zach’s ears. “Move,” he said.

“Leave her. They’re almost here.”

He shoved Grace out of the way, then scooped up Dolores. She hung limp in his arms and she had the coppery smell of blood about her. He raced to meet the ambulance at the driveway.

Without waiting for the crew to roll out the cot, Zach climbed into the ambulance, then laid Dolores on the white sheets. Grace appeared and gave a report to the medics.

“Can I stay here?” he asked.

The gloved medic nodded, not looking up from Dolores. The doors closed and someone patted it. The ambulance moved with sirens blaring.

Mark drove Grace to the hospital. She leapt out of the car just before he stopped it, then went to find Zach.

He paced the hallway outside a curtained room in the emergency room. If his shoulders were any more slumped, he’d have been walking on them.

“Zach?”

He pulled her into his arms most likely for his own comfort. Colors swirled in front of her, but she kept on her feet. He needed her now. Despite the kaleidoscope in her head she clung to his voice to stay conscious.

“Grace, she lost the baby.”

“I’m sorry, Zach.”

He let go and her vision cleared and gone was the warm enveloping feeling she experienced with the colors. Part of her sighed in relief, but another part of her longed for him to hold her again.

“Yeah, me, too.” Bitterness tinged his voice.

“You still love her.”

His sardonic smile creased his face. “No, actually I don’t. I care about her, but I don’t love her.”

He stared at her as if willing her to believe him. Why should it matter? He was much nicer this time, but would he still be interested in her? This crisis was not the time to find out. “No?”

“No, I realized that awhile ago, but I guess the idea of a child had me rethinking how I felt. I could have been a good Dad.”

“I’m sure, Zach.”

She didn’t dare put a hand on him, lest those colors come back. Not touching him felt awkward. She put her hands behind her back to resist any urge to make contact with him.

“You think me cold for not loving her?”

“No, you’ve been hurt.”

“Too many times.”

He paced away, his broad shoulders not as slumped as when she arrived. Maybe she’d helped him.

He swirled back to her. “What’s between you and Mark?”

Grace blinked, wondering where the question came from. “I’m not sure how to answer that.”

“Are you lovers?”

“No.”

Why did he need to know?

“Good.”

Mark appeared next to her and she had no time to question Zach further.

“Stop here,” Grace told Mark on the way home.

Entering the Robber Baron at the height of Happy Hour, she found all of her suspects at once. Lance Antonio sat at one end of the bar with the same crowd around him.

Kent Winger was at a table with his wife.

Grace bit her lip. She didn’t really want to confront Winger, but she knew Lance had a restraining order against him.

Eeny Meeny Miney Moe. Lance won or lost depending on how you saw it. She ordered a beer then walked over towards him.

“Hey.”

They exchanged witty comments then she got down to business. This time he didn’t mention the restraining order. How could she bring it up? Maybe Zach could check on it for her.

“I need to talk to you about Dolores Holten.”

He scowled. “Heard she got knocked up.”

“You do it?”

“Nope. Haven’t touched her in months.”

He sipped his beer as if dismissing Grace. “Maybe I think differently.”

“Yeah?”

“Prove it. I’ll give DNA if you want.”

“Did she dump you because she was pregnant?”

His beer mug hit the counter harder and she flinched. She touched a nerve with him.

“She tell you that? Well I dumped her.”

Sure. “I see. So did you dump her because she was pregnant?”

“I dumped her because I was tired of her. She’s a clingy lady.” He looked Grace up and down. “You got a boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Good, because she’d steal him. Stole me from a fiance.” He shook his head. “Stupidest thing I did was go with Dolores.”

A motive. She dumps him after she ruins an engagement. “What would your fiance say?”

Lance’s eyes narrowed making Grace put up her hands in surrender. “Never mind.”