Early to Death, Early to Rise - Kim Harrison [56]
“Find me a broom closet, will you?” I muttered, and he darted out of the elevator.
I stiffened as the orderly came up behind me, huffing and puffing. I’d had enough. The stuff they did to dead people sucked. The last thing I wanted to do was answer this guy’s questions as to why I was up and walking.
“You got a problem?” I exclaimed as I turned to him. It had the desired effect, and he stopped short. Behind him, Shoe had found a tiny room with a wheeled bucket and mop. Jabbing my finger at the guy, I forced him to take a step backward.
“You’re alive…” the orderly stammered, his eyes going to my earrings, back where they belonged—in my ears.
“Not really, but you’re a thief,” I said tightly. “Take a timeout,” I added, shoving him back into the closet.
Arms pinwheeling, the guy fell back. Tripping on the bucket, he went down, staring up at me when I reached in and grabbed his keys off his belt. I rocked back out of the way, and Shoe yanked the door shut, almost catching the guy’s white sneaker.
“I’d guess that one,” Shoe said as he pointed out a key with MAINTENANCE on it, and I jammed it into the lock and gave it a twist.
“Hey!” came faintly from the closet, and I exhaled, feeling vastly better.
Shoe eyed the closet, laughing. “Make a new friend?” he asked, and I jumped when the orderly rattled the handle and pounded on the door.
Embarrassed, I felt my anger fizzle. “He stole my earrings,” I said, glad I hadn’t found them in his earlobes. Skulls and crossbones were harder to find than one might expect.
“Let me out!” came from the closet.
“Thanks,” I said to Shoe as we turned back to the elevator and I hit the up button.
“For what?”
Suddenly shy, I looked at Shoe, his hands in his pockets and his shirt casually untucked. “For coming to find me,” I said.
The elevator wasn’t back yet, and he glanced askance at me. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. I mean, you were dead.”
“I still am.”
He became even more nervous, shifting from foot to foot as he watched for the up light to glow. “Yeah,” he admitted, “but…you’re okay, too.”
I smiled, reaching out to mock punch his shoulder. “It’s just my body that’s dead.”
Shoe took a deep breath, exhaling loudly. “Ah, we need a quiet computer.”
From the closet came a soft, “Damn, no bars.”
“There’s a computer in the morgue,” I suggested, and Shoe looked down the empty hallway, his eyebrows high in speculation. I knew exactly what he was thinking: Why go somewhere else when the only person down here was locked in a closet?
“Sounds good to me,” Shoe said, and we started for the double doors, his shoes squeaking on the tile and my bare feet silent. “If the virus is on the computer, then I can connect to the server from here and upload the patch.”
My smile went wider. This was going to work. Finally, something was going my way.
“Guys?” the orderly called, starting to sound frantic. “Anyone? Hello?”
Shoe looked down as we entered the morgue. “Why did they take your shoes off?” he asked, and I suddenly became very conscious of my torn shirt, hidden under the coat.
“They have to put the toe tag somewhere,” I said, slowing to a stop and wondering if my shoes might be in one of the lockers against the wall. I wasn’t a connoisseur of morgues, but this one was nicer than the one I’d woken up dead in the first time. There was only the gurney I’d come in on, and I guessed this was a holding area where they kept the bodies before they were given…permanent shelving. That was probably in the room beyond the doors with BIOHAZARD stenciled on them. I wasn’t going to go look. I was just glad they dropped me off and left before putting me in a cold drawer. I hadn’t been looking forward to having to knock to be let out.
“This guy is a slob,” Shoe said as he headed for the scratched desk. With a single finger, he shoved the remains of the guy’s chicken dinner across the faded fake-wood desktop and sat in the rolling chair. “Look, he’s got grease all over the keyboard,” Shoe said, disgusted.
I picked up my file. JANE DOE. Yup, that was me. CAUSE OF DEATH,