“Doesn’t it bother you?” The words jumped out of me of their own volition. Oliver lowered his chin and tilted his head to the side, the very image of innocence. He had no idea what I was talking about. “This. Compelling people to do things.”
He shook his head. “No,” he said, and then, “should it?” I said nothing, just stared at him with my mouth open.
“Do you really want to do this here and now?” he asked. “I mean, it’s kind of rude to keep Don waiting.” He poked his head closer to me and raised his eyebrows. Sometimes I loved him so much, and other times I could just throttle him. It struck me that the interval between those times just kept getting shorter.
We stepped into the most thoroughly tiled room I had ever seen. Gray tiles on the walls, tan tiles on the floor, the ones on the floor slanting in slightly around drains. I shuddered at the thought of what had been washed away through those drains over the years. Several doors lined the beige wall of refrigerated units. I knew Peadar’s remains still lay sealed behind one of those doors. Jilo had tried her best to convince me that I shouldn’t feel guilty, but I was still awash in regret.
“Tucker?” Oliver asked, prompting Don to open first one door and then a second. He closed each in quick succession. Even though there’d been nothing in the news, it occurred to me that what was left of Birdy might be here as well. “Third time’s a charm, Don.”
The man smiled nervously and nodded, pulling open another door. He checked the toe-tag on the body and nodded again, pulling the body tray out of the refrigerator. Oliver assisted him in shifting the body to a gurney; then he pushed the tray back and shut the cooler’s door.
“You can return to your desk now. We’ll put him away when we’re through here.”
“Good. Real good,” Don said, practically bowing as he returned to the door without ever turning his back on us.
Oliver crossed over to the gurney that held Tucker’s body, but then called out, “Oh, Don?” The man stopped in his tracks. “Let’s keep this little visit between us, okay?”
“Sure thing. Of course,” Don said and left the room.
I joined Uncle Oliver near the body. I’d hoped to have a few more seconds to prepare myself. I’d expected that the sheet would have been pulled up over Tucker’s face, but it was turned down around his clavicle, leaving his neck and head exposed. His skin showed a light purplish-blue cast.
“Ah, Tucker, you bastard,” Oliver said, an odd affection for the deceased playing in his voice. “You were a total prick, but who would’ve wanted to hurt you like this?” His lack of respect for the dead made me uncomfortable. I looked at Oliver, and he read the distaste on my face. “You of all people are telling me you didn’t think of him as a jerk?”
“Well, yeah, but he’s dead now.”
“So he’s a dead jerk.”
“Ellen loved him,” I said. The regret I felt for the way I had acted about their engagement weighed heavily on me. Another stone of guilt pulling me down. Silently, I apologized to Tucker. Later, I’d do the same to Ellen, this time out loud.
“And we love Ellen, and that is a big part of the reason why we are standing here now. Shall we?” He stepped away from the tray so that I could position myself between him and the body.
“Are you sure we should do this? I mean, when Iris laid hands on Ginny, it opened a door for Grace’s spirit to come through.”
Oliver winced at the memory. “It isn’t quite the same thing, Gingersnap. Ginny was a powerful witch, an anchor. Tucker, he was just an ordinary guy. But you are right, we need to be mindful of what we are attempting here.” He pointed his finger at the floor, and a beam of blue light emanated from it. He paced around, drawing a glowing circle on the floor. “In case anything does slip through, this will contain it until we can send it back.” He guided me to the head of the table. I looked down at Tucker. His trademark gold curls, strong forehead, and full lips. Now that his eyes were closed and he wasn’t leering at me, I could take in the full effect of his features. “He was a handsome man.”
Oliver nodded. “Until he opened his mouth.” I shot him another warning glance. He shrugged an apology and moved on. “You’ll need to touch him. Probably best if you put your hands on his head. You okay with that?”
I nodded and reached forward to place my fingertips on his temples, but I couldn’t complete the action. I stopped with my hands hovering a few inches above Tucker. “What about . . .” I started, but then hesitated, feeling a little foolish.
“What about what?”
“What about his soul?”
A smile curved on Oliver’s lips. “You still believe in the soul, Gingersnap?”
I considered his question, feeling somehow unsophisticated, but then nodded. “Yes,” I began, my voice trembling, then said it again with the force of conviction. “Yes, I do.”
Oliver reached out and touched my cheek. “Yeah, I kind of do too. But we aren’t trying to pull his spirit back to his body. We are just going to hit it with a little juice, just enough to spark up his hard drive, get his synapses firing long enough for me to look around.”
I let my decision filter down from my head to my gut. I owed it to Ellen, even if she might not like what we were doing, to find out who’d done this to Tucker. And I owed it to myself to get some answers too. I nodded and breathed deeply, calming my mind, focusing on the few positive thoughts about Tucker I could mine from my heart. I touched his temples, and his body pulsed and lurched up into a sitting position. A guttural sound issued from his throat. It might have been a full scream if his trachea had not been destroyed. His back faced me, and I shuddered as I saw the light shining through the hole burned through his body. I saw Oliver’s eyes dart up to meet Tucker’s, and I felt grateful that I didn’t have to see his dead eyes myself, that I didn’t have to witness whatever was written in them. Tucker’s right hand shot up and clamped itself over mine. Cold. Dead. But still trembling. An image rose up in my thoughts. A large and terrifying dog. No, a wolf. My conscious mind rejected it as ridiculous. There were no wolves in Savannah. Perhaps we had waited too long to attempt our grisly task. Maybe the physical damage had been too great, or perhaps decay had closed off Tucker’s circuits. His body convulsed once, twice, and then went slack in my hands, his head banging down against the metal table. I was still holding my hands out before me. They felt soiled, and all I could think of for a moment was my desire to run them under hot water until the coldness of death had been washed away. Small sparks shot from the fingertips of one hand to the other. I clenched them into fists and brought them down to my sides, just as the door to the morgue banged opened.
Adam entered the room, shaking his head, his own fists clenched. “Just what in the hell are you two doing in here?”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Adam grabbed Oliver by the collar and gave him the bum’s rush out of the morgue. As they approached the door, Adam turned back to glare at me. His face was a mask of anger—horizontal wrinkles lined his forehead, his eyes glared at me, and his jaw jutted forward. I could see the pulse at his temple. He lifted one eyebrow, and that was enough to communicate that if I didn’t follow, I would be the next person to be dragged from the room. I shot one last look at Tucker, feeling ashamed of leaving him uncovered and sprawled awkwardly, one arm flung back over his head. I turned to set him right. “Mercy.” Adam’s voice turned my name into a one-word command. I turned back and followed.
