Page 73 of Manner of Death

“I don’t think it’s a cover up,” Bashir remembered saying over Detective McKay’s autopsy. “I think it’s a game.”

“A—what?”

“One body after another, each with an obvious cause and manner of death… until the autopsy.” He’d stared down at the body. “This is someone playing a game. It has to be. They enjoy seeing if we can figure out the puzzle.”

“Oh my God.” She’d sounded genuinely horrified. “That’s… that’s really fucked-up.”

“Yeah. It is.”

“If this person gets caught,” Tami had mused, “they’re looking at capital murder charges. It’s all premeditated. Like, hella premeditated.” She’d chafed her arms. “What kind of sick fucker does… hell, any of this?”

That’s a good question, Tami, he thought in the present. A really fucking good question.

Jesus, how had he been so stupid? So oblivious? He’d known for a long time that she had a crush on him, but it had always seemed fairly innocent, even after it led to her broken engagement.

Maybe that crush wasn’t so innocent after all. Maybe after he’d gently rejected her playful flirtation over the years, she hadn’t gotten the message like he’d naively thought. Maybe she’d been stewing this whole time, waiting to exact revenge.

Or worse, obsessing. Clinging. Looking for ways to get more of him and what she wanted.

“I love watching your mind work,” she’d said hundreds of times and hundreds of ways. “You’re amazing, Bashir.”

He shuddered as that green first-year med student feeling intensified, threatening to send him looking for something to puke in.

What if she really was obsessed with him, and all these people were dead just so she could get some sick thrill out of watching him figure out how they’d been killed? What if this—

The morgue’s side entrance banged open, startling Bashir so bad, he was definitely glad he’d put down the liver. Otherwise he’d probably be peeling it off the ceiling.

A moment later, Dr. Boyce came into the room, his pissy mood written all over his face. “Are days off just not a thing anymore?” he demanded. “I wasn’t even supposed to be on call today.”

Bashir blinked, but then recovered. “I’m sorry. We, uh… We’re going to be short-staffed for a while.”

Boyce eyed him. “Yeah? Who’d you fire this time?”

“No one. But something came up for Tami. She’s going to be… indisposed.”

He fully expected an eyeroll followed by a tirade about how she was an assistant and he was a pathologist, so he shouldn’t have to fill in for her. And yeah, he was right, but the morgue’s workload was what it was—everyone had to do grunt work and paperwork sometimes.

To his surprise, though, Boyce just tilted his head. “Indisposed? What does that mean?”

“It means she’s unavailable,” Bashir said coolly.

Boyce’s features hardened, but only a little. Then he chuckled and continued toward his office.

Bashir watched him go, not sure what to make of the man’s reaction. But hell, what else was new? His entire world had flipped on its ass since this morning.

He couldn’t wait to see how much worse things would get.

Chapter 20

If someone had asked Sawyer what was on his mind at this point, he could have given a lot of different answers. Many of them revolved around Bashir and the fact that Sawyer had probably torpedoed his best shot at a personal relationship with him. The idea of continuing to work together, of seeing him at crime scenes, of forcing himself to be cool and professional when all he wanted was to beg for forgiveness…that was a special kind of torture. To go from what they’d experienced together to distant acquaintances would be awful, and while it wasn’t a completely foregone conclusion at this point, Sawyer couldn’t see how he was going to salvage it. Because the thing was…

Someone at the morgue had to be the killer. They simply had to be. There was too much evidence that centered around their facility for the facts to be otherwise. It had to be someone with a level of authority that would give them access to crime scenes, case files, and the bodies themselves, which left out the secretarial and janitorial staff, but that was still a lot of people to comb through.

That was just what Sawyer was doing, though. He’d pulled personnel files on everyone who worked at the morgue, as well as everyone who had worked there over the past few years who still might have access. He couldn’t afford to take anything for granted at this point, up to and including his own partner being a help instead of a hindrance.

That’s not fair, he told himself as he sat through another reading of the top five files laid out on his desk. She was doing what she thought was best for the case. She just wants justice for Kurt.

But she could have done it without the accusations. She could have taken over the interview if she was so fucking concerned with Sawyer’s ability to put his head before his heart. She didn’t have to yell at him, and she definitely could have done more to help with Bashir.