2

The horror escalated. A sheet over him blocked the vision of his eyes; temperature had become all one to him, unfelt; and the lack of breath prevented him from smelling anything, but he knew he lay in the morgue. He had heard its cold echoes on arriving, had felt himself slid into a drawer and heard the door close. Now he heard, had lain listening for countless time, the hum of refrigeration units about him while he dreamed nightmares and wished Lane had thrown him in the bay, too. Maybe he would have gone out to sea. Better to be fish food than lie in this hated purgatory of cold and steel. He prayed his parents did not have to see him here.

That was when he thought of the autopsy. One would have to be done. His heart contracted in fear. What would it be like? How would it feel to lie naked in running water on cold steel, sliced open from neck to hips, shelled out like a pea pod . . .

Heart!

He could not cease moving or hold his breath, but his mind paused, waiting. Yes, there it was! Like the distant boom of a drum, his heart sounded in his chest. It squeezed. A slow ripple moved outward from it along his arteries. He felt almost every inch of them. A long pause later, the drum beat again, then again.

He listened in wonder. If his heart beat, he could not be dead. His body lay leaden, held unmoving to the surface beneath him, but a silent cry of joy banished the darkness inside him. Alive!

He drew a breath . . . slow, painfully slow, but a breath nonetheless.

He could have sworn he was not breathing before, nor his heart beating. He had felt—how he had felt!—the silence of his body. What miracle caused the heart and lungs to resume function? He could not imagine, and at the moment, overjoyed with the sound and feel of them, he did not give a damn about the reason.

But he remained in a morgue locker, naked in a refrigerated cabinet. Unless he found a way out, the cold would kill him again. Could he attract attention by pounding on the locker door?

He tried, but the weakness that had held him motionless the past—how many?—­hours persisted. He still could not move.

Could he survive until they came to take him out for the autopsy? He did not feel the cold of the locker right now. Perhaps if he kept alert, he could fight off hypothermia.

He wished, though, that he could change position. His body consisted of one continuous, unrelenting ache, stiff from neck to toes.

By concentrating and straining, he finally managed to move. Like the first heartbeat and the first breath, it came with agonizing slowness. Still, by persisting, he managed to shift his weight off his buttocks and turn on his side. Not that that helped a great deal; he still felt uncomfortable, but at least the position of the aches changed.

He tried again to knock on the locker door, but he moved in slow motion, and the sound he produced was barely audible even to him. He would just have to wait for them to open the door.

He fought his way onto his stomach to change the pressure points once more.

He did not sleep. Certainly he did not rest, but in spite of himself, he must have dozed because the motion of the drawer sliding out startled him. He had not heard the door open. Light flooded him blindingly as the sheet came off.

"What clown put this stiff in on his belly?" a voice demanded irritably.

If he raised upright, would they faint? Garreth wondered. He wished he could find out, but gravity dragged at him, weighting him. He went without resistance as they rolled him onto the stretcher and rearranged the sheet over him.

"Hurry," another voice said. "This one's a cop and Thurlow wants to get him posted as soon as possible."

Garreth worked his hands to the edges of the stretcher and clamped his fingers around the rubber bumper. Even if he could not move fast enough to attract their attention and they missed the faint motion of his chest, they could hardly overlook this.

The stretcher stopped. An attendant pulled off the sheet. Hands took him by the shoulders and legs and pulled . . . but Garreth's grip held him on the stretcher.

"What the hell is going on?" snapped the voice of the medical examiner.

"I don't know, Dr. Thurlow. His hands weren't like that when we put him on the gurney."

Now that he had their attention, Garreth forced open his eyes. Half a dozen gasps sounded around him. He focused on Dr. Edmund Thurlow. "Please." The whisper rasped up out of his throat with a plea from his soul. "Get me out of here."