Chapter 1 - The Hand That Moved
The dead woman grabbed Dr. Lena Brooks by the wrist.
"Please," she whispered. "Don't let them burn me."
Lena nearly dropped the syringe. It hit the edge of the steel tray with a sharp clink, and for one ridiculous second that was all she could hear. Not the humming lights. Not the rain rattling the morgue windows. Just the sound of a needle touching metal.
"You're alive," Lena said.
The young woman tried to nod. Her skin was gray under the examination lamp. Blood had dried along a cut on her forehead. She wore a faded purple shirt, and the white sheet across her legs was stamped PROPERTY OF ST. AGNES.
"They said I wasn't." Her voice cracked. "They said nobody would check."
Lena pressed two fingers against her neck. A weak pulse answered. Fast, frightened, unmistakable.
She looked at the clipboard on the counter. The first line read DEATH CERTIFICATE. Below the woman's name, MAYA REED, someone had stamped DEATH CONFIRMED in thick red letters. The requested disposition was even worse: IMMEDIATE CREMATION.
"Who did this?" Lena asked.
Maya tried to sit up, but her arms shook. "My sister. They have my sister."
"What's her name?"
"Nora. She's thirteen. I need—"
A key turned in the door.
Lena pulled the sheet higher and stepped in front of the table. The handle moved once, then stopped. She had locked the door because she'd been told the body required a private examination. Now the lie felt deliberate.
"Dr. Brooks?" said a man's voice. Smooth. Familiar. "Why is the morgue locked?"
Dr. Adrian Vale, medical director of St. Agnes, had signed off on Lena's transfer to the night shift two weeks earlier. He was the kind of man who remembered donors' birthdays and forgot nurses' names.
"I'm checking the paperwork," Lena answered.
She glanced at the signature at the bottom of the certificate. The handwriting was an excellent imitation of her own.
Verified by: Dr. Lena Brooks.
Time of death: 1:42 a.m.
She had been in an ambulance at 1:42, treating a man with chest pain. The hospital had her dispatch log.
Maya squeezed her wrist harder. "Don't tell him."
May you like
On the other side of the door, Vale stopped pretending to be polite.
"Open up, Lena," he said. "That body is not yours to save."
