With one finger, Lola brushed the woman’s dark hair from her bruised cheekbone. Her gaunt, lined face told a story much longer than Elena’s twenty-four years of life. Had she tried to protect her child in the end? Had she felt one last burst of motherly instinct, which had deserted her ever since she’d begged the courts to give her one last chance?
The door to the stairwell creaked on its hinges, and Lola jumped back from her examination of Elena. She banged her elbow on the open door to the freezer where Elena had lain tagged and bagged. Could Dr. Trapp be back from his break already?
Lola’s pulse danced at the base of her throat. She backed up on silent sneakers, away from the scope of the narrow window, and pressed her back against the wall. Running her tongue across her dry lips, her gaze flitted toward the tray of sharp instruments awaiting Dr. Trapp’s steady hand.
If someone broke into this room, a well-placed scalpel could stop him in his tracks. She stifled a gasp. Was that a footfall outside the door?
The morgue remained locked at all times, and she had to practically beg Dr. Trapp for his extra key. So if Dr. Trapp or his medical examiner assistant was lurking in the hallway, either one of them would have access. Folding her arms and gripping the sleeves of her white coat, Lola flattened herself against the icy wall and stared at the door handle. It turned. And stopped. Thwarted by the lock.
A cry gurgled and died at the back of Lola’s throat and she slid down the wall. She could crawl toward the instrument table, unseen by anyone peering into the room. And then what? Grab a scalpel? Hell, she could grab an electric saw.
A shadow darkened the window. Lola splayed damp hands, sweating inside the gloves, on the cool linoleum, as if securing them in starting blocks, waiting for a whistle or some sign to send her scurrying for a weapon.
Maybe someone had come down to the morgue to get a last look at Elena Hidalgo. To mourn her. To curse her.
But Lola’s thumping heart mocked this theory. She knew the stranger outside that door was here for her. He’d been watching her for weeks. Waiting.
The ding of the elevator and the rumble of the doors acted like a cool hand to a fevered brow…her fevered brow. Someone was coming. Voices spilled down the hallway, the cheery click of heels dispelling the ominous silence hovering outside the door to the morgue.
This time when the footsteps halted on the other side of the door, a key scraped in the lock. Lola shot to her feet as the door swung open.
Dr. Trapp raised his reddish eyebrows. “Are you still here, Dr. Famosa?”
Despite the chill in the room, Lola’s cheeks warmed. “I got here a little later than expected.”
“I pulled her out for you.” He plucked a glove from the box and waved it at the tall brunette, shrugging into a white coat. “Do you know Dr. Felson?”
Lola thrust out an arm, and Dr. Felson dropped her gaze to the less-than-pristine glove encasing Lola’s hand. Lola shook her head, her ponytail swinging behind her. “Oh, I haven’t examined the body physically.”
Dr. Felson gave a little wave and a smile. “That’s okay. I’ll pass.”
“I hope you’re not squeamish, Dr. Felson.” Dr. Trapp adjusted his glasses and peered at his vicious instruments. “Autopsies are not for the squeamish.”
Dr. Felson rolled her eyes at Lola. “If I were squeamish, I wouldn’t have survived my training.” She added in a mock whisper to Lola, “Dr. Trapp doesn’t think women can stomach autopsies.”
“I heard that. You’re not a woman, you’re a doctor.” Dr. Trapp wheeled the scale next to the slab
“My point exactly. Anyway, I’m not squeamish, just hygienic.” To prove her point, Dr. Felson strode to the stainless steel sink and cranked on the water.
Lola eyed her wrinkled gloves and flushed again. Although you could eat off this floor if you really wanted to, it was still a floor in a hospital, and Lola’s gloves had been sweeping it moments before.
She peeled off the gloves and dropped them into the trash can. “Did you two see someone in the hallway when you came off the elevator?”
Dr. Felson twisted her head over her shoulder as she soaped up her hands in the sink. “No.”
Lola shifted her gaze to Dr. Trapp. “Dr. Trapp?”
“Hmm?” He’d picked up his saw and was testing the blade with his gloved fingertip.
“Did you see anyone outside the door or in the hallway?” Dr. Felson had turned from the sink, crumpling a paper towel in her hands and drawing her brows over her nose, probably congratulating herself that she’d refused to shake hands with the crazy doctor.
Dr. Trapp glanced up and over the rim of his glasses. “The hallway was empty. There’s nobody down here this time of the day, or should I say night? The pathology department is closed for business. That’s why I prefer to do autopsies now—fewer distractions.”
Lola rolled the kinks out of her shoulders. The intruder had heard the elevator and had taken off the way he’d come down…the stairwell. Or maybe he’d slipped out the exit to the alley. She’d seen the door handle turn. There was no mistaking that.
Dr. Trapp waved a scalpel across Elena Hidalgo’s body like a magic wand, only there was no bringing this sad woman back to life. “Are you done communing with the crack addict?”
Lola pursed her lips. Miami Hope Hospital should be thrilled Dr. Trapp saw only dead patients and not live ones. “I just wanted to have a look at my patient’s mother so when he speaks of her, I have a visual.”
“You’re a pediatrician, Dr. Famosa, not a psychiatrist.”
“Sometimes the two go hand in hand.” Lola shrugged out of her lab coat and dropped it into the laundry bin. “Dr. Felson, can you stand at the door and wait until I get in the elevator? I swear there was someone outside this door earlier and it creeped me out.”
The doctor held up her hands, elbows bent. “Sure, if you get the door. I don’t want to have to wash my hands again.”
Lola cranked open the door and propped it open with her foot while Dr. Felson wedged her shoulder against it to hold it ajar. She winked at Lola. “I don’t blame you. I’m not comfortable wandering around the basement at night, either.”
Lola slipped into the hallway as Dr. Trapp’s voice whined, “I hope you’re not squeamish, Dr. Felson.”
Lola quickened her pace over the freshly mopped floor. It occurred to her that maybe her stealthy stranger had been someone from the janitorial staff. Whoever it was, he or she had been skulking outside the door—no other word for it.
Jabbing at the elevator button, Lola threw a glance at Dr. Felson, still stationed in the doorway of the morgue. Dr. Felson called down the hallway, “I hope it’s not slow tonight. Dr. Trapp’s getting very antsy in here.”
An orange light illuminated the B above the car as the elevator settled into place. The doors rumbled open and Lola flashed a thumbs-up sign to Dr. Felson and slipped inside the confines of the four walls. Safety.
