Michael and I left Lucas with Alejandro. We walked back down to the morgue. Xavier was still examining away.
“They don’t think Alejandro is going to make it,” Michael told him.
“Pity, I was just getting used to him.”
“Does anyone feel anything about this?” I asked, slightly appalled.
“Yes, but not what one might expect. Alejandro is and was a complete bastard. We’ve talked to the head guy twice about replacing him. He makes our lives hell and he’s so paranoid that we have trouble sharing information, even information important to our cases. Since he started as our liaison, our capture rate has dropped. So, are we sad he’s going to die, yes. It’s terrible to lose a life. Does that mean others might get saved as a result? Yes, so it serves a purpose,” Xavier had a mask on.
“You?” Michael asked.
“All life should be mourned.” I told him coolly. I had no particular like for Alejandro, but I was of the opinion that even jackasses had families and people that cared about them. I was sure Alejandro was no different.
“Well then, back to the case at hand,” Michael began his ferocious typing.
I watched Xavier. He had gotten all the head cages removed. There were rats strewn about the room. Some had been dissected. Some hadn’t yet. He was moving meticulously from rat to rat.
“I hate to admit this, but I find hanging out in the morgue to be morbid.” I told them.
“Go back to the hotel; god knows you need a shower. Get Gabriel to take you. He’s our FBI contact here.” Xavier told me.
I left. Gabriel was hanging out in a lounge area just off the cafeteria. My stomach growled.
“Don’t go in there, half the people will lose their appetites, the other half will lose their lunch,” Gabriel said as I took a step that way.
“I smell that bad?”
“You smell worse than that.” Gabriel stood up, “what can I do for you?”
“I need food and a shower.”
“So, hotel.” Gabriel dug his car keys out of his pocket, “no coat?”
“Didn’t need one originally.”
“Here, take mine, you can have it cleaned at the hotel.” Gabriel handed me his coat. He had a zippered hoodie under it. Together, we left for the hotel.
“Shower, I’ll get room service ordered while you do. What do you want?”
“A Philly would be great,” I told him, grabbing some clothes.
“No, don’t take anything you intend to wear into the room with you. Take and put the clothes you are wearing into a trash bag and set them outside the door. I’ll make sure they get picked up to be cleaned. Put my coat with them.”
“Really? It’s that bad?”
“You can’t smell it anymore. Try to remember when you first walked into that room. That’s what you smell like.”
The memory surfaced. I put my clothes and Gabriel’s coat into the bathroom trashcan and tied up the bag. I set it outside the door by slipping it through a small crack. Gabriel was on the phone, ignoring me.
The shower was blissful. The water was hot enough to turn my skin pink. I lathered with soap, over and over again; my nostrils began to clear of the smell of death. I could smell it again, faintly. I washed my hair for a third time. The tiny bottle of shampoo was empty. The bar of soap was nothing more than a speck by the time I exited. I wrapped a towel around myself. My clothes were in the other room.
For a couple of seconds I debated asking Gabriel to just bring them to me, but I have never been the shy type and any modesty that might have tried to form was squashed when I was eight. I exited the bathroom, watching for a moment as the steam rushed out the open door, filling the small hallway.
“Feel better?” Gabriel asked.
“Yes, much.”
“Michael called. He thinks he found the storage unit and they cleaned it out earlier today.”
“Fruck,” I said it with very little emotion. He still didn’t have any victims to put in it. That was something.
“My thoughts exactly, especially if what they tell me about them is true. There were only two of them.”
“That’s going to suck,” I shook my head. Gabriel turned his back to me. I got dressed.
“Are they heating them up before they fill them?” Gabriel asked, turning back around.
“That would be my guess. A cold bull takes even longer than a hot one.”
“That sounds dirty for some reason.”
I broke a smile and shook my head. In a way, he was right, it did sound dirty. He smiled with me.
“Why are you doing this?” He asked after another second.
“Because I don’t know what else to do,” I told him.
“US Marshal by default then,” Gabriel nodded, “I know a couple of people like that.”
“Well there isn’t much for a damaged, serial killer magnet with a degree in history to do in this world. It’s either this or deal with classrooms full of students. Since stats would dictate that I would have a serial killer every two years in one of my classes, this seems safer.”
“They are on the rise,” Gabriel stood as there was a knock on the door.
Our food was here. Gabriel took both containers and brought them into the room. He kicked it shut with his foot. I got up and put the locks on.
“Concerned?” Gabriel handed me one of them.
“Habit,” I admitted, opening the box. The Philly smelled delicious. The green peppers and mushrooms were cooked to perfection. The beef was thinly sliced and slightly salty. I chomped into it and had half of it devoured before Gabriel had finished putting condiments on his baked potato.
“Wow, you were hungry.”
“Starved.” I told him. There was another knock on the door.
Gabriel got up and looked out the peep hole. He frowned and started removing the locks.
Xavier entered the room. Lucas with him. Behind them there was a man with a gun. He fired one shot into each of them. Then turned the gun towards me.
The bullet ripped through my shoulder. I felt my knees go weak, before they collapsed and tossed me onto the floor. My body twitched. Gabriel went down. All I could do was watch as the two people in black masks entered the room.
Chapter 53