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slap-dash asshole move he’d pull.
    Bryn unlocked the prep room door and turned on the lights, and yes, she was right: Freddy had left poor Mr. Granberry naked on the table. It was cold in the room, but not cold enough to properly retard decomposition … and besides, it was just disrespectful, leaving the poor man there exposed and alone.
    Bryn walked over and looked down at his face. Bodies didn’t scare her—never had, really. They were a sad remnant of a life already gone by the time she saw them like this—an impermanent memorial, melting like paper in water. Everybody—and every
body
—had a story. She supposed Mr. Granberry’s was kind of tragic, given his wife and what had happened with his daughter, but he didn’t look especially tragic—just absent.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, and put her hand on his cheek. He felt cool and utterly lifeless, like a rubber doll left outside in winter. “Take care of Melissa, wherever you guys are. I don’t think she meant to hurt anybody. She just didn’t want to live with all the pain. I’m sure she really loved you.”
    Talking to the dead was always useless. Mr. Granberry didn’t hear, didn’t feel, didn’t care. But Bryn felt better for having said it, and that was really the point.
    “Time to go to your room.” Bryn spread a clean white sheet over him, then removed the brakes from the wheels and rolled his table into the walk-in refrigerator. “Sleep tight, Mr. G. I promise we’ll do our best for you. Oh, look— you’ve got a friend.” Mr. G had a neighbor, it seemed— another body, still zipped in a dark plastic cocoon. She supposed it was a late arrival from a hospital or the coroner’s office.
    As she closed the door on him, she could have sworn she heard something. Bryn paused, holding her breath, but she heard nothing now but the hum of machinery. She couldn’t help but think of poor Mr. Granberry sitting up on his tray. Corpses sometimes did that sort of thing. It wasn’t anything to do with zombies; it was just muscles contracting. It seemed creepy, but it was just … biology.
    Although biology could be pretty damn creepy, when you came right down to it.
    She looked inside, but nothing seemed to have changed. As she swung the door shut, she heard it again. A faint sound but definite.
    Kind of a scratching.
    “Rats,” she said, and shuddered. She’d have to tell Mr. Fairview. The last thing any mortuary needed was a rodent problem. That would get them shut down quickly, and ruin their reputation forever.
    Bryn clicked off the lights decisively and walked out the doors, locking them behind her.
    She was halfway up the stairs when the door at the top opened. She was caught—nowhere to go. All she could do was stand there and look alarmed. Of course, Fast Freddy had come back … and this time, he had her where he wanted her.
    No … As the shock faded and her eyes adjusted, she realized that the man standing at the top of the steps wasn’t Fast Freddy, or Lincoln Fairview. For a second she couldn’t place him at all, and then she remembered.
    It was the man who’d come earlier today to talk about his brother’s arrangements. Joe. Joe Fideli.
    He lifted a finger to his lips, a clear shushing motion, and Bryn took a step backward slowly.
    Mr. Fideli raised a pistol. Not just a Saturday-night special—no, this looked like a very serious professional semiauto. Not military issue, but a similar model, and just as good. She raised her hands in mute surrender. Mr. Fideli gestured her down the stairs. She slowly went, feeling for each step as she took it backward.
    Once she was at floor level, there still weren’t many options. The elevator and loading-dock doors were closed, and she didn’t know the maze of basement storage at the other end well enough to count on another exit. Still, she had the crazy impulse to run—but there was something about running into the dark that stopped her.
    Well, that and the fact that she thought Mr. Fideli