Hide and Seek (Hide and Seek #1)

Chapter 1

HARPER-RAYN

Quick question. If I said that I enjoy chatting to rotting corpses, just how quickly do you think I’d be sedated and put in a straitjacket? I’m not crazy, I swear. But a few nights in an asylum kind of sounds like fun.

Crap. That’s the type of shit that crazy people say.

It’s not like I’m talking to dead people in a weird way.

Nobody needs to call me a witch and chase me through town with pitchforks and torches.

And no, I’m not some messed-up ventriloquist who’s shoving her hand up dead people’s cold asses and using them like puppets just to have someone to discuss conspiracy theories with.

I’m a forensic pathologist at Blackstone Private Hospital. Well, almost. Okay, that’s a lie. I’m only twenty-eight and in my second year of residency. I still have another two to go and then another year of fellowship after that before I can officially claim the title. But I’m well on my way there.

In short, I perform autopsies for a living.

To be honest, it’s generally a lonely job.

Well, for those who opt to take the night shift like I do.

We have an abundance of crime here in Blackstone.

During the daylight hours, the hospital morgue is buzzing with activity: supervisors, technicians, coroners, medical examiners, and administrative staff.

But during the night, it’s mostly just me and the night janitor, Vincent, or the occasional detective who can’t possibly wait for me to type up a report before hounding me for answers.

It’s part of the reason why I like it so much. It’s peaceful.

I’m trusted to work alone, and sure, that’s not usually how this is supposed to go, but I’m excellent at what I do.

I have impeccable reports and rarely make mistakes.

All of my work is checked by the senior forensic pathologist come morning, but they simply can’t keep up with the workload during the day.

Having me run autopsies and keep on top of reports through the night makes our team work.

Bodies roll through this basement morgue like a revolving door, and when they really start piling up, I’ll ask for one of the pathology assistants to help me out. But for the most part, I prefer to work alone.

I like my peace. I like to be left the hell alone and kept away from other people’s drama, but that doesn’t mean I can go a whole day without running my mouth.

I need that outlet, so I talk to my corpses.

Though maybe corpse isn’t the right term for them.

Patient, perhaps? Customer? My opportunity to play Operation in real life? Who knows?

All that matters is that I’m not entirely going crazy while locked in the morgue, and while these bodies that wind up on my table can’t exactly offer me an intelligent or engaging conversation, at least I have an outlet to keep me from losing my mind.

Though if you asked my mother, she would assure you that I’m already well on my way to insanity, because what kind of smart woman gets so far through her medical training only to specialize in forensic pathology?

According to her, I’m nothing but a disappointment.

I could have been a world-class surgeon, someone for her to brag about to all of her friends. But instead, I play with dead people.

Mothers, right? Always our harshest critics.

There’s not a single thing about me that she approves of. The way I wear my hair. The small apartment I chose to live in, despite my ability to rent something larger. My style of clothing. My tattoos. But most of all, my job.

If Mom had her way, I wouldn’t have pursued a career at all.

I’d be married to a millionaire and doing brunch with the girlies at the country club.

I’d be wearing designer outfits with red-bottom heels while clutching my pearls at the audacity of the younger generation.

To me, that’s the perfect setting for a horror film.

My sweet depraved soul prefers independence and I sure as shit don’t need to be some rich man’s pretty little wifey in order to have a fulfilled life.

I’m doing more than okay on my own. You know, apart from the talking to dead people thing.

My phone chimes from its spot on my desk, and a grin pulls at my lips, knowing there’s only one person who’d be texting me at this time of night—Laith Mitchell, aka, the only man with a one-way ticket straight to my vagina.

He’s one of the only people in my life who’s never pushed for more than what I’ve been willing to offer and I appreciate that more than he will ever know.

I wouldn’t exactly consider him one of my best friends. We’re not braiding each other’s hair and spilling all of our secrets, but he’s definitely someone who makes my days a little bit brighter. Life wouldn’t be the same without him.

Glancing over the body on my table—a forty-six-year-old father of three who was suspiciously killed in his office building yesterday—I finish up my autopsy and make sure I have all my samples prepared to be sent over to the lab.

If I’m right—and I usually am—this man ingested a lethal dose of cyanide along with his turkey sub.

The only question is, how the hell did it get there?

My guess; the wife. It’s always the wife, and nine out of ten times, I’m on her side. You’d think men would learn their lesson about crossing a woman. If history has taught us anything, it’s that a woman scorned is a woman you should fear.

After closing up the body and doing my best to make it appear as though this man didn’t just have his chest cracked open, I zip up the body bag before rolling his corpse into the refrigeration unit.

The moment I can, I peel off my black gloves and toss them straight into the trash.

Despite having my skin protected and untouched during my examination, I can’t resist making my way over to the sink to scrub my hands until they’re raw.

While I love my job, there are more than just a few downfalls to it, but I wouldn’t change it for anything.

Once the mark of death has been scrubbed from my hands, I drop into my chair before searching for my phone.

I could have sworn it was over here somewhere.

I move a stack of reports around, shuffle my keyboard aside, and when I feel a strange vibration right under my ass, I finally find it lodged somewhere beneath my scrubs and my crack.

I let out a heavy sigh. Typical. I’m always leaving my phone in stupid places, and I’m not ashamed to say it’s not the first time I’ve almost cracked the screen under my ass. Probably won’t be the last either.

After retrieving my phone, I swipe my thumb across the screen, and a stupid grin rips across my face. Just as I expected, there’s a new text from the one and only Laith Mitchell.

Opening the text, I find exactly what I was hoping for. And just like every time I open a text from Laith, I can’t help but laugh at the name I saved him under the very first night we met.

Big & Long Schlong #2.

And no, I’m not exaggerating. Laith has always been overly proud of his large appendage.

But I won’t lie, the whole number two thing is a bit of a sore point.

I’ve always had a very healthy sex life, and before Laith, there was a string of men I could always count on, including Big and Long Schlong number one.

But the day Laith came striding in with his cocky attitude and his dick swinging around like an elephant’s trunk, the others seemed to fade into the dark abyss of past lovers.

We’ve been playing the casual game for three years, and when it comes to sex, we’re more than compatible.

As far as I’m concerned, it works because neither of us has ever wanted more, and while there’s certainly a real attraction and a potential for something in the future, it’s not what either of us wants right now.

My phone rings immediately, and an amused scoff rumbles through the back of my throat. “Yes?” I say, answering the call and wedging the phone between my ear and shoulder. Then as I wait for his response, I turn to my computer screen and madly click the mouse to get it out of sleep mode.

“You need me to bring anything? I was going to stop for a burger.”

My gaze floats toward the clock on the wall.

It’s only ten. There are still four hours before my shift ends, and I doubt I’ll be able to hold off eating for that long.

I have one hell of an appetite, and the moment I get a break, I guarantee I’ll be scarfing down whatever the hospital has on offer for its employees.

“Nah, I’ll have eaten by then. But if you wanted to grab something, could you pick up a mask? Balaclava? Something along those lines?”

“A mask?” Laith questions, his tone hitching with excitement. “What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours? Feeling a little kinky?”

“Ha! No,” I laugh. “It’s so I can pull it over your head and imagine it’s literally anybody else fucking me. Hell, we don’t even need the mask. Your to-go bag from McDonald’s will do!”

The laugh that rumbles through the line is deep and seductive, and for a fleeting moment, I wonder what life would look like as his girl, but the thought is gone before it gets a chance to take root.

It’s not as though Laith and I haven’t gotten a little kinky before.

It’s one of my favorite pastimes, but for the most part, we stick to what gets the job done the quickest.

“Oooh, shit. You’ve got jokes,” he murmurs, the deep, playful tone making something lurch in my chest, making me wish that we could have just taken the dive and made it work. It would have been so easy between us, but the feelings simply aren’t there. “Retract the claws, tiger.”

I lower my tone to a seductive whisper. “Only if you get on your knees and beg.”

Laith groans, and the sound does something wicked to me. “Do you like that? When I spread those pretty thighs and fuck your sweet cunt with my tongue? Is that what you want, tiger? You want me to taste you on my knees?”

Well shit.

How am I going to get through the next four hours of work now?

“No, Laith. I don’t want you to just taste me,” I purr. “I want you to fucking worship me.”

“Ahh fuck,” Laith mutters. “Now I’m hard.

You just had to go and take it to a whole other level with that fucking hypnotic tone of yours.

Don’t you know what you do to me? How the fuck am I supposed to wait until the end of your shift to get you on your back and watch you squirm?

I’m going to be in a permanent state of hardness.

Do you have any idea how fucking uncomfortable this is going to be? ”

A shit-eating grin tears across my face as my chest fills with pride. “You could always take care of it in the shower.”

“Fuck no. I’m not about to spoil my appetite, Harper-Rayn. Best believe I’m coming for you tonight. You better be ready for me. I’m hungry for your sweet little pussy, and you know just as well as I do that nothing else could possibly come close to satisfying me.”

Heat rises in my cheeks, and my gaze flicks back to the clock, realizing that barely three minutes have passed. It’s going to be one hell of a long shift. “I’ll be ready,” I promise. “I should be home by 2:30 at the latest.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

A stupid smile settles on my lips as the line goes dead, and as I lower the phone from my ear, I lean back in my chair, needing a moment for the heat to leave my body.

Laith has a way of getting me worked up, and he generally doesn’t care who or what needs to bear witness to me in those moments.

He doesn’t care if my legs are on either side of my gynecologist’s ears with her speculum spreading me apart, or if I’m in the middle of Great Aunt Pearl’s ninetieth birthday luncheon.

If he needs to get that elephant trunk wet, he’ll be sure to let me know in the loudest way possible.

After taking a minute to cool down, I get started on the report from tonight’s autopsy while doing what I can to slowly work my way through my large bottle of iced water.

I always do what I can to keep on top of my health.

I eat a balanced diet and work out as much as I can, but managing to keep myself hydrated has always been a struggle.

Why is it so hard to remember to lift a bottle of water to my mouth every now and then?

First world problems, right?

I get immersed in my work when a strange tingle sails across my body, making me uneasy. This isn’t like the kind of feels that Laith had given me earlier—the hypnotic flutter in the pit of my stomach or the heavy, insistent pulse deep in my core.

No, this is different. So very different.

This is eerie.

My skin crawls, and I try to shake it off, but the feeling grows stronger.

I swivel in my desk chair, my gaze sweeping around the room, and as my heart begins to race, I get to my feet.

The door is locked, and apart from the overwhelming amount of corpses in the refrigeration unit, there’s not a body in sight.

I’m alone. I think.

Swallowing over the growing lump in my throat, I wander around the morgue. It’s big and has many places to hide. Only to get in here, somebody would need an access card and would have to walk straight through the main door, which is directly to the left of my desk.

There’s no way I would have missed someone coming in.

I’m well and truly alone. I have to be, and yet, goosebumps are still rising across my skin.

I’ve been here since six, and the door hasn’t opened once.

But that doesn’t mean that somebody couldn’t have snuck in during the day.

It would have been busy then. People coming and going as they please.

I’ve suffered through more than enough day shifts to know that the door opens so frequently that there becomes a point when you stop glancing up.

You stop caring who’s striding through the room because you’re there to do a job, and for the most part, so is everybody else.

Who would have known if somebody walked in and never walked out?

Well, fuck. That’s not comforting at all.

My gaze continues surveying the morgue, and I slowly make my way around. Every step has the hairs rising higher on the back of my neck, and despite not having a single scrap of evidence, I know it deep in my gut—somebody is watching me, and I don’t fucking like it.