Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
HIM
“Pass me the bone saw.” I extended an arm, waiting until I felt the familiar weight of metal in the palm of my hand. To my surprise, Jules didn’t hesitate.
I got that nurses weren’t exactly squeamish. But this wasn’t any old lump of meat I was dismembering in the middle of her bathroom floor. It was her brother.
“You don’t have to be here, you know,” I grunted as I popped his arm out of its socket and began working on the other side. They made this shit look easy in the movies. Truth was, it was fucking exhausting.
When she didn’t respond, I glanced over a shoulder to find her shaking her head at me.
“Suit yourself, sweetheart.” I shrugged. “But I ain’t about to keep it pretty for ya.”
When I started removing his lower intestines, depositing them into a black trash bag, Jules rushed over to the toilet and wasted the nice dinner I’d just made her.
That was something else movies didn’t tell ya.
All the different odors that came with dissecting human flesh, depending on what part you were cutting into.
Bone smelled like Doritos—the red kind you could get out of the vending machine at Briarwood.
Brain matter smelled like pennies and the tofu they kept at the nurses’ station whenever Burke was on a crash diet.
And the spinal cord… well, that took me a while to figure out.
But the best way to describe it would be like the over-salted crab meat I got at the diner a few years back.
Didn’t know if it tasted the same and had no intention of finding out either.
My guess it was the rotten stench of Robbie’s bowels that had gotten to Jules, though. I had an iron stomach and even I could feel the acid burning my throat.
She wiped a hand over her mouth before turning around to face me. The forced smile did nothing to cover how queasy she looked. “Sorry.”
“I’m not the one going to bed hungry now.”
“Food is the last thing on my mind,” she muttered under her breath as I chucked one of Robbie’s legs into the tub to drain.
It wasn’t my best clean-up job, but seeing as Jules’s little stunt had already left a pink ring around the ceramic rim, I wasn’t as concerned about keeping shit tidy as I’d normally be. I also had the luxury of taking my time with this one.
At least until someone came looking for him. Which reminded me…
“How long we got before that wife of his calls the cops?” I turned around and cocked my head to the side, watching the way Jules was twisting the hem of her shirt in her hands. She was nervous about something.
Then again, for most people, being nervous was normal when dead bodies and cops were thrown into the mix.
She shook her head again instead of answering. I cocked an eyebrow and she added, “She won’t.”
“Yeah, and what makes you so sure about that?”
Jules crossed her arms over her chest, straightening her spine before immediately curling in on herself. “I just am.”
She wasn’t lying. That was something I learned in the short time I knew Nurse Keller.
I’d been right. She didn’t lie. She just didn’t always tell the entire truth.
Lucky for her, all I cared about when my hands where covered in blood was the part she was telling me.
No one was showing up on our doorstep looking for the guy I’d spent the last few hours chopping up and sectioning out.
I rinsed my hands in the sink, tied off the black trash bag, and tossed it over a shoulder. I had some street dogs to feed. It was the best way to get rid of the organs.
It was also something Jules and I had in common. She wasn’t the only one who told the truth. I wasn’t lying when I said I liked puppies.
I made it to the bottom of the stairs, Jules trailing silently behind me before a knock on the front door had me glaring over a shoulder at her. She shrugged, her eyes wider than saucers as she shoved past me to peer out the peephole.
I released the bag with a loud sloshing sound and rushed after her.
Was my shirt still tacky with blood? Sure was. But one of us was good under pressure and it sure as shit wasn’t the one of us who’d flushed their insides down the toilet a few minutes ago.
The cop spun around just as I swung the door open with an easy smile on my face. Enough for him to think I wasn’t hiding anything but not enough for him to see Jules pressed up against the wall on the other side.
“Something I can help ya with, officer?” I called out over the sound of the sirens wailing in the distance.
He looked at me, at my relaxed posture, and relaxed himself before his glare hitched on my hand resting against the frame. I followed his line of sight, quickly lifting my thumb to my mouth and sucking it clean.
“Cranberry sauce.” I grinned. “Bitter but the wife loves the stuff.”
He watched me for another moment. Kid was young. Younger than me. Smaller too. He wasn’t looking for trouble any more than I was right now.
“Honey,” he replied, then quickly added, “My ma’s recipe. The only way I can stomach the stuff.”
“I’ll have to try that.” I nodded while doing my best not to appear too antsy. I glanced from him to the caravan of cop cars lining the street. “The parade coming early this year?” I said, and it seemed to take him a second to realize what I was asking.
“Oh, ah, no.” He removed his hat and scratched the back of his head as he took a few tentative steps forward. Which told me he’d been hoping I didn’t answer the door as much as I was regretting opening it. “I’m guessing you haven’t been watching the news?”
“Can’t say that I have. Too busy cooking up Christmas dinner.” I gestured a hand behind me. Towards the kitchen, where nothing was cooking but the BS I was spewing in this pig’s direction. “Would you like to come in? There’s more than enough to go ?round.”
“?Preciate it, sir. But you know how it is. Got citizens to protect and serve.” He tossed his hat back on his head and tipped the brim at me, before reaching out an arm to shove a flyer in my hand. “Just passing this along.”
My eyes bounced from the grainy face of the guy on the flyer to the stoic expression of the uni standing in front of me. “This something I should be worried about, officer?”
The kid appeared to consider his answer, his nerves having him balancing from one foot to another as he seemed to fight the urge to look towards the cop car idling behind him.
“Ah, no,” he finally said. “Doubt he could make it out this far on foot. It’s just a precaution.
You know, a reminder to keep your eyes open and give us a call if you see anything out of the ordinary. ”
I shoved the flyer into my back pocket, never dropping my grin. “Will do,” I replied as I watched him turn around and make his way towards the next house.