Page 89 of Hide From Me

I need therapy.I mean, I think that was probably the most obvious and constant thing in my life. No one grew up to want to hang out with dead people who didn’t have some kind of baggage. Or maybe that was just me.

I held the stupid coat in my arms as the elevator took its sweet damn time. I wanted to go take this guy’s new headshots and get back out there to punch Cas in the face. I loved my old car. I’d worked my ass off to buy it, and sure, it struggled here and there, but she had gotten me through the worst of my life. I’d slept in that car on so many occasions that it had been my home away from hell.

The elevator dinged, and I had to push away the frustration with Cas. I needed to focus on the dead and not let anything out. This wasn’t in some crack house in the ghettos or a body in an alley near the college.

“Klein, where the hell…” Eric’s words died off.

“What the hell are you wearing? I tell you there’s a dead guy at the White Building and you get all dolled up?”

I shrugged.

“I gotta look my best for some rich dead guy. You never know who might be watching.”

I winked at him, and he let out a cough. I didn’t really care right now. I was pretty good at fucking up all relationships, so might as well start ruining this one. He already thought he had a chance, and that was my fault. But, again, I just didn’t care right this second.

“So? Show me the body so I can show off my little outfit.”

He held his hand towards where I already knew it was. He lay just on this side of the plastic sheeting. There were more people than I typically saw at most of the crime scenes I walked into.

“Yeah. Uh. Right. The guy’s over here.”

I still clung to Cas’s jacket. This stupid jacket seemed to be a bit of an argument with that guy. Like kissing me at the end of that fight wouldn’t have done a whole lot more than some jacket.

I stopped and was shaking my head like the PI needed a reminder of what bad choices he made.

“Alright. Well, do your thing. Just, uh. Well, shit. Seriously, Rylee, were you out all night or something? I’ve been texting you and I thought you’d ghosted me,” Eric said.

The phone I had was in my camera bag at this point. I hadn’t paid much attention to it until I got the work texts.

“Sorry, I lost my phone last night. I found it, obviously, but it took a few hours. And yeah. I was out later than I thought I would be. Just ran out of time to go home and change.”

He brought his hand up to his neck and was rubbing at it.

“Home?”

I shrugged.

“Let me get this guy’s brains immortalized. You can worry about my social life later.”

He didn’t say anything, so I went about putting my bag down and getting out my gloves and supplies. I had this down to an art, if dead was an art. At least that gave me time to get caught up in my head.

I don’t know why I took care, but I did as I laid Cas’s jacket on the top of my bag. My heels clicked and clacked as I walked around on the concrete floors. At least cleanup wouldn’t be too bad.

I stepped around the brain chunks and where I normally disassociated myself from the guy, this one was different.

The memories of how it felt to watch the life just float of out his eyes seemed to be far too easy to recall. I’d liked it far too much. I’d liked it far too much seeing Cas with a gun in his hand and darkness on his face.

I tried to watch, bending and kneeling because Eric was right. This wasn’t a great outfit for this. That being said, Cas was an asshole and hadn’t made it easy to get a change of clothes.

I snapped a few more shots. I got closer to his head to make sure I got as much detail as I needed. Maybe a little more, like this was some kind of photoshoot. Too bad no one would ever frame these.

“Sad, sad, little man.”

Eric came up next to me.

“Still talking to the dead?”

I hid behind the camera for a few more seconds.

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