Page 17 of Princess
7
~Cooper~
“What doyou mean the body is gone?” Cooper asked, as he stood with Dr. Daniel Bevins, confused. “Bodies just don’t get up and walk outofhere!”
“I don’t have an answer for you, Cooper! John Doe number one is gone,” Dan said, scratching his head as they both stare at the slab where the first John Doe should have been. “Believe it or not, it is not unheard for people to steal bodies frommorgues.”
“When was the last time it was seen?” Sam asked, staring at the empty table indisbelief.
“It’s been a madhouse around here. I couldn’t tell you when the last time someone actually saw it. Bodies usually don’t disappear from here so no one was really keeping an eye on them. You see how many we have?” He gestures around the refrigerated room. There are two shelves of unclaimed bodies in white body bags, lining the three walls of the room, along with about five carts in the middle of the room. The John Does were being stored in the refrigerator room since they were part of an ongoinginvestigation.
“Can we get a copy of the security footage for the building?” Cooper asked the physician as they walked out of the cold room. Dan motioned for them to follow him as he led them through the hallways. They entered a room housing a few television screens. Dan spoke to the security guard and requested a copy of the tapes for CooperandSam.
Twenty minutes later, Sam and Cooper were back in Sam’s car, heading back to the station with copies of the security footage from the last twenty-four hours of the coroner’soffice.
“You wanna grab a bite to eat?” Sam asked, breaking into Cooper’s daydream. Lately, his mind had been full of visions of the beautiful stranger. His heart ached as if he was missing a piece of him and he just could not understand how her ice blue eyes haunted him. He didn’t know how he knew her or when they met but he was sure that she was real. He would bet his next paycheck on it. Her pouty lips, made him hard, thinking about them wrapped around his cock. He shifted slightly, clearing his throat. He shouldn’t be thinking of a woman he doesn’t know like that while crammed into a car with hispartner.
“Sure, we can grab something and just head back to the precinct to watch the videos.” He still hadn’t admitted to Sam that he didn’t want to go to the diner because of a feeling that overcame him there. They usually went to the diner just about every day. The food was just that good, but lately, every time he had gone, a feeling of great sadness overwhelmed him, as if he had lostsomething.
“Drive-Thru, it is then,” Sam muttered as he turned into a local fast food restaurant. They grabbed their food and headed to the precinct. Lately, with the string of murders, they had been working longer shifts and needed to grab their food when theycould.
“So, what’s your guess on what happened to John Doe number one?” Cooper asked Sam as they settled down in front of a television screen with their food, in one of the back offices. Sam slipped the disk into the DVDplayer.
“I wouldn’t even be surprised if some sicko snatched him,” Sam declared around his first bite of hissandwich.
The video played, the timestamp showing that the recording commenced around ten o’clock last night. The camera was positioned outside of the refrigerator room where the unclaimed bodies were stored. It was angled to monitor the entire hallway and the double doors at the end of the short hallway that led outside of the building. They skimmed through the first hour, with no activity in the hallway; by the second hour, an employee with a viewable badge walked out of the double doors that led outside, holding a pack of cigarettes andlighter.
By two o’clock in the morning, the lights in the hallway began flickering. The hallway was clear again as the lights continued to blink inunison.
“You watching this?” Cooper tapped Sam’s arm, getting his attention from his cell phone. As they continued to watch the lights flicker, they finally just went out, casting the hallway in complete darkness. A long thirty seconds later, the lights flashedbackon.
“Jesus!” Samexclaimed.
“Shit!” Coopercursed.
They both stared at the monitor with their mouths hanging open. John Doe number one stood outside the fridge room. He only had on the customary blue scrub pants, his chest bare, with the autopsy y-incision exposed. His head slowly turned in both directions of the hallway before his body slowly started making its way towards the double doors. A chill slithered down Cooper’s spine as he watched the dead man stumble for a second, before righting his footing. They both watched in stunned silence as the body pushed open the doors and disappeared from the camera’s view, out into thenight.
“Did we just see what I think we just saw?” Sam asked, not taking his eyes off thescreen.
“Yeah, we did.” Cooper answered, running his hands throughhishair.
“We were in the room when Dan did the autopsy on that fucker! He was dead!” Sam yelled shaken, getting up to pace in thesmallroom.
“I know, but how do we explain this to thecaptain?”
“Shit! Without this video, no one would believe us,” Sam claimed, gesturing to thetelevision.
Cooper pulled his cell phone out, tapping on Dan’s name. Dan answered on thesecondring.
“What you got, Cooper?” Dan answered, getting to thepoint.
“We watched the video and you’ll never believe what is on there,” Cooper started. “The body walked out of the fridge room. Onitsown.”
* * *
~Nadira~
“That is just so tragic!”Anika exclaimed as they got their things out of their lockers. “I’m so glad it’s just me and my sister. I don’t know what I would do if I had an overbearingbrother!”
