Hunks Pulled Over (3 page)

Emerald quickly buttoned up her lab coat silently scolding herself for not doing it sooner.

“No sir. I was just on my way to a friend’s house to help her plan her wedding. She understood why I had to cancel. Do you know who he is?” Emerald asked again, trying to get her boss’s attention back on the corpse and off her.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have enough information on him yet. He was only found a few hours ago by a couple of kids walking by the river bank. They thought it was a joke at first until one of them turned over the body,” Dr. David answered, pulling off his white, sterile gloves.

“Why didn’t you call me earlier to collect specimens and transport the body with you?” Emerald was concerned Dr. David had done everything himself. Was her job in jeopardy and she wasn’t aware of it?

Walking across the room, Dr. David tossed his gloves into the trash can and then removed his medical cap before answering her.

“Since the body was found so close to the water, I didn’t want any of the evidence lost. I know you have the experience to do it correctly, but I collected everything I could and brought it all back here. I need to go upstairs and find out if anyone knows more about the young man. Can you cover the body for me?”

“Yes, of course,” Emerald answered, still a little worried by the fact Dr. David had done part of her job for her. “Do you know what might have killed him? He’s so young and looks in perfect health. I find it hard to believe it was from natural causes.”

Turning around her boss stared at her. “I have an idea, but I don’t want to make it official until I have all of the facts together first.”

He spun back around and went towards the door. “I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes. An officer is supposed to come by to see if I have a cause of death. Please tell him I don’t but I will be in touch as soon as I do.”

Standing in the back of the room, Emerald watched as Dr. David opened the door and left the room without saying another word to her. He would probably be gone longer than fifteen minutes. He could have at least told her the officer’s name. She wondered how long it would be before he actually showed up. Sighing, Emerald knew none of her questions were going to get answered now because Dr. David was gone. So, she might as well cover the poor boy’s body and look over the bags of evidence he left for her.

Making her way over to the cabinet, Emerald grabbed a white sheet and then came back over to the young man’s body. She unfolded it and draped it over him, whispering a prayer for him.

Emerald left the table and made her way across the room where all the specimen bags were placed any time a new body came in.

From the amount of bags waiting for her on the table, Emerald prepared herself for a very long night. Honestly, she might actually be here until early in the morning. There was no way she would be showing up at Shauntie’s tonight.

Chapter Three

Placing her glasses down on the table next to her, Emerald rubbed her hands across the back of her tired eyes. She had been working non-stop for the past twelve hours over the specimen samples while Dr. David finished up the autopsy on the young man’s body.

“Emerald, can you come over here for a minute?” Dr. David called out to her. “I want to show you something on the body.”

“Yes sir.” Placing the piece of evidence she was working on back into the bag, Emerald got up and went over to her boss.

Standing next to him, she looked down at the exposed body. “Did you find anything to determine his cause of death?” she asked.

Dr. David finished making the last stitch to close up the body. “I did all of the postmortem examination and I’m terming his death as a suicide. There weren’t any strange marks to his body; his stomach was empty of contents. The young man wasn’t poisoned. In addition, I did a rush on the toxicology report and it came back clean.

What a shame,
she thought.

Emerald always hated when a young person’s body ended up here because of a suicide. At this young age, most kids didn’t understand that as bad as things seemed it would get better if they only gave it some more time.

“Did you ever find out his name?” Emerald asked as her boss pulled the sheet over the body.

“Rex Hamilton, Jr,” he answered. “An officer called me on my cell phone and told me while I was coming back down here. He was leaving to inform Rex’s parents. He’d been missing for about two days and when I checked the computer his information pulled up.”

“Who’s coming to identify the body? Do you know how long it might take?”

Half the time when a suicide of a teenager was involved, she dealt with the fathers more than the mothers. Most mothers had a very hard time accepting their child was gone especially when it was done by the child’s own hands and not by a homicide or an accident.

“I’m not sure,” Dr. David answered honestly. “They live pretty far from town, so it might take a while for them to get here.”

“Since he was found by the river bank did he drown himself?” Emerald wanted something to tell the parent if they asked how their son ended his own life.

“Yes,” he answered. “Rex died from self-inflicted drowning. There was a lot of water in his lungs. I need to finish working on the death certificate before I leave. If the officer who comes with Mr. Hamilton’s parents has any more questions for me, please tell him to contact me on my cell phone since I’ll be at home.”

Moving away from her, Dr. David removed his gloves and disposed of them as he made his way over to the coat rack. He removed his lab coat and hung it up there.

Emerald watched as her boss got ready to leave. She felt a growing sense of sadness at the thought of dealing with Rex’s family. With her boss gone though, she would be able to leave right after the parents came to identify the body.

“Have a safe trip home,” she said as her boss went towards the door.

Pausing in his tracks, Emerald cursed under her breath as Dr. David turned back around. Why did she say anything to him? He was on his way out the door and her big mouth was going to get him to stay here with her.

Great! She wasn’t ever going to learn her lesson.

“Emerald, could I interest you in having a drink with me sometimes?” Martin asked her. His eyes held hers from across the room while he waited for her answer.

How was she going to get out of this without coming off too bitchy? This was a damn good job and she didn’t want to insult her boss despite the fact he had a very hard time taking no for an answer.

“Don’t you remember me telling you I have other plans before you called me into work?” she asked wondering if he would lie or tell her the truth.

Her boss nodded at her. “Yes, I do recall. However, I was hoping maybe we could get together at another time. I really want to go out with you. I’ve been thinking about us going out for a while now. What would it hurt? What do you say? One date. I’ll even let you pick the time and place.”

“I have a boyfriend and you know that. Why are you still asking me out on a date? Besides if I wasn’t involved with someone, you do have a rule here about co-workers not dating. I’m pretty sure there’s some woman out there who would love to go out with you. I’m just not her.” Emerald hoped that her boss would finally get the hint and drop it.

“Well, I guess I’m not going to get anywhere with you, am I? You can’t blame a guy for trying.” Spinning around on his heel, Martin walked out of the room finally leaving her alone.

Once Martin was gone and Emerald was sure he wasn’t coming back for anything she blew out the breath that she had been holding. God, he needed to get a life and soon because her boss had to stop asking out all of the females who worked around here.

Just last week, she found out that he’d invited another one of their female co-workers out for coffee knowing she had a boyfriend. It was a good thing Gigi hadn’t taken him too seriously or Martin would be out of a very high ranking job.

In her honest opinion, Dr. David wasn’t a bad looking man, but his attitude rubbed a lot of people, mostly females, and the wrong way. Maybe if he stopped trying so hard his love life would jump by leaps and bounds.

Yet, it wasn’t her place to tell him anything about his personal life whether it was good or bad. They had to stay totally professional with each other. His lack of companionship wasn’t her fault, so why was she even wasting her energy thinking about it?

Okay, enough about Dr. David. Emerald needed to focus on getting the body prepared for viewing, so Rex’s parents could see him. She didn’t want any kind of autopsy instruments lying out in the open for the parents to see.

****

An hour later, Emerald walked around the room making sure everything was in its place for the family’s arrival. Without a doubt, the most difficult part of her job was dealing with the family members left behind after a sudden death.

She could handle dead bodies because those people were already gone and in a better place. Yet, even after doing this job for close to six years dealing with crying parents or family members, it always got to her and the suicide deaths were, by far, the worst.

“Excuse me, is Dr. David here?” a male voice asked behind her.

Twirling around, Emerald’s body stiffened in disbelief. Her breath caught in her lungs as she gaped wordlessly at the gorgeous cop standing across the room. Her heart pounded away in her chest like she’d just finished running a twenty mile marathon.

Wave after wave of shock slapped at her as she tried to comprehend what was right before her eyes. However, she could only stare at him, tongue-tied.

No! It couldn’t be him!

Emerald hadn’t laid eyes on him since that
night.
She doubted he even remember her after all of this time. Why would he? She hadn’t meant anything to him... Nothing at all.

She felt another shock run through her already over stimulated body as his eyes raked over her body. How in the hell out of all the places for Chance Cutter to end up, why did it have to be here?

Chapter Four

She’s absolutely stunning.

Chance Cutter couldn’t help the first thought that left his mind the instant the attractive black woman spun and looked in his direction. He had overheard his buddies talking about the hot assistant medical examiner working with Dr. David, but he hadn’t laid eyes on her until now.

Now, he saw what all the gossip was about. Her light brown eyes held his like she actually knew his thoughts about her. But instead of the usual interest he had gotten accustomed to seeing in the opposite sexes’ eyes hers held something more like a dislike for him, but Chance didn’t understand where the hostility was coming from.

Could she be upset that it had taken him so long to bring Rex Hamilton’s parent here? Rex’s mother had taken the news harder than he thought she would. This made it more difficult to get her calmed down enough to even agree to come down here.

Chance could only guess that was the problem she had with him.

“I want to apologize for being late, but I was wondering, is Dr. David still around?” Chance asked again. “I’ve bought Rex’s parents to view his body and make a positive ID. They’re waiting outside in the hallway for me to come back. I just didn’t want them to walk in on something they shouldn’t see.”

He waited while the woman continued to stare at him like she had just seen a ghost. What
was wrong with her
? Was there something on his skin that he wasn’t aware of? Reaching up, Chance ran his hand over his entire face.

Removing it, he looked down at it but he didn’t see anything on it. Yet, there was something up with her, but he couldn’t take the time to figure it out right now.

Frustrated by her silence, Chance charged ahead with his next question. “Miss, what is going on with you? Should I know something you aren’t telling me? Can I speak to your boss or not because you don’t seem to have the ability to answer any of my questions. I don’t have the time for you just to stand here and stare at me,” he snapped, losing his temper.

Anger flashed in her beautiful eyes before the assistant medical examiner finally answered him. “My name is Emerald Stone...not Miss.” She stopped and made a face. “I’m sorry Officer Cutter,” she said. “It has been a very long night, but I’ll be able to answer your questions since Dr. David has already left. I’ll also show Rex’s parents his body. Please bring them in.”

“Thank you,” Chance said. He spun around and went to get Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton.

Halfway there, he stopped to look back at Emerald over his shoulder. She was working on getting the body ready for Rex’s parents.

Chance still couldn’t shake the feeling that he had seen her somewhere before, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. There was just something about the way she moved and the sound of her voice that seemed very familiar to him.

Shaking his head, Chance continued on to the door because he wasn’t worried about remembering who she was. One thing was for sure, he never forgot a face and Chance was positive that he would realize how his path had crossed with Emerald’s before.

All he needed was more time and it would come to him. Chance walked out the door letting it close behind him with a soft click.

****

The second Emerald heard the door close behind Officer Cutter she wiped her sweaty palms down the bottom of her white lab coat. Thank God. Chance didn’t remember who she was. She could tell from the perplexed look on his handsome face that she looked familiar to him, but he couldn’t place where from. Which was a very good thing because she wasn’t about to tickle his memory with any hints.

Some things were best left in the past and her short connection to Officer Chance Cutter was one of them.

“Ms. Stone, we’re ready.”

Damn it!
Emerald thought. How had she allowed Chance to sneak up on her for a second time without hearing him come through the door? Hopefully, this would be the first and last time they would have to deal with each other.