Page 21 of Never Always
“Should I give Grey the good news?”
“I will,” I say. “I’m going out with him, too.”
Flicking on the television in the corner, I switch it to the news. Grange is eerily quiet so I crane my neck to look his direction. “Cat got your tongue?”
He lifts and lowers one shoulder. “No, just wondering how you went from inexperienced mouse to Southern skank. I didn’t realize I was that good at teaching. I might have missed my calling.” He says it with a smirk, amusement lighting his eyes, and I hate that a stupid laugh slips.
Pointing to the door, I say, “Get out of my face, Corrick. Don’t drag me down to your level with your jokes.”
“My level is pretty exquisite. Dinner tonight then?”
Sighing, I reply, “Sure. Dinner. No chess.” Will we ever talk about what happened last night? Or is he so casual with sex and the likes that it’s like breathing?
He does a little skip as he walks back into my office. I’m left with butterflies in my belly and a wide grin. The smile fades a bit when the news anchor switches to another story, breaking news. The body of one of the missing women has been found. The body was badly decomposed, but she was identified by dental records and her dark auburn hair. The police department has been sitting on the information for a few days while they gathered more details.That’s not normal, I think. Wouldn’t they disperse the information as soon as possible? She was found in a cranberry bog, bound, wrapped in plastic, and weighted down with cinder blocks. The farmer found her at harvest, like whoever killed her must have known with the timing of her body placement.
The victim’s mother is crying, a hysterical tirade of tears so strong I can’t decipher what she’s saying to the interviewer and I wonder why they decided to air it. What’s the purpose? A photo of her when she was alive flashes on the screen and a chill washes over my body. Even the hair on my head seems to stand upright. Without taking my gaze from the screen, I press the button to start up my computer. What would my parents say in an interview if they were put in the same position? Would they cry? No, their words would be well understood. Sue-Ellen would be the star, and she would cry a little because it would make her sentiment more valid, that she would find whoever did this and mete retribution.
Playing the whole scenario in my head makes my heart race in a terrified way I can’t catch control over and without thinking, I bluster into my office to try to catch Grange. I want to ask him if he can find out any more details. They didn’t say the words serial killer, but it was implied. Don’t SEALs have some kind of secret military clearance? A way to know things that most other people don’t know, would never hope to know? Grey’s office door is open when I pass, I peek in. He has the news report streaming on his computer. I can hear it.
“Can you believe it? I guess those girls aren’t just running away.” I clear my throat. That was a stupid statement. I wanted to run away my entire childhood, so it makes half sense to me, even if everyone else assumed the worst of the missing person reports.
Grey clicks off the volume. “Yeah, pretty savage.” He clears his throat. “Did you hear how she was killed?”
Shaking my head, I lose myself in thought again. It’s a sick, twisted place and I wonder if it’s normal. I swallow hard and interrupt Grey who seems to be giving me a play-by-play on whatever details the news informed him of. “Hey,” I cut him off. “I’ll go to dinner with you.”
His mouth curves into a relieved smile. Grey blows out a breath. “Okay. Thank you, Tennyson. I’ll, uh, get with you on details?”
I nod, surprised at how little I’m unnerved in this moment. All it takes is the thought of a gruesome murder. “Sounds great. I have plans tonight, though.” Peeking down the hallway, I meet his gaze again. “Did Corrick head over to the vet side?”
Grey winces and his lips pinch into a scowl. “I don’t know where he went.”
The immediate change in demeanor at the mention of Grange is obvious and swift. “Okay, well, we’ll talk later?” When he still seems salty, I engage him with a research question I already know the answer for. Safe territory and bolstering his confidence. He responds like I thought he would and I leave on the guise of forgetting a research paper at home. Grey turns the volume back on and closes his office door as soon as I exit the room.
It’s a quick walk and a set of stairs to get to the vet clinic. It’s a state of the art facility that rehabs all sorts of sea life. I pass a tank with some sort of amphibian swimming around. It looks like a lizard, but logic dictates it’s not that simple. It may live in water, but it’s out of my wheelhouse. I see Dr. Barbara like I assumed I would. She’s an older doctor who is always here, even on the weekends. She has a soft voice and a fierce tenacity for helping all animals. She’s carrying several vials of blood in a tray, and even her wrinkles are smiling at me.
“You lost an animal?” She nudges my arm. “He’s in with the sea lion. I have him swabbing deck and disinfecting the kitchen area.” Gross. Where they prepare the meals for the larger mammals is something from my nightmares. The scent seeps into my hair and I smell like a rotting can of tuna fish for the rest of the day. Cleaning that area? Grange is going to stink for days.
“Hopefully he’s minding his manners.” Dr. Barbara winks as reply before breezing past me to label her vials.
“He never minds his manners,” I hiss under my breath as I lean into the double doors that separate the large mammal area.
The pump that runs the filters is loud so Grange doesn’t know I’m here yet. I watch as he feeds Sir Winston, the one-armed sea lion who for all intents and purposes will never actually be a true sea lion again. I’ve heard they’re sending him to another facility when he’s stable enough to travel. Grange is holding a dead fish in his bare hands and tossing them to his new friend. Even if I can’t hear what he’s saying, I see his lips moving and his face alight with pure joy.
“Corrick Granger,” I bark.
He turns, eyes wide and drops the fish from his hand into the open mouth. “You aren’t supposed to be feeding Sir Winston. He’s going to get fat and then he’ll have to stay here even longer to lose the weight you put on him.” I sling my hands on my hips, eyeing the mop and the yellow rolling bucket. “Aren’t you supposed to be mopping?”
Grange ignores me and tosses another handful of fish to the docile animal and walks near me. I put up my palms. “Don’t get close to me with your fish hands. You do realize that doesn’t come off easily? You’re going to stink for a decade.”
He shakes his head. “I’ve smelled of worse, plus this guy is worth it.” The sea lion dives and presses his face against the glass next to me.
“He is,” I admit, softening toward him as I realize he likes animals—or at least sea lions. “I need to talk to you.” I straighten, remembering why I wanted to find him to begin with. The pump goes through cycles and it switches off creating a blessed silence. I pull out my cell phone from my back pocket and do a quick Google search trying to avoid stabbing myself with any stray shards of glass. I will have to get the screen fixed after work. I read the headline out loud and he turns, face ashen.
“There will be more bodies turning up now that they’ve found the first. How many total are missing, do you know? I’m afraid I didn’t keep up.”
I nod and then rattle off the gory details everyone wants to know but wishes they never knew so they can sleep at night. It’s a curiosity. Humans and death. We do everything to avoid dying, but we can’t slake the desire to know everything about it when it happens to others. How? When? Why? What did it feel like? Was there suffering? My stomach lurches.
“Can you find out more?” Slipping the phone in my back pocket, I pace.
