Page 9 of Ghostly Bother
Lance sighed. There would be no way for him to do the autopsy with her standing in front of him. Her ghostly form might not be solid, but she appeared nearly solid to him visually. She was blocking him from seeing the physical body he needed to be working on.
"Let him do his job. You're just delaying things." Jeremy tried to coax Eden to move.
"He can't do this." Eden kept moving so she was blocking wherever Lance tried to work.
Lance took a step back. This was never going to work, and if he kept hesitating, Brayden and Carrie would wonder what was wrong. There was only one thing he could do. "Brayden, why don't you take the lead on this one?" Lance stepped to the side.
"Are you sure? This is a huge case. Maybe it's better if you do it." Brayden looked confused at suddenly being asked to step up.
"It is a big case, but you're ready for it. I'll be here the whole time. You know what you're doing." Lance nodded to the body.
Brayden looked a bit nervous, but he quickly moved into position and started with a visual look at the neck and bruising.
Lance stared at Eden, wishing he wasn't wearing a mask over his face so she could see the smirk he was giving her.
"No, stop. You can't do that. Is he even a medical examiner? Isn't he just a nurse?" Eden kept moving.
"Brayden is a medical examiner, and even more importantly, he can't see you. You can jump around all you want, but he won't notice." Jeremy grinned. "Good move, Lance."
Lance gave a small nod, still unable to see what Brayden was doing since Eden was still blocking his view. Lance didn't care.He meant it when he said Brayden was ready for this. He might still be in training, but he'd been taking the lead on autopsies for a while now. Lance just had to be there with him, and they would both have to sign off on the autopsy once it was completed.
"Is he even allowed to do an autopsy?" Eden grumbled.
"Brayden is a trained pathologist. He's doing his internship. He's more than able to do an autopsy. It's your own fault. Lance was ready to do it until you got in his way." Jeremy stood at the bottom of the autopsy table. "Now, do you want to watch, or would you rather go outside for a while so you don't have to see them cut into your body?"
"I'm not leaving." Eden moved away from the table and went to stand beside Jeremy. "This isn't right. I should have final say what happens to my body."
"If you hadn't gotten yourself killed, you would have final say." Jeremy shrugged.
"It's not as if I asked someone to strangle me. I was meeting with someone. I planned on a night home with my husband after." She narrowed her eyes as the sheet covering her body was lowered even more. "They know I was strangled. Why do they have to see the rest of me?"
"It's how autopsies are done. We don't know if something else was done to you. They could have beaten you or even raped you." Jeremy watched as Brayden inspected the rest of the body, finally pulling the sheet off completely.
"I think I'd know." Eden glared at Jeremy.
"You wore high heels most of your life, didn't you?" Jeremy asked.
"What?"
"Your toes. It's common for women who lived in high heels to have issues like that." Jeremy nodded to Eden's toes which were nearly crossing over each other.
"Stop looking at my body." Eden pushed in front of Jeremy to block his view.
Lance listened to the two ghosts bickering as he watched Brayden closely. He had no clue why Eden had tried so hard to stop the autopsy from happening. He didn't see any piercings or tattoos on her. She had a few small scars, but nothing that he could imagine her being ashamed of or wanting to hide.
Brayden was focused as he cut into the body. He spent most of his time focusing on the neck and tissues there. It was like an onion, layer upon layer that had to be inspected individually. Lance was proud of how well Brayden was doing. So far, he hadn't had to interrupt at all. Because Eden had been the mayor, Lance was sure the autopsy report would be requested by a lot of media. He was glad Brayden was taking his time to go over everything even if it didn't look to have to do with the cause of death.
It wasn't until Brayden was weighing the organs and doing an abdominal exam that Lance heard Jeremy gasp.
"Is that what I think it is?" Jeremy asked.
Lance leaned forward, wishing Jeremy would expand on that comment, but it didn't take long for Lance to see what had caught Jeremy's attention. Lance cast his gaze over to Eden who now looked as if she was looking for a place to hide.
"Um, guys, I think she was pregnant." Brayden looked over at Lance.
"Sure does look that way." Lance was grinning under his mask. This had to be what Eden was worried about them finding. "How far along?" He tried to remember if Brayden had dealt with a fetus before in any of their prior autopsies. It would have been something he'd been taught in classes, but would he remember?
"Hand me that ruler," Brayden asked Carrie.
