Page 46 of Hide and Seek
“Listen, I really need to get some footage—”
Carly cuts me off with a scoff. “Oh, hell no. I’m not putting my ass on the line for you,” she tells me. “You know damn wellthere’s a process to gain hospital security footage. Go through the proper channels. I can’t help you.”
“Please, Carly,” I say, lowering my tone. “I wouldn’t ask if this weren’t important. Going through the proper channels . . . fuck. It might be too late by then, and this is personal. I need that footage.”
There’s another beat of silence before she finally lets out a subtle sigh. “What do you need?”
“The footage for the past few nights in the morgue. There’s been some weird shit going on down there, and I need to get to the bottom of it before someone gets hurt.”
“By someone, I’m assuming you’re talking about a girl,” Carly mutters, an edge to her tone, telling me she’s still a little pissed about the way I bailed on her, but what did she expect? It was a one-night stand gone wrong.
“Yes, she’s a girl, but this one is different. She’s . . . family. My niece.”
Bile rises in my throat when referring to Harper as my niece, and while I know it’s mostly true, I’m working double time to try and put that little snippet of information aside. Right now, I need to play all the cards I have, and if Carly is still sour about what happened between us all those years ago, then I need to play it smart, and mentioning who Harper really is to me isn’t going to cut it.
Carly pauses for a moment as if deep in thought. “I can maybe get you the last twenty-four hours without raising alarm bells, but I can’t do anything more than that. I’ll need higher security clearance for that.”
“The last twenty-four hours will be great,” I say with a heavy sigh, knowing that while that may not give me Gray delivering the body, it’ll sure as fuck give me the stalker locking her in the refrigeration unit. If it is Gray, we’ll be able to identify him, and then all of this shit can be put to rest. Harper will be safe, andGray will be well on his way to spending the rest of his life behind bars.
“Okay. Is there anything in particular you want me looking for? A certain time frame, perhaps?”
“Uhhhhh. Probably anywhere from two in the morning through till four. Somebody was able to gain access to the morgue while my niece was working. She hid in the refrigeration unit only to be locked in, so we just want to rule out any foul play,” I tell her, trying to downplay it so as to not cause alarm, not knowing just how far this thing might go.
“Oh shit,” Carly says. “Give me an hour to review the footage. I’ll send you anything I find.”
“Thanks, Carly.”
“Hey, ummm . . . are you still an asshole?”
A stupid smile pulls across my lips. “Yeah, Carly. I am,” I say, glancing up at the boys to find Ace in a headlock with his legs flailing around on the sparring mat while his face turns an unnatural shade of red.
“Damn. That’s what I was worried about.”
“You can do much better than me. Go find someone who’ll treat you like a queen.”
She lets out a heavy sigh before ending the call, and as I put my phone away, I get to my feet and call out to Diesel. “Knock it off. You’re gonna kill him, and then I’m going to have to explain it. That’s a lot of paperwork I’m not down for.”
Diesel sighs and releases his hold on Ace, and as he remains sprawled on the sparring mat, trying to regain consciousness, I step in his place and give Diesel a fight that he’ll actually have to work for.
Thirty-eight minutes later, my phone chimes with an incoming email, and I pull back from Diesel before stepping over Ace, who’s now asleep on the fucking mat. I sit right back down where I had been earlier and don’t hesitate opening the email.I don’t bother scanning over the message Carly sent before bringing up the surveillance footage from the morgue last night.
The footage starts a little after two in the morning. There’s a clear view of the whole morgue. Harper is situated at her desk, and from the look of it, she’s immersed in her work, though there’s no denying she’s clearly distracted by her phone, and I can’t help but wonder if this is the other guy she was telling me about. Laith Mitchell. I think that was his name, which also reminds me that on a completely unrelated note, I need to run a background check today.
I scroll through the footage, waiting for something to happen, when Harper’s head snaps up. Her attention is locked on the door, and even though the footage is slightly grainy, the fear in her eyes is crystal clear. She rises, hesitates by her desk, then moves, and in a split-second decision, she races across the morgue and climbs straight into the refrigeration unit.
My heart hammers, desperate to see what actually went down last night, and I fast forward through it again, waiting for more movement. When the door finally opens, I bring my phone closer to my face.
A man walks into the morgue, dragging a cart behind him, only he leaves the cart in the doorway to brace the door open. When he pulls cleaning products from the cart, I let out a heavy sigh. It was just the janitor.
I scroll through the footage, watching him make his way around the room, wiping everything down before briefly mopping the floors. Then when he trails by the refrigeration unit, I watch the very second he realizes one of the doors was left unlocked and casually flips it, having no fucking clue that Harper was hidden within. The whole thing was nothing more than Harper’s fear playing on her mind because of the bullshit that had happened during her other shifts, and I hate that for her.
Quickly checking the time and seeing I have a few minutes before my shift, I find Harper’s number and hit call before holding the phone to my ear and casually striding away from Diesel and Ace.
It rings twice before Harper’s sweet voice comes through the line. “Is there something you need?”
“I’m gonna need my shirt back.”
“Ha. Good luck with that,” she murmurs. “You’re going to have to peel it off my body with your teeth.”
