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Sounded like a tie game to me--and that was an iht? Still, I wasn’t in the best frah another three autopsies since my first day on the job and each ti for brains hit ritteddirectly at the brain and by pretending I was soreat until we started the autopsy of the guy we’d just picked up, and Nick handed ive it a try I couldn’t pretend to be soh the nasty rubbery thickness of scalp and keepsouy’s head And I had to adive that skullcracker a twist and feel the crack of bone all the way up ers into the crack and pulled the top of the skull off,who hadn’t been fed for a week, looking at a steak

But that wasn’t the worst part No, the really bad part was that I froze--stood there with half the guy’s skull in rey flesh Didn’t snap out of it until Nick sel? You’re not done," he said, eyes narrowing "Are you about to puke or so?"

I took an unsteady breath and tore my eyes away from the brain "Don’t be stupid," I snapped, a hell of a lot h He siave a snort and jerked a thuet what to do?"

I scowled behind thein bone dust "It’s not fucking rocket science I was only looking for a second Gimme a damn break" With that I set the top of the skull on the table and fiercely set about rerateful to Nick for pissing h this

Maybe that’s what I need to do, I thought as I grimly set the brain on the scale and wiped uys do to keep fro too soon Baseball scores or some shit like that Not that I’d ever known a baseball score

Still the fact that I’d frozen like that had h the rest of the day, but when I finally climbed into o hoain, but when it rolled to voice e and si the phone since he was usually out working in his garage

Randy lived at the end of severaland narrow rural road There were only a few houses on the entire road, and the rest of it was dense pine forest At night it was creepy as all hell, though during the day it was practically scenic--until you made it to the end

Randy lived in a trailer--which really wasn’t so bad since it was actually a pretty decent trailer, as far as trailers went--but the part that really killed the "scenic" aspect was the raod-only-knehat else, it was over fifty years old and looked it Randy’s daddy had worked out of it as an auto mechanic until he’d o Now Randy was the h so on when it cauy who’d sold me the stolen Prius had been a buddy of his It hadn’t been worth the trouble, though, to accuse Randy of knowing it had been stolen It wouldn’t have made any difference at that point

Randy was out front when I pulled up, his tall, lanky body under the hood of an El Caot out ofhis face before it was replaced by his usual lazy s "Didn’t think I’d see you around here anytiht before another ht that night I’d ODed, though I hadn’t the faintest idea what it had been about It couldn’t have been too serious, since he didn’t act like he was stillued, but it was always stupid crap liketoo much attention to how short Ida Miller’s skirt was or hiuy who looked sideways at"After that scene at Pillar’s the other night," he said, confirue to ask him why the hell he hadn’t called in the past few days if he orried about et over one fight just to get into another

"Busy Got a job," I said instead "Been at it al He s to hi on that scent A faint spark of annoyance passed through ain, I was the queen ofanother convenience store gig

"I’ at the Coroner’s Office as a van driver," I told hihter "You? Touching dead people?"

"Yeah, well, I haven’t puked yet" Suddenly I didn’t want to talk aboutabout that, then I’d start thinking about why I orking there "You wanna go get a drink or soestured in the direction of the El Ca around This won’t take more than about ten et today I headed into the trailer and snagged two beers out of his fridge A frying pan on the stove held congealing bacon fat, and the kitchen table was covered with old newspapers and engine parts--both co to the air It didn’t bother me I was pretty used to it since I usually slept over here as often as I could Randy’s furniture was old and battered, and the carpet had more stains on it than a bum’s underwear, but the trailer didn’t have roaches, rats, or my dad

I plopped down on the couch and putaside a stack of old Car and Driver h Randy didn’t seeements, he took his entertainment pretty seriously : wide screen HDTV, Blu-Ray/DVD player, Xbox, and a kick-ass stereo syste my time over here

I didn’t turn the TV on After the day I’d had, I wasweird or disturbing