Hart and Hunter

Chapter 7

Ch. 7: Dane

Julian picks up on the tension through our bond, and halfway to the station, he breaks the silence that's fallen between us on the drive.

"How does a body disappear?" he asks.

I glance over at him, then back at the road. "Given that Coleridge wants to talk to us about it, I'm guessing not one of the more usual ways. The more important questions are who made it happen, and why."

"Hm," Julian muses. "Well, even in this town, I doubt he got up and walked away on his own."

At the station, I park in a visitor spot and spend half a minute staring at the front of the building, momentarily lost in time. I hadn't worked here all that long; but while I had, I'd spent more time here than at the tiny apartment I'd called home. It's weird seeing it from this side, and I have no idea what kind of reception we'll get.

The answer is, not much of one.

A bored-looking woman I don't recognize hands us a pair of visitor badges after verifying our IDs, and we take the elevator up to the second floor. The doors open to reveal a large space lined with about a dozen cubicles, with a wide aisle down the center. The whole place is in commotion, with people talking, phones ringing, paper fluttering, keyboards clacking, and printers whirring. No one pays any attention as we navigate the chaos.

At the opposite end of the aisle, an open door leads to a glass-fronted private office in which Coleridge sits behind a forward-facing desk working on a computer. Her usually crisp appearance is frayed around the edges, and the takeout boxes in the trash tell me she hasn't left the office in a while. She looks up and beckons as we approach.

"Shut the door and have a seat," she says, gesturing at two chairs before her desk.

We obey, and Coleridge finishes typing something before she turns her full attention to us.

"I've got a shit-show on my hands and about a dozen fires to put out, so I'll keep this brief," she says. "Lagrange's body was picked up from the morgue this morning. The autopsy had yet to be performed, and I've just had word it's been destroyed."

"Destroyed?" Julian echoes.

"Cremated," Coleridge clarifies, "as per the deceased wishes—wishes that were not to be fulfilled until after the medical examiner had finished her exams."

"A mix-up?" I suggest.

Coleridge nods. "Apparently. But 'mix-ups' like this just don't happen. It's not as if the toe-tags got switched and Lagrange starred in some other poor schmuck's funeral. All the paperwork is in order. It's as if a series of perfect miscommunications led to the perfect mistake. No one is directly at fault. It's almost like..."

"A conspiracy," I say.

"A word I like to avoid, but yes," Coleridge agrees, leaning back in her chair with her hands clasped.

"All right. So, what's it got to do with us?" Julian asks.

She regards him for a moment without answering, looking tense as a gambler about to make a risky bet. Then she takes a breath and leans forward, all in.

"Look—weird shit happens in this town," she says. "And yeah, weird shit happens in every town, but the shit here is different. I used to be as skeptical as they come, but I can't just dismiss things out of hand anymore, and my instinct tells me this case is the kind of weird shit the two of you are best equipped to deal with."

She looks at each of us in turn.

"You've proven your abilities often enough, Hart. And I don't know what your deal is, Hunter, but I know there's more to you than meets the eye. I don't know what happened last year, and I won't ask; but dedicated, seasoned detectives don't just take a six-month leave of absence and then retire for no reason. My gut tells me you don't just see the weird shit; you're part of it."