Frozen Stiff by Annelise Ryan Read Free Book Online Page B

pick up my fork, my cell phone rings. I curse under my breath when I see that the caller ID says it’s Izzy, which most likely means work for me.
    “Hello, Izzy,” I answer. “What’s up?”
    “There’s been a death over at the hospital in the ER. EMS brought in an elderly gentleman with a cardiac history as a PNB.”
    PNB is medical speak for a pulseless nonbreather, meaning the patient was already dead when EMS found him. And given that he’s now my patient, it’s safe to assume that the efforts to revive him were unsuccessful.
    “It sounds like your basic coronary,” Izzy goes on, “but we still need to examine the patient, review the chart, and obtain a history. It should be pretty straightforward, and given your nursing background, I think it will be a good one for you to do for your first solo. Are you up for it?”
    The delicious smells of garlic, mozzarella, and tomato sauce are making my stomach rumble, which makes me want to tell Izzy no. But I owe him on many levels, not the least of which is his giving me this job when I so desperately needed it.
    “Sure,” I tell him.
    “Fabulous,” Izzy says, and I can’t help but smile at his choice of words. Even though he is openly gay, Izzy doesn’t broadcast his proclivities much. But every once in a while he does or says something that screams gay to me. The way he says the word fabulous is one of those things. “How soon can you be there?”
    “I’ll head over now,” I say, looking longingly first at the lasagna, then Hurley.
    “Call me if you have any questions.”
    “Will do.”
    I end the call and give Hurley a woeful look. “I have to head over to the hospital to look into a death they had in the ER.”
    I’m hoping he’ll look disappointed, or at the least, chagrined, but instead he looks contentedly resigned and says, “I understand. It’s part of the job. We can have dinner some other time.”
    Easy for him to say. It seems like every time we try to get together in a nonwork-related way, somebody dies. I feel like I’m trying to date the Grim Reaper. And to make matters worse, I detect a distinct lack of conviction in Hurley’s voice that makes me nervous.
    I scarf down two quick bites of the lasagna, which tastes utterly divine, and then take a bite of garlic bread. When I’ve swallowed I tell him, “This is heaven. You’re a very good cook.”
    He beams at me. “Thanks. How about I fix you a little to-go container and you can take some of it with you?”
    “That would be fabulous,” I tell him, echoing Izzy. I watch as he quickly packs up a meal of lasagna and garlic bread in a plastic container, giving it, some napkins, and a fork to me when he’s done. It’s a sweetly domestic scene and it’s easy for me to imagine a lifetime of such moments with him. It fortifies my faith in the future of our relationship . . . until I remember that he’s been implicated in a nasty murder and solicited my cooperation with a secret investigation.
    “Thanks,” I say, carrying my food out to the foyer and setting it on the lowest step of the staircase. He retrieves my coat from the closet while I take off the shirt he gave me and drape it over the newel post. Then he holds the coat for me so I can slip it on. After he settles it onto my shoulders, he turns me around to face him. Our eyes lock for a pregnant pause and I brace myself for the kiss I hope is coming.
    Except it doesn’t. All he does is smile and say, “Thanks for everything.”
    He hands me my to-go container and steers me out the door. I stumble off the porch in a state of mind-numbing confusion, climb into the hearse, and pull away.
    As I head for the hospital, my mind scrambles to make sense of this change in Hurley’s behavior. Damn men anyway! On the one hand they can be so easy to read. Speak to the small brain and they’ll say or do anything. But their big brains function so differently from women’s that it’s like dealing with someone from another planet, maybe