The Dead Series (Book 1): Tell Me When I'm Dead by Steven Ramirez

had been a wedding present from her mother.
    “Is she crazy?” Holly said.
    “What do you mean?” I felt tired. All I wanted was to sleep.
    “I mean, genius, whadda you think she’ll do next?”
    “Come after me probably. She’s a vindictive—”
    “Great. Well, we can’t stay here—we have to leave.”
    “We?”
    “You’re not off the hook.” She buried her face in her hands. “You stupid, stupid bastard.”
    “What about our jobs?”
    She looked at me like I was some kind of imbecile. “We have to get out of here, Dave. At least until the police find her and we can, I don’t know, get a restraining order or something.”
    Holly had always been smarter than me. More practical. More focused. Especially when it came to solving difficult problems. She was right. We’d have to leave town.
    “There’s one other thing,” I said.
    “You started drinking again.” She wanted to hurt me, and this was the best she could do. I let it go.
    “No,” I said. “It’s about Jim. He … When I saw him, I don’t think he was alive.”
    “Was that before or after the axe to the head?”
    “ Before. It was like he was decomposing or something. He wasn’t even breathing.”
    “That’s crazy, he was sick. Like all these other people wandering around. It’s a virus.”
    “Maybe.” I thought of the kidney worms and the maggots. No. He was sure as shit dead already. “Are you going to leave me?” I said.
    She didn’t answer for a long time. “I need time to think,” she said, and got up. At the door, she stopped. “You’re a real prick, you know that?”
    Guilty as charged.

    I was still upset over the fight with Holly as I rode the elevator down to the morgue, where Detective Van Gundy was already waiting. In the movies these places are always creepy. But this room was clean and pleasant, with comfortable chairs and bright artificial plants in the waiting area. The magazines on the side tables had nothing to do with Death. No Morticians Monthly —just Us , People and Cosmopolitan .
    Detective Van Gundy led me into the viewing room. A few minutes later a morgue attendant brought Jim in on a stainless-steel table with wheels. The body was covered in a white paper shroud. As the attendant pulled back the paper, I told myself it wasn’t Jim anymore—it was a piece of meat. I moved closer and gritted my teeth.
    His head had been pushed back together and secured with surgical staples. I turned to the policeman, reminding myself I was never there. “What happened to his head?”
    “We think Ms. Soldado split it with the axe we found. It’s how he was killed.”
    I still couldn’t believe she was capable of that kind of violence. The same could be said about my own cowardice.
    They’d gotten rid of the maggots and the kidney worms. There was a surprising lack of blood. Other than the reddish seam running down the middle of his face and neck, he looked the same.
    “For the record, can you identify the body?” Detective Van Gundy said.
    “Yes. It’s Jim Stanley.”
    For what seemed like a long time I stood there, trying in my mind to picture Jim alive again. Then I turned away and threw up in my mouth. When I recovered, I heard a loud banging coming from another room. Another attendant ran in and said to the first, “One of them’s alive!”
    They both hurried out of the room, leaving the detective and me alone with Jim’s body.
    “I wonder how often that happens,” I said. No one laughed.
    Sitting in the hospital lobby with Detective Van Gundy, I thought about how long it would be before they connected me to Jim’s death. I knew Missy hadn’t contacted the police—otherwise, why hadn’t the cops arrested me already? And other than the one text, I hadn’t heard from her again. What was she waiting for?
    Revenge.
    “Do you know if Mr. Stanley knew his attacker?” the policeman said.
    “What?”
    “Ms. Soldado. Did Mr. Stanley know her?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “So this was