The Dying Breath by Alane Ferguson Page A

which had been sliced from ear to ear and tucked beneath Brent Safer’s chin. Slowly, carefully, Ben unfolded the face and pulled it toward the dome of the skull. Features, still loose, realigned themselves as Ben clasped the back part of the scalp that had been doubled onto the neck until both flaps met in the middle. She stared down at him, filled with a strange kind of awe. There was the handsome face she’d seen magnified on the movie screen, his skin waxyin death. But the dead Brent Safer was less polished than his Hollywood version. His blond hair, which Cameryn realized had been highlighted, had matted to his skull. Up close she could see faint pits from acne scars, and the skin beneath his eyes was slightly wrinkled, like tissue paper smudged with blue. These imperfections must have been erased by Hollywood makeup artists.
    “He looks crooked,” Cameryn said.
    “Maybe a little,” Ben agreed. “But the funeral home’ll fix him up nice. If they do their job right then no one will ever be able to tell the man’s brain is gone.” He began to sew the scalp together with a loose suture. “See, a couple stitches on top of the scalp is all we do ’cause the mortician’s gonna take it all out anyway. They’ll fluff up his hair and you’ll never even see where I cut him. Unless it’s a bald dude. You can’t do as much with a bald dude except try to hide it with a whole lotta makeup and a big pillow. Good thing Brent Safer had so much hair.”
    “Yeah. Good thing,” she said, gently stroking the hair that made a fringe against his neck. It wasn’t until she touched him that the weight of who she was standing near washed through her. This was a man she’d seen on the big screen, his overlarge image flickering in syrupy theater light. In a strange way she felt as if she knew him. Lyric, who loved to read celebrity magazines, always shared the gossipy threads of Brent Safer’s persona, filaments of stories that were woven into a life fabric that may or may not have been true—it didn’t matter to Cameryn because it was always more interesting than her own life. This man had driven the fastest cars, dated the most beautiful entertainers in the world, sailed on yachts, and stayed at a rehab center in Utah designed just for celebrities. And yet he was reduced in death, like every other human. It somehow made her sad.
    “What happened to you?” she whispered as Ben pushed the tip of the curved needle through a top portion of the scalp. Cameryn’s gaze drifted to the actor’s hands; it startled her to realize his nails were manicured, polished as smooth as the inside of a shell. His chest, too, had been waxed so that his skin looked like marble. The soft mix of acoustical guitar and violin had changed to a vocal, and Cameryn suddenly keyed in to the words at the end of the song.
    Forever the sand slips through the glass
Love is the thing that eternally lasts
We’re fresh when we’re young
We wither with age
Live life without borders
And write on your page

    She watched Ben clip the thread, unaware, it seemed, of how closely the words echoed the dead man’s life.
    ’ Cause even the stars fall from the sky.
They burn as they flame.
They blaze as they die.

    She stroked his forearm with a gloved finger. How did you die? Did someone do this to you? Or is this something you did to yourself? For the briefest moment she closed her eyes, wishing she could hear an answer the way Lyric swore she could if she would only believe. But instead of ghostly whispers she heard the rumble of Dr. Moore instructing Justin on the disinfection properties of a cleaner called Virex and the clank of metal instruments as they dropped into the sink. No, if the dead were to speak, it would have to be through the evidence they left behind. Clues that she would need to read. She opened her eyes just as Ben finished rethreading the needle.
    “Okay, Cammie, now we put the guts back in. Pick up the Hefty bag and hand it to me,”