Chapter 72 Ch. 42
He watched from the glass doors as they pushed needles into her body, mask on her face. Somehow, he knew that it was almost futile, but he had to had faith. He had to believe that there was still a chance they would spend eternity together.
He didn’t moved from the wall for a long while, until the glass doors opened and a doctor stepped out, pulling his mask down.
“Are you her husband?” the doctor asked.
“I’m… her boyfriend,” Dylan said, his voice rough.
“We need to ask a few questions,” the doctor said. “She’s in critical condition. You also can’t leave because the police suspect it's a criminal case.”
“l had no intentions of leaving," he said with a sigh.
The officer from earlier came back with a small notebook. “Mr. Moreau, we just need to clarify your statement.”
Dylan barely heard him because he heard an intense beeping noise, then another and suddenly it became shrill and continuous.
Flatline.
“No,” Dylan whispered. He pushed past the officer, through the swinging doors.
Inside, a team worked around Ivanna’s bed. One nurse started chest compressions. Another called out numbers Dylan didn’t understand.
”Charge to hundred— clear," the doctor shouted.
Her body jerked but after a few seconds, there was still nothing.
“Charge to two hundred—clear.”
Her body jerked again but the monitor stayed flat.
“Again—clear.”
Still, there was nothing. Her body remained still on the bed...
“Time of death, 11:42 p.m.,” the doctor said quietly, looking at the clock on the wall.
Dylan’s knees buckled. He caught the edge of the bed, staring at Ivanna’s still face. “Please,” he said, his voice breaking. “Please, don’t stop.”
“I’m sorry,” the doctor said with a look of pity. “We did everything we could.”
Dylan bowed his head, the sound of the monitor drilling into him. His chest ached as if something inside him had been ripped away. He pressed his forehead to Ivanna’s hand, the cold already setting in.
The officer cleared his throat gently. “Sir, I know this is difficult, but we need to speak with you. Standard procedure.”
Dylan didn’t lift his head. “I’m not leaving her.”
“That’s fine,” the officer said after a pause. “We can talk here.”
A nurse approached with a clipboard. “Mr. Moreau, we need to know about arrangements. Do you want the body moved to the hospital morgue? We’ll hold her until the medical examiner signs off.”
It seemed crazy to him how all of this was happening so fast. How many minutes had she been brought in and now they were talking about her death?
He knew he couldn't accept it, it was too soon and a small part of him knew that something could still be done, just maybe not in a human hospital.
A police approached the nurse and whispered something to her. She nodded and moved forward again. "The police will keep her under investigation for now."
The officer spoke after a few minutes when Dylan said nothing. "Because this is a suspicious death, her body will remain in our custody until we finish the examination.”
Dylan nodded once.
He didn't want an investigation because that only spelled more trouble... But why should he even care about it when Ivanna was gone? Why should he care about what they could discover if she was dead either ways.
++++
Hours blurred and at some point, Dylan found himself in a small waiting room in the police station with cold coffee in his hands. The officer returned with another man in plain clothes.
“We’ve reviewed the hospital’s security footage,” the plainclothes detective said. “It matches what you told us. We see her walk toward the curb, a car pulls up… but the footage after that is corrupted. It cuts to static for several minutes.”
Dylan kept his face blank. “So you can’t see the driver?”
“No,” the detective said. “And we checked other cameras on the street. Same issue. Someone knew what they were doing.”
Of course Lorenzo did. He was always thorough with his crimes and would not do anything that would implicate him even in the slightest way.
Sure, he didn't want the police to dig too deep to find out anything. Hell, he didn't even want this investigation but unfortunately it was inevitable.
The first officer leaned forward. “There’s something else. This isn’t the first case. A young woman was found a few ago, in this dame city. No sign of struggle. Completely drained of blood. A faint mark on the neck. Like a hickey. We didn't think much of it, until we saw your girlfriend had the same... Except you gave that to her.”
Dylan stayed silent.
“We think there’s a serial offender targeting young women,” the detective continued. “We’ll need to keep you nearby for follow-up questions. And we’ll need contact info for next of kin.”
Dylan nodded slowly. “She's an orphan," he said quietly.
"We understand that she's a journalist with NEON 24 and was investigating the case, do you suspect that's why she was targeted."
"It's a possibility," Dylan commented drily.
"Did she ever mention discovering anything that would make her a target? We understand she is one of the best investigative journalist."
"She doesn't speak much about her work... Confidentiality. She takes it seriously," he wiped the tear dropping from his face.
He watched the police officers leave after they told him to stay still for now. He sighed and pulled out his phone, scrolling through his contacts until he stopped at one.
You owe me, and I've come to collect. He typed, and then sent, leaning back with a sigh. I need you as soon as possible.
+++++
Marcus stared at his computer, eyes brimming with tears he was trying his best not to cry. He had spoken to Ivanna how many days ago? And suddenly, they brought her body into the morgue, and she had died the same way the lady they were investigating had died.
Ivanna always pushed hard, so she had to have found out something that made her the next target of this serial killer. Sure two deaths weren't enough to tag it as a serial crime, but when the deaths were identical? It was enough.
How was it possible though, that this criminal was clean, leaving nothing but bodies?
He turned his head, glancing towards her boyfriend who sat slouched in the hallway, crying for hours. It was already the afternoon of the next day, and the man hadn't left yet. He hadn't believed that she was really dead, he still wanted to see her, to hold her, but he wasn't allowed to touch a body under investigation.
Marcus had never met him though. Ivanna did talk about him a lot, and he had seen pictures of them together, but they had never been introduced because Ivanna felt maybe, he might be slightly jealous.
Was that her way of trying to say there was something dangerous about him?
He shook his head.
Looking at Dylan was like looking at someone who had genuinely loved and lost. Like someone who would go above and beyond for a woman he loved, and Ivanna had spoken about him that way.
He could see that it was true. Because it only made sense that he waited here this long when there was nothing else to wait for. He has only stood up once to use the restroom, and then he came out five minutes later.
Marcus stood up and walked towards the door, pushing it open slightly. He stood in front of Dylan and cleared his throat. "You should go home. There's nothing left for you."
Dylan lifted his eyes. They were red, from tears, from anger... "I want to see her again." His voice was hoarse.
"It doesn't change that she's gone."
"I want to see her again," he insisted. "You're not even going to release her body to be buried until your investigation is complete... I want to see her again."
"Protocol," Marcus said, even though he wanted to give in. He himself wanted to see Ivanna again, to be sure that this wasn't just a bad nightmare he was yet to wake up from.
"Please," Dylan begged, his voice cracking.
"I'll have to ask my superiors." He said with a resigned sigh.
Dylan nodded in understanding, letting out a shaky breath as he ran a hand through his hair..
Marcus stepped back and walked further into the office. He rubbed his tired eyes— he had not gone home since the news last night. Only a few of them had. "Chief," he called out.
"Yes?" He replied, lifting his eyebrows up.
"He's requesting to see her."
"That's not possible," the chief said without hesitation. He placed his hands in his pocket and pulled out his phone, furrowing his brows at his screen. "Well, that'll have to wait," he mumbled to himself."
"He's a grieving man. Who just lost the love of his life, and we both know he is innocent of this. His story checks out... corresponds with the footage, his body language checks out. Phone conversations checked..."
"Protocol. Her bo—"
"He just wants to see her. I'll take him myself to the morgue. He'll see her, he won't touch... Just one last time," Marcus said, interrupting the chief.
"You're not helping him that way," the chief argued. "You're only going to heighten his grief. It's sad, really but..."
"If your wife died, won't you want to see her body? Won't you want to take everything in one last time? She was taken away from him so suddenly... You must imagine the guilt he felt. They had an argument on something as trivial as being busy, she storms off and before they can settle anything... She's gone."
"Fine," the chief huffed. "I'll take him."
The chief stepped out of the glass doors and approached Dylan. "I'm sorry for your loss. Please come with me."
Dylan was led through the cold corridor, past humming fluorescents that threw a sickly glow across tiled walls.
The morgue door hissed open, the guard giving a salute to the chief, and then to Marcus and then Dylan. Dylan mumbled a greeting and walked into the room, which smelt like disinfectant and the faint metallic scent of cold steel.
The chief stopped in front of the rows and columns of the freezer, his hands tracing several name tags as his eyes followed. Then, finally, he settled on one of the sliding lockers of the freezer Ivanna was kept.
The chief paused. “You can look,” he said quietly. “But no touching.” he pushed the button and the metal slid out almost noiselessly...
But there was no body.