Part 7 (1/2)
”What are you maintaining? A mouse hole?”
”We're closed,” the kid said without turning around. ”Use the one upstairs.”
In answer, Jamie headed for a stall.
”Jesus Christ,” the kid said, getting to his feet. ”What a bunch of b.i.t.c.hes.”
She locked the stall and heard the outer door slam closed. When she was done, she came back out, washed her hands, and walked over to where the boy had been kneeling. A section of maybe one square foot of two-inch tiles had been newly laid. Grout was slopped all over them. She touched it. It was nearly dry.
Just then the door opened again.
”Hey,” the kid called to her. ”Get away from that.”
Jamie didn't move. ”You're doing it wrong.”
”Bulls.h.i.+t, lady.”
”You're going to make a mess of it,” she added.
He paused and crossed his arms over his chest. ”And what the h.e.l.l do you know about it?”
She glanced up, scanned the boy's face. Early twenties, maybe. ”Obviously a lot more than you,” she said without rising.
His chin jutted up toward the ceiling. ”My father owns the contracting company.”
”So what,” Jamie countered. ”My father was a firefighter. Doesn't mean I know anything about putting out fires.”
”Well, I know about this. I've been dragged along on these f.u.c.king jobs since I was nine.” He looked at her with his eyebrows up, as though testing her with his language.
She just stared. If he thought language was going to shock her, he needed to spend a day in her job.
He pressed his shoulders back. ”If people would stop interrupting, I'd be done already.”
”You'd better get back to it before that grout dries and you've got a bigger mess.”
Frowning, he slumped his shoulders. ”Yeah.”
She looked back at the floor and picked up the bag of dry grout.
He tried to s.n.a.t.c.h it from her hands.
”Let me show you a little trick.” She grabbed a fist full of the dry powder and sprinkled it on a small section of wet grout.
”What the h.e.l.l are you doing? You're just making a bigger mess that I'm going to have to clean up.” He sighed. ”Come on, lady.”
Jamie found a dry rag and rubbed it across the area where she'd strewn the dry grout. The dry grout stuck to the wet stuff and acted as an abrasive to clean the grout off the tiles themselves while leaving it in the grouted areas.
”Seriously,” he whined.
”Come look,” she told him.
The kid dropped down beside her. He stared a moment then reached out to touch the grout. ”Huh.”
He sounded so shocked, Jamie actually laughed. Then she caught herself. When was the last time she'd laughed? The boy looked at her like she was mad.
”Well?” she said, offering the bag out to him.
He reached in and filled his fist with grout and repeated what she'd done.
Still kneeling, Jamie handed over the rag.
He wiped it across the grout, then leaned down to survey the area. ”It works.”
She nodded.
He scowled. ”How'd you know that?”
She shrugged. Her father had redone every room of the house they'd lived in. Helping was about the only father-daughter bonding time they'd ever had. Jamie stood up and washed her hands. As she headed for the door, the kid said, ”Thanks.”
She looked back.
He grinned at her.
”No problem,” she said, turning back for the door.
”And, lady?”
”Yeah?”
”You've got grout on your pants.”
She glanced down at her navy slacks. Both knees were covered in gray mud. She swiped at it, feeling the little chunks of hard grout. She picked a few off then decided to h.e.l.l with it. She didn't like these pants anyway.
After crossing the main entrance, she walked down the hall to the lab. She stopped to write her name on the sign-in sheet. Just inside, a group hovered by the door. The senior criminalist, Sydney Blanchard, stood with three other lab techs. Two had their backs to her. Voices were low, bodies crossed and closed.
Hailey Wyatt stood with them. She met Jamie's eyes, her gaze cool. Jamie knew they were talking about Devlin. Sydney glanced over and saw Jamie. Her red eyes widened. She'd been crying.
Jamie scanned the other faces, her gut tight. She searched for anything appropriate to say, failed.
”I'm here on Osbourne.”
Sydney wiped her cheeks. ”It's under the second scope.”
Jamie pa.s.sed them and peered down into the eyepiece. Immediately, she knew something was wrong. ”s.h.i.+t.” It was the same something as before. A normal sperm sample showed white and red under the scope. The red denoted the nuclei of the cells. Jamie exhaled. No red in this sample. ”No cells at all?”
Sydney nodded. ”Doesn't look like we got any s.e.m.e.n.”