Page 45 of Booked for Murder

I chuckled and tapped my forehead. “The frontal lobe is here. That’s the part responsible for most cognitive activity and voluntary movement.” I tapped on the top of my head towards the back. “The parietal lobe is a pretty cool one. It controls how you perceive taste, touch, general movement, and things like that. That’s a very broad generalization, as it’s a little more complicated than that.”

Jezabella rolled her eyes. “We’re talking about brains here. That’s already complicated. How do you even know this stuff?”

Before I had a chance to reply, Bradley said, “Before she signed her contract with us, she wanted to be a nurse. At the time, exsanguinators had an even worse reputation than they do now, so no medical school would take her. That didn’t stop her interest in the human body. And that desire to be a nurse is what made my mother interested in having her permanently. Someone who wants to be a nurse is typically a nurturing individual, driven to help others.”

As I couldn’t argue with him, I shrugged. “I volunteered sometimes in the trauma ward.”

“They don’t care if she’s a certified nurse when they have someone bleeding out in their ER entry and she can just walk over and take over for their heart until the doctors can fix the underlying problems. She’s actually the reason exsanguinators are desired in the medical field now. She would sit in the ER waiting room and help out whenever a trauma patient would come in. She’d report to the nurses at the desk she was there and list her skills, and they’d inform triage. Whenever they got that sort of trauma headed their way, they’d call her in. I’ve snuck into the ER a few times to watch her work.”

He had? I frowned, wondering how I hadn’t noticed him.

“You were elbow deep in blood trying to stop a bullet through the heart from killing somebody. The guy was shot right outside the ER, and you heard the gunfire.”

Ah. I remembered that. It’d been an eight-hour battle, one worth the while because he’d survived, but for those eight hours, I had been his everything, functioning as his heart and lungs because his were almost beyond salvation. “Ah. You must have been in the parking lot.”

“I’d borrowed a friend’s car.”

“I remember that,” Mrs. Hampton said, and her smile had a sad edge to it. “You called and asked me why Janette was a bodyguard instead of a nurse, and I had to explain to you why she wouldn’t have been able to get the job she wanted. I’d pulled a few strings with the local hospitals to ignore her presence and give her a chance. As soon as they figured out she knew the human body about as well as they did, and the only thing she didn’t know was how to work the machines because she was barred from getting the education she wanted, they let her volunteer. It didn’t hurt that their death rates plummeted whenever she was in the ER. She can’t quite stop death completely, but she proved the value of exsanguinators in trauma situations.”

I shrugged. “We lost a lot of people.”

“You saved many more than you lost, and don’t you forget that. You’ll likely be able to do most of the forensics work, but having Mr. Tawnlen as part of the team will give you a lot more good information. You’re better at the live bodies. He understands the ins and outs of the bodies after death. Between the two of you, you’ll be able to get the whole story of a murder. That is the information that allows the defense or prosecution to get the appropriate verdict by the end of the trial.” Bradley’s mother paced around my living room, and she scowled, staring at the entry to my bedroom. “There are too many possibilities for who killed that twat and why.”

“Could you not call him a twat, Mother? He’s dead. Have some respect.”

“Boy, you know I love you, but the man was a twat. He’s no better than that Equalizers group that acts like it wants to help the low rated folks but in reality is nothing more than a terrorist group wishing to overthrow the government so they can take over and do what they want with society instead. And their way of doing things won’t really help anybody. It’s just a different way of doing things.”

“Equalizers?” I asked, wondering if someone had mentioned the name before and I’d forgotten or missed it.

Bradley sighed. “That’s what the cops call an up-and-coming radical group out to change the system. They don’t actually have a name, but they’re that group we were talking about who might want to peg the killings on adepts to draw attention away from themselves. Part of their gig is that they don’t have an organized public structure. No name, nothing. They lurk in the shadows, draw in people who want to see substantial change in society, and then operate as a terrorist cell—but one that never claims its kills. That’s why I’m wondering if they might be behind Godrin’s death. It’s the sort of thing they would do. They hate adepts, but they hate our form of government more. But considering the nature of the bill the victims were trying to push through, it could be anybody, and that’s a real problem.”

“It’s the kind of bill I can foresee people violently protesting over if it were to reach the President’s desk,” I muttered. “I’d be tempted to join them, and I’m an adept.”

Bradley’s mother nodded. “That’s because your parents aren’t, and you know what it would do to them. It’s perfectly reasonable for you to want to do that. It makes me wonder if they did want to frame you, because you’re the kind of person they would believe capable and willing to use your magic to go on a murder spree to stop that law. The first killing happened before any news outlets reported the crash, and the media only stated that my son had walked with minor injuries and that the driver and passenger of the other vehicle had both died. There was no mention of you, mostly because you had already been pulled from the car and taken to the nearest hospital. They stabilized you, and then we sent you out west, as you were beyond what they could readily handle, and there was a specialty hospital for severe trauma there. It was a good decision, seeing that you’re back on your feet despite that boot you wear. Worth every penny of the bill, as far as I’m concerned. We’ll be having a talk about your disappearing act though, young lady.”

Crap. When Bradley’s mother pulled out the young lady line, I didn’t need a map to identify I’d wandered straight into trouble. “Can I take a rain check on that?”

“No.”

“Excuse me, but can we go back to the discussion of the brain lobes? That seems a lot safer and more relevant.” Jezebella tapped at her head in the rough vicinity of her parietal lobe. “We left off here, and I still don’t understand why you’re wearing glasses.”

I grinned, and grateful for the temporary escape from a scolding, I tapped on the back of my head. “This is roughly where the occipital lobe is, and that’s where the brain does most of the vision work, although the temporal lobe is also important, which is in the lower middle of the brain. The temporal lobe is a big one, and it is where your memories are generally stored. The temporal lobe also integrates your memories with your other senses. But the occipital lobe is what was primarily damaged in the crash. It was likely due to a severe concussion or blunt-force trauma. I was never given a definitive reason on the cause of the damage. And since I was comatose, my magic was useless. Had I been conscious, I could have handled any bleeding associated with the concussion on my own.”

The swelling part was an issue, but doctors could handle that; the bleeding associated with trauma-induced concussions could become lethal quickly.

How I had survived would forever remain a mystery.

“How about the bits with your memory? Was that damaged?”

Unable to help myself, I smiled and replied, “I don’t remember.”

It took a full three seconds for Jezabella to comprehend what I’d said, and she glowered at me. “Beatrice is right. You’re a bitch.”

I grinned. “I am.”

Bradley gaped at me. “Did you just pun Jez?”

“Absolutely. I absolutely did just pun Jez.”