There was a greenness, an immaturity, about him that Elise suspected was something else. She couldn't classify him in her mind. Who he was. What he wanted. Why he was there.

He had a story; she just didn't know what it was. Yet.

Had he been sent there as some kind of reprimand? Was he just biding his time until he could return to wherever he'd been before Cleveland?

Dr. John Casper was waiting for them. Elise had met him a few times and liked him. He was friendly, natural, unpretentious.

The young doctor's curly hair was messier than usual, his white lab coat wrinkled, looking as if he may have slept in it. His face was pale; his eyes had dark circles under them.

Elise introduced him to her partner, and they shook hands.

"Where's the body?" Gould asked, glancing around the dim hallway.

"Paramedics took him to the hospital."

"Then he's still alive," Elise said.

"If you want to call it that."

Dr. Casper told them about the rush of bodies they'd had, about how everyone was working overtime. "But I don't think it would have mattered if it had been slow. I still don't think anyone would have noticed." He motioned to some plastic chairs lined up against a light green wall.

While Elise and her partner settled themselves, Casper pulled a chair around so he sat facing them. The young doctor wiped a shaking hand across his face. "You have bodies do that sometimes."

"Do what?" Elise asked.

"Move. Expel air. It's unsettling as hell, but it happens."

He crossed an ankle over his knee and began fiddling with his tennis shoe, jabbing the plastic end of the lace into an eyelet. "In med school, we used to deliberately pump bodies full of air so that when a student cut into them-" He stopped short, as if suddenly remembering he wasn't speaking to fellow med students. "Sorry." He was sweating profusely. "I'm just so fucking-oh, shit."