“Still in respiratory arrest?”

“No, she’s breathing now. And I can feel a pulse.”

The two men trotted into the building and halted, staring at the woman on the gurney. “Jesus,” one of them murmured. “Is that a body bag?”

“I found her in the cold room,” said Maura. “By now, she’s probably hypothermic.”

“Oh, man. If this isn’t your worst nightmare.”

Out came the oxygen mask and IV lines. They slapped on EKG leads. On the monitor, a slow sinus rhythm blipped like a lazy cartoonist’s pen. The woman had a heartbeat and she was breathing, yet she still looked dead.

Looping a tourniquet around one flaccid arm, the EMT asked: “What’s her story? How did she get here?”

“I don’t know anything about her,” said Maura. “I came down to check on another body in the cold room and I heard this one moving.”

“Does this, uh, happen very often here?”

“This is a first time for me.” And she hoped to God it was the last.

“How long has she been in your refrigerator?”

Maura glanced at the hanging clipboard, where the day’s deliveries were recorded, and saw that a Jane Doe had arrived at the morgue around noon. Eight hours ago. Eight hours zipped in a shroud. What if she’d ended up on my table? What if I had sliced into her chest? Rummaging through the receiving in-basket, she found the envelope containing the woman’s paperwork. “Weymouth Fire and Rescue brought her in,” she said. “An apparent drowning…”

“Whoa, Nelly!” The EMT had just stabbed an IV needle into a vein and the patient suddenly jerked to life, her torso bucking on the gurney. The IV site magically puffed blue as the punctured vein hemorrhaged into the skin.

“Shit, lost the site. Help me hold her down!”

“Man, this gal’s gonna get up and walk away.”

“She’s really fighting now. I can’t get the IV started.”

“Then let’s just get her on the stretcher and move her.”