“A stalker?” Unease replaced the concern in Alex’s eyes, and he frowned at her.

Brynn wanted to tell him, but didn’t know why. She hadn’t spoken of the incident in months because it’d seriously freaked her at the time.

“Awhile back…”

“You don’t have to say anything.” Alex popped three ibuprofen in his mouth and swallowed them dry. “Forget it.”

“No. I don’t mind talking about it. Really.” And she didn’t. She forced her stomach to relax as she sat back in one of the cushy chairs and tried to figure out where to start.

“Last year I was called to a suspicious death of a teenager. It was plainly suicide. The boy had locked himself in his room, left a long, rambling good-bye note, and shot himself in the mouth. He’d attempted suicide twice before, he’d been treated for depression, and there wasn’t a shred of evidence that anyone else could’ve been in the room.”

“Window?” Alex was following her story closely, his eyes intense.

“No window. And the door was locked with a bolt from the inside. His mother heard the shot and was at that door within seconds. No one else could have gone in or out of that room.”

“So what was the problem?” Alex raised a brow.

“The problem was the dad. He lived in Tennessee and believed his son had been murdered,” Brynn explained.

“Stupid asshole,” Thomas swore. He chomped into a protein bar.

“The father stalked you?” Lines creased Alex’s forehead. “From Tennessee?”

Brynn nodded. Her lungs were working normally now, and she breathed steadily. The father had been a big man—a big, determined man. And he’d scared the crap out of her.

“He harassed me by phone for a week. Swearing, cursing, calling me every name in the book, and threatening to get my license taken away. He threatened to shoot me and see if some idiot death investigator thought it looked like a suicide. The medical examiner and I had determined an autopsy wasn’t needed in this case, and the father was livid. He wouldn’t accept that his son had committed suicide. He had my cell number and wouldn’t stop calling.”

Alex’s brows shot together; he looked furious. “How’d he get your cell number?”

“I don’t know.” She suspected someone at the ME’s office had given it out, but no one had ever admitted it. “Then he showed up at the office. He’d flown across the damned country to yell at me in person. I’m not at the office that much because I’m usually out in the field. The secretary told him that and he left. My boss called me at home to warn me, and I got Jim to park his squad car in my driveway and sleep on my couch.”

“Liam was out of town,” Jim added.

“Did he come to your home?” Alex’s voice was tight. He looked ready to kick the man’s ass. Brynn tried not to smile at the sight.

“No. I don’t think he was able to figure out where I lived.”

“If someone had given out your home number, he could’ve easily found you.”

Brynn nodded. That fact had haunted her. “I persuaded the examiner to do a partial autopsy a week after the death and all his findings supported suicide. The dad went back to Tennessee, and I got a new cell number.” And she removed her home number from every source at the ME’s office except her boss’s phone contacts.

“I was just waiting for that guy to show up. I wished he had.” Jim automatically moved his right hand to his waist where he usually kept his service semiautomatic.

“Sorry, Brynn,” Ryan muttered again. She met his gaze and smiled to let him know he was forgiven. Sometimes she felt twenty years older than him instead of two.

“You carry enough weight to say when an autopsy should be done?” Alex was still watching her intently.

“I can make recommendations. The final decision is up to the ME.”

“You don’t do the autopsies though.”

She shook her head. “I try to go and watch if it’s my case.”

“I’ve seen enough of them.” Jim’s nostrils widened a fraction as if he smelled something bad.

Both Thomas and Ryan agreed. Brynn knew the two younger men hadn’t been to more than a few. It wasn’t for everyone.

“Attended any?” Ryan asked Alex.

“Just one. I left. Couldn’t make it through.” Alex’s face was suddenly strangely blank, like he’d exited his body and left a shell.

“After the first one I saw, I was off mac and cheese for months. It looks just like adipose tissue.” Brynn watched the men react to her comment. Ryan looked ready to vomit again, and Thomas had developed the same blank look as Alex.

“Exactly like mac and cheese,” Jim chortled.

“Stop it, Jim. Ryan’s gonna lose the tiny piece of protein bar he finally ate.” Brynn bit her lip.

“How can you eat after watching something like that?” Alex muttered.

She shrugged. “I don’t. I always seemed to lose a pound or two after each autopsy. I usually don’t feel like eating for a while.”

“Can we talk about something else?” Ryan pleaded.

Brynn glanced at the windows of the plane. It was full dark outside. The plane was downright cozy with the hot bodies of the four men and Kiana.

Her heart sank as she remembered the cold corpses in the cockpit. “Should we…I don’t know. Take the men out of the cockpit or take in some snow to pack around them? Are they going to attract animals?”