Precinct 13

P
RAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF
T
ATE
H
ALLAWAY

“A fast-paced, hilarious, paranormal romance…The story captured this reader from the very first page, and is a must read for paranormal romance fans.”

—
The Romance Readers Connection

“Put me under its spell and didn’t let go! A great story and characters I can’t wait to meet again.”

—Rachel Caine,
New York Times
bestselling author

“[Hallaway’s] concise writing style, vivid descriptions, and innovative plot all blend together to provide the reader with a great new look into the love life of witches, vampires, and the undead.”

—
Armchair Interviews

“Tate Hallaway kept me on the edge of my seat…A thoroughly enjoyable read!”

—Julie Kenner,
USA Today
bestselling author

“Will appeal to readers of Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series.”

—
Booklist

“This paranormal romance overflows with danger, excitement, and mayhem; however, whenever things become too stressful, a healthy dose of irony or comedy shows up to ease the way. Tate Hallaway has an amazing talent for storytelling.”

—
Huntress Book Reviews

“The second Garnet gem is a delightful whodunit fantasy [with an] offbeat chick-lit style. Tate Hallaway combines romance, paranormal, and mystery into a fun read.”

—
Midwest Book Review

“What’s not to adore…Tate Hallaway has a wonderful gift, Garnet is a gem of a heroine, and
Tall, Dark & Dead
is enthralling from the first page.”

—MaryJanice Davidson,
New York Times
bestselling author

Berkley titles by Tate Hallaway

TALL, DARK & DEAD

DEAD SEXY

ROMANCING THE DEAD

DEAD IF I DO

HONEYMOON OF THE DEAD

PRECINCT 13

ALWAYS LEARNING

PEARSON

As always, I must thank my conscientious and devoted editor, Anne Sowards, and my massively supportive and understanding agent, Martha Millard. My writers’ group, the Wyrdsmiths, helped tremendously, including newest member Adam Stemple, whose suggestions made me angry, but were ultimately worthwhile. Another Wyrdsmith I must pick out to honor is Kelly McCullough, who graciously allowed an homage to one of his Urbana critters, the “skitter.” Also, speaking of such matters, I must thank Rachel Gold for letting me “steal” her tough-guy fairy idea, as well as a lot of the brainstorming that went into this novel.

Naomi Kritzer and Eleanor Arnason get my gratitude not only for their work in the writers’ group, but also for their friendship and the lifeline that is our Wednesday Women of Wyrdsmiths gathering. Sean M. Murphy, also, for all his last-minute critiquing, even though this time he didn’t get much of a chance to do so.

My family, Shawn and Mason Rounds, are my biggest fans, best supporters, and, in the case of Shawn, co-conspirators. This time, however, it was my mother, Rita Morehouse, who gets the honor of Muse, since she told me, “Why not just go for it?” and I did. My father, Mort Morehouse, spent much of the writing of this book sidelined, but happily will return to his duties as “stage mom” now.

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

I never dreamed of being a coroner. No, when I was a little girl, I wanted to grow up to be a fairy princess or maybe a dragon-riding warrior queen. Turns out, however, there’s not a lot of call for either in the real world.

So how did I end up in Pierre working with dead people? As the newspaper’s headline read on the day I was elected: “Double-Dare You: Alexandra Connor Wins Coroner Position on a Bet.”

That pretty much sums it up.

Several months ago, after too many beers, my roommate, Robert, told me that the solution to my financial woes was in the newspaper. I thought perhaps he’d found me work as a cashier or something, but he pointed to the upcoming spring election roster where the position of coroner was listed.

Despite seeing it in black-and-white, I didn’t even believe that you could run for such an office. We Googled it. Turns
out in some states, including South Dakota, you campaign for the position, like you would city council.

Robert and I also discovered online there weren’t a lot of requirements. Almost zero medical expertise was required for the job. I already had a degree in forensic science and had started medical school. Though I’d been on a, shall we say, “extended hiatus” from school due to a health crisis…of the mental kind.

I guess I never
quite
let go of that fairy princess thing. Let’s just say the
real world
isn’t always my best friend.

At any rate, Robert and I had laughed all night about the idea of me becoming county coroner. At some point he said he’d put down twenty bucks if I’d actually put my name in the hat for the job. I almost gave him his money back the next morning. Yet when I woke up, deeply hungover, the idea was still stuck in my head, bouncing around, making more and more sense, at least financially. The position paid nearly sixty thousand dollars a year. No small potatoes and one hundred percent better than the negative numbers I was pulling between my lack of employment, student loans, and, er, those medical bills.

Thus, two weeks later, completely sober, I filed paperwork and took Robert’s twenty.

Afterward, I promptly forgot about it. I mean, it wasn’t like I was going to campaign. I couldn’t just go knocking on my neighbors’ doors and say, “Hi, I’m Alex Connor, and I want to cut up bodies for the county. Please vote for me next Tuesday!”

But, I won. I fucking won the election.

Who knew that the previous coroner was completely corrupt? Not me. But apparently plenty of the voters who’d shown up that Tuesday had at least heard the rumors involving
that secretary and all the cases that just happened to favor the chief of police. The guy was a dirty old man on the take and, despite being a lifelong politician who ought to have known better, he’d managed to piss off more than his share of regular voters.

It was insane, but here I was, standing in a morgue waiting for my first case.

I’d been really rather hoping to go the whole year without one. Sixty thou for doing nothing would be a pretty good gig. And, totally possible; there aren’t a lot of suspicious deaths in Pierre. In fact, in the last two years there were exactly zero homicides.

The lack of action might explain why the morgue wasn’t very spacious or fancy.

The thing that dominated the area, to which most people’s eyes were instantly drawn, was the stainless steel table. There were holes and drains and faucets that tended to fascinate and horrify any visitor to the morgue. Mostly, that was all anyone ever noticed about the place. After a good, long look at that table and even the tiniest bit of imagination, they wanted to flee.

A stalwart visitor might next see the nearby double-basin sink area. It was polished steel as well, with a few cabinets above and a counter big enough to set out all the equipment needed to perform an autopsy. Right now, laid out on a sterile white towel were a pair of dissecting scissors that looked far too much like pruning shears for most people’s comfort; surgical knives; a gallstone scoop; a cavity mirror; a few probes; and a number of double-prong flesh hooks.

If the visitor had not yet run screaming in abject horror, they might spot the wall of body freezers against the far end of the room.

No one would ever detect the cozy corner that I’d made into my makeshift office. It had been a workstation with the barest minimum equipment: a phone, space for a laptop, a chipped and rotten corkboard full of outdated safety warnings and office memorandums. I’d brought in a little, cheery area rug to go over the painted concrete floor, a spider plant, and a cheap poster of Monet’s water lilies. It was nearly comfy. I even had a chair for someone else to sit in.

Not that I got a lot of visitors.

The only other body in the morgue besides my own belonged to poor Mrs. Finnegan, who’d died peacefully in her sleep of old age. She took up one drawer in the row, waiting for her family in Minnesota to get the paperwork together to transfer her remains. She’d been fine company, not bothering me in the least, just cooling her heels patiently.

I’d been left alone here for almost three weeks, drawing pay and doing a lot of dusting and rearranging. My easy days were about to come to a bitter end, however.

I was going to miss the quiet, too. I’d needed this time alone, honestly. The last year had been
so
hard. My doctors told me that the best thing I could do was leave Chicago, sever all my ties to my past, tell no one where I was going, and start over somewhere new. Quit “old people, places, and things,” like Alcoholics Anonymous preached. It sounded like good advice, but I missed him…I missed Valentine.