Excerpt of High-Heeled Alibi by Sydney Ryan

God, even the man's feet were beautiful.

And Bitsy had seen enough bare feet to know they should've been, at least, unsightly. At a minimum, amusing. These feet, though, stuck out beneath the sheet like a final curtain call, naked, proud, without wrinkles, thickened, yellowed skin pads or oddly crooked toes. Smooth, sculpted, these feet did not reveal the many miles walked, only the fine-grained desire of many miles more wished for.

At the ankles, a white cloth began and spread wide and long across a large, unmoving body.

Above was the face, tanned and crowned by a bleached cap of hair. A small circular scar puckered the skin above the right collarbone, saving the man from total perfection. Otherwise, the jawline was not too square, not too soft. The lips tipped at the corners, teasing. The dark brows arched, then dipped deep toward the nose, finishing the face with an air of "to hell with you." The eyes were closed, but they had to be blue, the blue of night secrets.

Bitsy stared at the man, following his features one by one and thinking of dreams she'd had not so long ago.

The man was beautiful.

Beautiful and dead.

She turned away, clicking her tongue against her teeth in a dismissive note. The sound echoed across the silent room, the gurgling and whirring of the taps turned off for the night. Emotion had no place here. An occasional retching was allowed. Obligatory solemnness was expected. But emotional control was the cornerstone of the profession. And what had called her to her current circumstance.

She snapped on one pair of latex gloves from a waiting wheeled table, and then another. She stepped back, surveying the still figure on the metal stretcher. He must've just arrived. The skin was supple. The deceptive flush of life had only begun to pale. The eyes would require blue stipple work around the lids. The right lid had opened a crack in the inside corner, but a pinch of cream worked underneath, then firmed with Number 6, would take care of the problem. Of course, the head would incline slightly to put the carotid suture in shadow.

She stepped closer, drawing back the sheet at the neck, looking for the suture. When Uncle Nelson had suggested her cosmetology training would be useful in the family business, she knew it was exactly the type of work she'd been looking for. Few people understood her choice. Their reactions ran from macabre fascination to hardly concealed repulsion. It didn't bother her. She'd come home, seeking peace and quiet. At the moment, she only asked from life no more surprises. People could say whatever they wanted about her job, but one thing was certain. There were no surprises.

Bitsy looked up. Two blue eyes looked back at her.

Shock threw her body back. The cart she slammed into skittered across the room. Instruments clattered to the floor. The eyes, the exact shade she'd imagined, blinked.

She backed away, her hands reaching behind her, patting the air, searching for something solid to grasp and support her. Even above the room's always bitter odor, she could smell her shameful scent of fear.

Control. Her mind repeated the command, seeking to quiet her racing heart.

The eyes staring up at her blinked again, slowly, like a newborn babe.

Spasmodic muscle contracture. It was not uncommon in corpses. Some had been known to rise right up in their caskets. As if to prove her point, the body before her sat up.

She found the counter, fought to stay standing. The sheet fell away from the man's upper torso, revealing a bronzed span of muscled chest. Frantic fear beat against Bitsy's breastbone. Her mouth opened in a silent protest as her mind moved into overdrive, attempting to calm her. Okay, okay. Major cadaveric spasm. She gripped the counter's sharp edge.

The corpse's gaze narrowed, focusing. He rubbed his forehead. Closing his eyes against the harsh overhead light, he moaned. Bitsy ran out of rational explanations.

"You're dead." Her held breath whooshed out with the words.

The man squinted one eye open, letting out another soft groan. His body shuddered at the room's cool temperature. His nose sniffed the chemical smell. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he gave Bitsy a thorough once-over. She pulled tight the lab jacket she'd slipped on against the room's coolness, but her leather miniskirt and fishnet stockings were still visible. She watched the man's gaze lift to take in her skull earrings, the white foundation, black lipstick, her hair dyed jet-black and streaked with silver.

He wet his lips and swallowed as if his mouth were dry. His voice came out a croak. "Something tells me this isn't the Pearly Gates."

"This is Memorial Manor," she said with as much dignity as possible for someone with a bride of Frankenstein beehive. She'd been dressing when the phone had rung. Gwen's son had tripped over the shreds of his mummy costume and needed stitches. Could Bitsy fill in at the funeral home for a few hours? Uncle Nelson never left it unattended on Halloween. Bitsy had zipped a skirt over her bodysuit and fishnet stockings and rushed right over.

The man massaged his forehead. His hands were broad, big- knuckled. "What's Memorial Manor? A halfway house to heaven?" His speech was thick. He paused to wet his lips again. "Your people must not have talked to my many fans. They'd definitely have me first in line to fire and damnation."

"You're not dead."

The man's mouth lazily lifted at one corner. "That's a relief. Now, maybe you could tell me where the hell... sorry, poor choice of words. Where am I exactly?"

"Memorial Manor is a funeral home."

The man pointed a finger at her. "But you said I'm not dead."

"You were," she tried to explain. "Now, you're not."

"Either I'm dead..." The man swung his long legs across the narrow gutter on the side of the gurney.

"...or I'm not." He stood up quickly as if needing the floor's firmness beneath his feet. The sheet almost slipped away from his body. Before he caught it, Bitsy endured a vision of golden maleness.

She averted her head. "Believe me, you're alive."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence. Now, explain to me what I'm doing here and how I got here?"

The slur was gone. He spoke with the strength that defined him physically. Bitsy looked back, relieved to see the sheet securely gathered and tucked in tight at his waist. "There must've been a mistake."

He arched one brow. "A big mistake," she offered.

He studied her with keen, assessing eyes. "You work here?"

She nodded. Her skull earrings swayed. "And your job title would be?"

She went for a delicate laugh. "Haven't you ever seen Vera the Vampire Vixen before?"

"No. And yet until now, I believed I'd lived a full life, which, according to you, I'm about to continue."

"Heck, I saw three of them tonight already on my way here from the house. Vampire vixens were more popular than I expected this year."

The man kneaded his forehead as if warding off a migraine. "Who would've guessed?"

"I'll admit we do get carried away, but around here, Halloween is like a national holiday."

The man stopped rubbing his brow. "And where exactly is 'around here'?"

"Canaan, California."

The man still looked blank.

"About twenty miles south of San Francisco," Bitsy explained. "The City of Death."

"The City of Death?" the man repeated.

Bitsy nodded. Her skull earrings swung. "We've got seventeen cemeteries, one million corpses and a funeral home on almost every corner. We've got more famous residents here than Los Angeles — except ours are all dead."

The man looked at her as if waiting for the punch line. "Tina Turner's dog was buried in a fur coat at the Pets Rest Cemetery."

The other corner of the man's mouth quirked, his smile complete. And devastating. "It's Halloween. I'm in Canaan, California, City of Death," he repeated. He studied her, his large palm still shading his face, making the angled lines longer, bolder. "You're a mortician?"

"Restorative artist," she corrected.

The man stared at her a second more before breaking into a spontaneous laugh, his teeth flashing white. Something seized inside Bitsy and tightened. Yearnings remembered, desires denied. She smiled back tentatively. Alive, the man was deadly.

"Okay, what am I doing here?" His laughter stopped.

Bitsy's hesitant smile remained. "The report of your demise is greatly exaggerated?"

Clutching the sheet at his waist, the man began to pace, sidestepping the large drain in the middle. Despite his size, he moved with an unanticipated grace. He stopped and aimed a finger at her. Bitsy pressed tighter to the counter.

"Let's go over this once more. You're Vera the Vampire Vixen." His finger jabbed his bare chest.

"I'm Lazarus." His one hand clutched the sheet while the other panned the room. "And this is Memorial Manor, where they obviously strive to put the 'fun' in funeral."

Unable to give the man the logical explanation he demanded, Bitsy said nothing. The slim glint of a scalpel on the floor near him caught her attention. She took a sideways step toward the instrument fallen from the cart. She was sure there was a reason for what had happened, and the man seemed harm-less...but bottom line, he was a man. A half-naked, very alive man. It was more than enough of a combination to make Bitsy wary.

She inched her body along the counter, closer to the scalpel.