I've been looking forward to writing this chapter and I certainly hope I've done it justice.
Thanks as always for reading and for your comments and feedback.

Wynonna laughed. Not a gentle chuckle or a loud belly laugh, but a snigger, snorted through her nose. Like she was five.

"Hot? Seriously? No really what's your name?"

Nicole pointed wordlessly to her lapel badge.

"Oh Haught," Wynonna straightened her amused expression out, aiming for apologetic but falling just a little short. "My bad."

The Earp took another sizeable drink from the bottle and then passed it over. Nicole glanced quickly at the door of the precinct before tipping the bottle back herself.

"So you're new in town, right?"

"Wynonna I've been here for months now -"

"Right, right. So what was it about Purgatory that tickled your fancy? The views? That fresh farm smell? The mortality rate?"

"A few different reasons," Nicole replied vaguely. She'd only had two sips of whiskey so far and wasn't even slightly ready to delve into any great detail about her reasons for being in Purgatory yet. Possibly ever. Least of all with the woman she suspected of connection with town murders. "Guess I thought I'd try out the small town life for a while."

Wynonna snorted again and lifted herself off the corner of the desk. "Pfft. Lemme know how that pans out. Can't say it suits me."

"So why did you come back?" Nicole asked plainly.

Wynonna frowned, eyes narrowed.

"I heard you were out of town for a few years," Nicole shrugged. "If you hate it here why'd you come back?"

Wynonna's eyes dropped to the bottle in her hands as she picked at the label, her voice small. "Family obligations."

She switched expression suddenly, a carefree outward-facing version of herself back in place as she made herself comfy on the floor behind Nicole, leaning against Phelps' empty desk. "You know I was in Athens before? The Parthenon on my left, the Colosseum on my right, Alejandro underneath-"

"The Colosseum is in Rome."

"I'll be honest I wasn't really looking left or right. You wouldn't either if you'd seen Alejandro," she purred, shooting Nicole a wink.

"Probably not my type," Nicole replied. She glanced once more at the doorway.

Screw it, she thought, joining Wynonna on the floor behind the desk and taking the bottle handed to her. "So what happened?"

Wynonna sighed a big sigh. "Just the universe reminding me that apparently half a world away is still not far enough to outrun my small-town origins." She turned, her expression grave though Nicole didn't believe for a moment that she was sincere. "Purgatory digs its small-town nails in deep, Haught, but there could still be time for you. Escape while you can."

Nicole laughed and took another drink. The whiskey's burn had started to fade and settle instead as a gentle warmth in her stomach. She knew that technically this was an under-cover op to find out more for her secret investigation, but she couldn't help but start to relax a little. And what was the harm in that? It's not like she wasn't due a little slack.

"Anyway I got the call my Uncle was dead," Wynonna continued into the silence. "Came back to town and figured I'd hang around for a bit. See who'd missed me."

"And how's that been going?" Nicole smirked and raised an eyebrow, knowing the real answer all-too well.

Wynonna leaned in conspiratorially. "Well I know Nedley's thrilled to have me back. Ol' Randy did always have a soft spot for me."

Nicole laughed and Wynonna snatched back the bottle, waving an authoritative finger in Nicole's face.

"Hey, you might be Nedley's new favourite, but he and I got history." She took a clumsy swig from the bottle, the drink inside sloshing noisily as it slowly gained more space to move around. "This one time, when I got booted from my foster home again-"

"-Again?" Nicole raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, like I'm sure you were a perfect teenager," Wynonna surveyed Nicole for a moment then scrunched up her face. "Actually you probably were, weren't you. Well anyway, I stole the key to my foster dad's liquor cabinet and me and this other kid Lacey got wasted. Nedley had to stay with me at the hospital all night once I got my stomach pumped because Mr and Mrs "pickett-fence" Parsons wouldn't let me back in their house." She nodded triumphantly. "Let me tell you - shit like that bonds you. Me and Nedley: friends for life."

"Yeah I'm sure he's got the arrest paperwork from that night framed above his fireplace," Nicole said dryly.

"Or in the locket round his neck. Close to his heart," Wynonna put a dramatic hand over her chest and raised the bottle with the other.

The pause was momentary before the pair of them laughed.

"Well alright Miss Purgatory's-Finest, what's your story? You lone-wolfing it in this town or you got some people? Boyfriend?"

"Hell no."

"Girlfriend?"

"Not currently."

"Family?"

"Nope, just me," Nicole admitted, taking her turn with the whiskey. The warm feeling was getting warmer. Comfier.

"My kinda girl," Wynonna nodded approvingly.

"I do have a cat though."

Wynonna made a face.

"What, you don't like cats?"

"Pointless animal that steals my spot on the sofa or wants a share of my snacks? No thanks."

"Depends on the snacks I suppose." Nicole thought of the thing she had seen Wynonna eat the most. "Cats aren't generally known for their love of donuts, so they're probably safe."

"Hm. Then I will consider them on species probation."

The word 'probation' triggered a reminder in Nicole's head: the object of this conversation was to extract information out of Wynonna. To get close enough to ask her how she was connected to Jay Novak and Megan Halshford's murder. But as the two women shared small talk and the odd laugh Nicole found herself wanting to disrupt the moment less and less. Despite what everyone said about the Earp and despite her sometimes abrasive behaviour, Nicole thought she was actually alright.

It struck her that maybe Wynonna might even think the same about her. She couldn't think of an occasion where she'd seen Wynonna have a conversation this long with anyone else that wasn't Dolls or Waverly. Given the town-wide knowledge of Wynonna's history it was likely that very few people gave her the time of day, let alone sat down with her for a drink and a chat. The more their whiskey-fuelled conversation went on, the more Nicole felt like maybe Wynonna had really needed a friend to talk to. Someone to just chill out with, no judgements and no pressure.

To be honest, Nicole needed the same thing. It wasn't the person she expected, but she was certainly enjoying Wynonna's company. Although their histories were worlds apart they seemed almost to speak the same language. Without really thinking about it Nicole had started to automatically add the Earp's name to the list of possible allies here in Purgatory.

Then again, maybe the whiskey was helping that along.

"Cats are good mouse-catchers too," she pointed out. "Now mice - mice are the ones that'll go for your donuts."

"Huh. Protectors of donuts. Gotta say, the sound of that doesn't suck," Wynonna said, leaning back against the desk and putting her feet up on the seat of Nicole's chair. "Tell me more."

"Mice'll get into anywhere there's food. Leave a box of donuts out and they'll be gone by morning."

"Dude, who leaves a box of donuts out? You're s'posed to eat 'em. You're doing donuts wrong."

"Well no snacks of any kind go missing in my house," Nicole concluded proudly. "Calamity Jane sees to that."

"Calamity Jane? Seriously?"

"Yup."

"Nice."

Wynonna gave her a sloppy fist bump and grabbed the bottle back again.

"Plus, she keeps me company."

"Well, I got Waves for that."

Lucky you, Nicole thought wistfully. Time to change the subject.

"So where's Dolls tonight then?" She asked, noticing the slight drawl in her own voice as she spoke. Huh. How much whiskey have I even had?

Wynonna rolled her eyes and shrugged with both arms. "I'm standing by for instructions," she said in a deep, mock-Dolls voice. "Not that I was looking forward to Gong Bao chicken or anything. I cleared my whole schedule for a night of Black Badge research, like the good little worker-drone that I am and he just hops out of town for a while on the no-warning cryptic express." She grumbled a few more words under her breath and had another drink.

"So it's not just us Sheriff's deputies that Dolls doesn't keep in the loop then? That's good to know."

"Dolls is…" Wynonna trailed off into silence, trying to figure out what she was trying to say. "I dunno," she said eventually. "I'm still trying to figure him out."

"He one of reasons you stayed in town?" Nicole asked.

Wynonna shrugged. "Mostly Waverly," she said. "I kinda owed her some big-sistering after bailing for so many years."

"I'll bet that means a lot to her," Nicole said softly.

"Well she needed it too. Made some very questionable life choices. Like bubblegum sake and Champ the nine-second wonder."

Nicole let out an angry 'ugh' noise at the open room. Wynonna smirked and nodded.

"Another one for team 'Champ is a douchebag'," she said, handing the bottle back again. "I like your style Haught. Always refreshing to find someone in this town that doesn't think the sun shines out of his non-existent, denim-coated ass."

"Champ's a chump," Nicole declared.

"Yesss," Wynonna nodded vigorously. "And doesn't have even a single chest hair. Man boy."

"Boy-man!" Nicole cried excitedly. "That's what I call him."

"Dude, yes."

"Y'know, he tried to talk his way out of a speeding ticket once. Tried that cheesy smile thing."

"Ugh, tell me you didn't let him off."

"Like hell I did. That's the best damn ticket I ever issued."

"Officer Haught, you're kind of my hero a lil' bit."

Nicole laughed, her head filled with Waverly and her stomach filled with whiskey, her plan to interrogate Wynonna now almost forgotten entirely.

"Best day since I came back to this hell hole was when Waves said she'd finally sent his non-ass packing. I swear to Ellen if she takes that man child back I'll kick her ass into next century."

"You're a good sister."

"Pfft. I'm a terrible sister," Wynonna stared heavily out into the relative darkness of the bull pen. "But I'm trying to be there for her. I'm doing my best." Nicole watched the introspection pass over Wynonna's features once again before she shrugged it off in favour of mild indignance. "And how does she thank me? By waiting until I'm out working all night and throwing a secret party."

"That's harsh, man."

"Stupid party," Wynonna grumbled, lifting the bottle again. "You know exactly who she invited too. Chrissy Nedley."

"What? Sheriff's daughter?" Nicole had met Chrissy a few times when she'd dropped by the station for a ride home with her dad. She'd always been quiet and courteous and hadn't struck Nicole at all as the type of person to hang out with the girls she'd seen earlier at the diner. Then again, neither had Waverly.

"Mm-hmm! And Stephanie Jones. You know, one time, Stephanie told me that I should think about getting a butt lift."

After crossing paths with Stephanie Jones earlier Nicole was very prepared to believe it was something she'd say. She was still appalled. To be fair, Wynonna had a great ass. Stephanie was clearly just jealous.

"What?! Your ass is like... It's top shelf, man. It's top shelf."

"Thanks." Wynonna gazed ahead, dipping back into her serious trains of thought. "Have I pulled Waves too close?"

Nicole understood what she was asking. Wynonna couldn't be oblivious to the way Waverly played town chameleon, friend to all and nicest person around. And clearly her behaviour since Wynonna's return to town had changed. They'd gotten closer and spent more time together, and according to team 'Mean Girls' at the diner this had translated to an outward appearance of acting weird and un-Waverly-ish.

And now she was throwing a party, keeping it a secret from Wynonna and inviting Purgatory's answer to the Plastics. Was Waverly missing her life without her big sister around?

Nicole considered it for a moment. Perhaps it was true that Waverly wanted to reclaim a bit of her life from before Wynonna's arrival and whatever disruption that had caused. But she'd still broken up with Champ. She still hung around the BBD offices all the time. She was still… her. Perhaps even more so than she usually was. All that meant was that she was doing what she wanted, and to hell with everyone else. Maybe even including Wynonna. The conclusion was clumsy and smelled faintly of whiskey, but Nicole felt like it was still probably true.

"You know, I think that Waverly has spent her whole life tailoring who she is to the people she's with." She smiled at the thought. "She's only now just starting to figure out what she really wants."

Anyone observing the conversation would probably have been one hundred percent aware at this point of Nicole's feelings for Waverly. Hell, at this point anyone observing them right now would probably have a better grasp of Nicole's feelings for Waverly than Nicole did herself. Wynonna however seemed to be permanently checked into motel oblivious and didn't read the lovelorn undertones in the officer's expression as anything other than sage wisdom.

"Dude, you're like a walking bumper sticker," she said, awed. Nicole chuckled, as Wynonna continued. "Who's armed! Waverly should be hanging out with you."

"I agree."

She wondered what Waverly was doing right now, partying at the Earp homestead with a gaggle of two-faced bitches who didn't deserve her company. She wondered if they'd be drunk too. Drunk too? Oh dear was she drunk? She tried to think about how much whiskey she'd drank and realised even as the thought was crossing her mind that she was bringing the bottle up to her lips again. Whoops.

Wynonna distracted her from her thoughts by lurching forward to grab the photo that Nicole had cast under her desk earlier.

"Who's this? Who's this lady?"

She overbalanced and couldn't seem to right herself again so Nicole pulled her back by her belt with a laugh. She sighed as Wynonna brought the photo with her.

"That is victim number 3." Nicole put the bottle down with a clink. She knew she probably shouldn't pick it up again.

"Same guy killed 3 women?"

Nicole sighed. "Yeah, killing them was only the start." She reached up and grabbed the full case file from her desk, opening it to look again at the carnage within. "Joyce Arbour. She's 22. We found her Wednesday morning, and the cause of death appears to be multiple lacerations, but of course, the autopsy report is practically illegible."

Wynonna took the crime scene photo and looked over it.

"Dolls picked a great time to go AWOL."

Nicole watched the Earp carefully. Wynonna looked at the photos intensely and under that intensity there was…. Disgust? Sadness? Rage? Like the murder was an affront to her, personally? And there was uncertainty, panic, fear. Like she was adrift without a life-line. Without Dolls, Nicole figured. But she wanted to do something. To take action. To help.

Nicole could relate to that.

"Uh, I need to see the body," she said, turning to Nicole.

Wait what? Right now, in the middle of the night? Nicole frowned. It wasn't a BBD case. Was the Earp's interest professional or personal? She seemed pretty spooked. Wynonna's expression was urgent and her sincerity was clear and - and was her nose bleeding?

"Earp, your face…" Nicole gestured to her own nose vaguely. Wynonna mirrored the action and her fingertips came back bloodied.

Nicole was waiting for the snarky quip that Wynonna would undoubtedly make to add some levity to the moment, but it never came. She just looked wordlessly from the red on her fingertips to the photos in her lap. The silence dragged on uncomfortably long and Nicole actually started to wonder if the Earp had forgotten there was anyone else in the room.

She cleared her throat and reached up to her desk drawer for the pack of tissues she kept there. She handed one to Wynonna who dabbed roughly at her face.

"Um, where's the body kept?" she asked.

"Earp, it's nearly one in the morning," Nicole said plainly. "And the body is evidence in an active investigation."

"Yeah, and I'm basically a cop."

"No you're not."

"Alright I'm not a cop, but you are and I am a Black Badge Deputy and we're on the same side here." Wynonna got to her feet, grabbing the bottle on her way up.

"Yeah but it's not a Black Badge investigation," Nicole pointed out.

"Well maybe now it is," Wynonna retorted. "I seem to recall you were supposed to be bouncing cases that seemed hinky over to us?"

Nicole clenched her jaw. It was one thing for Dolls, the physical embodiment of government spook, to pull rank and play the jurisdiction card, but it was another entirely when the same sentiment came from a drunken deputy who had probably spent as much time in a cop car as Nicole had, but for the opposite reason. She pulled herself up to her feet and stepped just close enough to Wynonna to make the height difference apparent.

"And what exactly is it that you think is 'hinky' about this case?"

Wynonna took a big gulp of whiskey, never breaking eye-contact. "Let's go find out shall we?"

She marched off towards the door, photos still in hand. Nicole hesitated for a moment. She'd tried and failed to build bridges with Black Badge through Dolls. It was abundantly clear that he was going to keep her on the outskirts of any cases they were working on. It could be that this - that Wynonna - really was the window not only to the weird goings on in town, but also the agency that was looking into them.

Strictly speaking, marching down to the morgue in the middle of the night with someone who wasn't on the case was not the protocol she was supposed to follow. Then again, neither was sharing a bottle of whiskey on the bull pen floor. And Wynonna was a deputy. And she had sort of made an 'official' statement about BBD involvement. She was basically consulting. And so long as Wynonna was escorted by an official member of the Sheriff's Department it couldn't hurt right?

Nicole tried not to think about whether she would have arrived at the same conclusion had she been one hundred percent sober, and jogged after the Earp, case file in hand.

It was pretty old fashioned these days to have the police morgue on the same site as the station. In basically every other town that Nicole had ever heard of, the morgue was part of a forensics lab complex in a totally different site, or in some cases even just doubled up as the hospital morgue. Purgatory of course was a little behind the times and the morgue was part of a lower basement end of the sprawling municipal building. Mostly the medical examiner's staff never crossed paths with the other building users, them having their own entrance around the block and having little need to venture up to the Sheriff's offices. There was however, a labyrinthian route within the building that connected the two. Nicole led the way, through the empty corridors, past the legal offices and down the stairwell to the basement level.

She pushed through the door to the morgue, grateful that the MEs seemed to have left a light on inside. The cold, heavy stench of death greeted them like a sharp smack in the face and if Nicole hadn't already felt like she was sobering up, she definitely was now.

"Ah, eww," Wynonna grumbled.

"Yeah, they say you get used to the smell," Nicole replied, going to check the toe tag of the body laying on the slab closest. One glance at the corpse's face and she knew it wasn't Joyce Arbour, but she wondered if she'd recognise the name from elsewhere. She didn't, but she tried to make a mental note to check the name elsewhere. The morgue was a little too full for her liking and she wondered if any other of these deaths had suspicious circumstances surrounding them.

"I spent a summer's probation on roadkill removal. Pfft! This is nothing." Nicole was once again reminded that Wynonna lived in a very different world than she did. By all accounts it seemed like she'd be an unlikely candidate for working in any kind of law enforcement.

Which led a whole new question to emerge in Nicole's mind: why was Wynonna working for the BBD? She seemed to have no great love for the job, so why did she do it?

She checked over the other bodies in the room and came eventually to the tag they were looking for.

"And here she is. Joyce Arbour."

The body was entirely covered with a white sheet. Nicole felt a shiver run down her back. It was just a body and she'd already seen the autopsy pictures so she knew what she was about to see, but somehow there was an added tension in the room about the corpse under the sheet.

Wynonna approached slowly, staring intently at the sheet like she could see through it. She put the whiskey bottle down on the slab beside the body's hand.

Seriously? Did it really not even cross her mind not to contaminate evidence? Nicole stifled a stern 'tut' and pulled the bottle out of the Earp's hand with a reproachful glare. Wynonna barely noticed as the bottle was taken from her and placed on the floor, focused instead on reaching forwards to pull the sheet back from Joyce Arbour's face.

Nicole looked over Wynonna's shoulder at the woman below, who bore an eerie resemblance to the Earp herself. "She kind of looks like you, Wynonna."

Wynonna pulled the sheet back further, revealing the grotesquely stapled incisions carving a 'Y' across the front of Joyce Arbour's body.

"Jesus Christ! Who did this?" Wynonna murmured, horrified.

"Someone who knew what they're doing," said a voice behind them.

Nicole blamed it on the creepy scenario, the lateness of the hour and the fact that she'd been drinking but she nearly jumped out of her skin, her hand flying to the gun on her belt as she whirled around to face the speaker. It was a small, greying man in scrubs and a lab coat with eyes wide in a 'deer in the headlines' kind of expression. Nicole took some comfort in the fact that he seemed to have startled Wynonna too. She was somewhat surprised to find the Earp could be scared like that, but grateful at least that she hadn't been alone. She took a deep breath, calming her spiked heart rate as Wynonna shouted angrily at the new participant to their conversation.

"Dude! This is a morgue, wear a bell or something, OK?"

"Sorry. Once a ninja, always a ninja." The man lifted his foot up to show off the shoe covers he was wearing. "Plus I forget I'm wearing these cotton balls for shoes. They help absorb the smell." He paused, like he was waiting for them to make comment on it. Nicole tried for a friendly smile, but it was somewhat strained by her still elevated heart rate, the general weirdness of the situation and the total lack of anything to really say in response to that.

"But you two pretty ladies don't care about that. Um, I'm Dr. Reggie, the unlucky SOB who has to make sure the dead don't rise again."

"You suck at your job," Wynonna said, like she knew something the other two didn't. Like there was some zombie wandering around Purgatory that they didn't know about.

Dr. Reggie was understandably confused. "Uh, excuse me?"

"Never mind." Wynonna dismissed the statement, turning her attention back to the body and moving around to the other side of the slab.

Nicole decided that asking her what she had meant was a question for later, and turned back to Dr. Reggie, holding up the case file. "Did you do this autopsy report?"

Dr. Reggie took a look at the paperwork. "Uh... If I'd done this, I wouldn't have misspelled 'breasts'. I can tell you something about the body. Did my own examination."

"Anything unusual or creepy about the wounds or the way she died?" Wynonna asked carefully. Again, Nicole felt a subtext to the question, like Wynonna knew something about it already and was expecting a particular answer.

"Well, she died because humans can't survive when their organs are removed," Dr. Reggie said matter-of-factly before taking a casual bite of a strawberry Twizzler.

Nicole stared. Twizzlers in the morgue? Seriously, did anyone around here care about protocols?

"She was alive when he took them out?" Wynonna asked.

"Correct. But the incision isn't what killed her. He drugged her, hooked her up to an IV, a blood bag, just like any surgeon would doing open heart or intestinal surgery," Dr. Reggie reeled off the explanation like it was nothing, apparently oblivious as Nicole and Wynonna shared a horrified glance at each other. "But here is the uber-weird part," he went on, leaning in and gesturing to the lacerations with his half-chewed Twizzler. "The wounds were cauterized as they were made."

Nicole felt queasy and she knew it had nothing to do with the combined smell of death and strawberry candy.

"So he cut her open with something hot?" she said in disgust. What kind of blade would even do something like that?

"Like lightsaber hot," Dr. Reggie confirmed, a little to enthusiastically for Nicole's liking, taking another bite of Twizzler. Man, coroners were weird.

Wynonna was leant over Joyce's body, staring so hard at the woman's face that Nicole almost expected it to burst into flames.

"Hellfire hot," she murmured darkly.

Nicole turned back to Dr. Reggie. "Alright, so you remove the organs if you're gonna sell them on the black market. Why would you take 'em out and then put 'em back in?"

This case was just piling up with weird. It was messed up enough that someone would brutally murder three people, let alone desecrate their bodies for reasons that seemed completely nonsensical. Whoever they were dealing with was one sick puppy and Nicole was starting to get the disturbing feeling that Wynonna had some idea of who it was.

"Maybe somebody was looking for something," Wynonna said, still just staring at the body.

"You keep looking at her neck…" Dr. Reggie said curiously.

Wynonna looked up. "Yeah, there's a welt." Dr. reggae frowned and sped around to the other side of the slab. Nicole leaned over the body to get a slightly better view of the mark Wynonna was pointing to. "Dude, I saw on the photos it's the shape of a spade, like on a deck of cards."

Wynonna was right - there it was, plain as day for anyone to see. Nicole found herself unsurprised was starting to really question the competency of Dr. Reggie and wondered if it was worth making a note on her personnel file asking that in the event of her death the autopsy be conducted by someone else.

"Sweet crickets! I missed that entirely." Nicole rolled her eyes.

The mark itself was hard to figure out and Nicole wasn't sure she would have realised it was a spade unless Wynonna had pointed it out.

"What would have caused that?" she murmured.

"Well, she was hit by something in the shape of a spade, right?" Wynonna looked to Dr. Reggie for confirmation.

"I mean, sure, yeah. Or it could have been prolonged pressure." He looked up at Wynonna with a smile that was wholly inappropriate for the situation. "Did, uh, you study forensics?"

Before Wynonna could deliver whatever undoubtedly curt retort was headed for Dr. Reggie the silence was cut by the sound of footsteps. Slow, deliberate and echoing around the morgue - possibly from the room above? Or the hallway? The three looked around, trying to place the source of the sound and Nicole's hand automatically drifted back to rest on the gun at her side. The footsteps stopped and were followed by a gentle electronic bleep.

Dr. Reggie and Wynonna looked past Nicole's shoulder and she turned to look at the bright blue light on the far wall that had just illuminated. Nicole felt her heart rate jump a little. Not in the good way.

"Someone just went into the cooler. You guys come alone?" Dr. Reggie looked back to Wynonna.

"I don't know, did we?" It was like Wynonna had wandered out of a bad horror movie and if Nicole didn't one hundred percent believe the wary expression on the Earp's face, she'd have suspected the whole thing to be an elaborate prank to scare her. It seemed like the kind of stupid stunt that teenagers would pull if they found themselves half-drunk in the middle of the night, in a place with the creep-factor cranked up to eleven. But her eyes met Nicole's and her hand went for the buntline special at her hip, and Nicole was certain this wasn't a joke. She unclipped her own gun holster ready. Ready, she realised, to work with Wynonna. Was she actually following Wynonna's lead? Or maybe Wynonna was following hers? She wasn't exactly sure. She gave the Earp a nod though and knew that whichever way round it was, they were definitely both on the same page: someone was in the cooler that shouldn't be.

"Is there more than one way of getting inside the cooler?" Wynonna asked slowly.

"Uh, yeah. Rear exit."

"Alright, I got it," Nicole drew her gun and headed for the door to the hallway. She turned as she walked away and added, "-don't shoot me, Earp."

She stepped out into fluorescently-lit corridor, eyes alert. Wynonna and Dr. Reggie emerged from the morgue behind her and went to the first door on the left: the main door to the cooler. Nicole and the Earp exchanged nods and she headed down the hallway towards the coroner's offices and the rear exit. She turned the corner, passing the double doors that led outside and up the ramp to the street, where bodies were delivered and collected. She gave the door handles an experimental tug: locked tight, as they should be.

Gripping her pistol tightly she moved past the offices and towards the door at the far end of the corridor, where a similar blue light above indicated that someone was inside. She took a deep breath and tried to slow her pulse. The corridor felt longer than it should have. Was it a trick of the light? Was it because she still had a few glasses' worth of whiskey inside her? Maybe it was simply because she was alone in the hallway now, trying to look both in front and behind herself as she went, determined not to let anyone get the drop on her.

She tried the handle. It wouldn't budge. Again, locked as it should be.

"Nicole?!" It was faint, but urgent - Wynonna's voice calling her name. She sped back down the hallway and around the corner. The light was off above the main cooler door by the time she reached it and she just caught sight of Dr. Reggie heading back into the morgue. She jogged after him.

"The door was locked, I couldn't get in," she said as she stepped into the room with the others, stopping dead in her tracks with a sickened lurch in her stomach at what greeted her.

Joyce Arbour's head was turned to face them, her dead, glassy eyes open and staring, a playing card stuffed in her mouth. Nicole desperately wanted to look away but the body's cold, dead stare had her caught in a terrifying trance. It was like someone was in there, looking out through her. She felt a cold, sick feeling throughout her body, goosebumps crawling over every inch of her skin. Wynonna turned around, her expression capturing exactly how Nicole felt. She noticed the glint of red at Wynonna's nostril again.

"Jesus, Wynonna…"

The Earp touched a hand to her nose and then gazed from the blood on her fingertips to the body on the slab, her breathing unsteady. Nicole had never seen her like this before. She was stunned, confused and shaken, like someone was inside her head, messing with her. Toying with her. As far as Nicole could see, that was exactly what was happening.

"Here, I'll get you some cotton balls," Dr. Reggie offered, moving towards one of the supply cupboards.

Nicole watched him carefully. He didn't seem too distressed that a body in his morgue had been tampered with. Perhaps it was all the the time spent around dead bodies, making him somewhat desensitized. Perhaps it was something else... As far as she knew though he'd been in the cooler with Wynonna, so he couldn't have been the one to set this up. And even if he had run back, lightning fast, and messed with the body… Why? What would be the point?

Besides, the card in Joyce Arbour's mouth looked like a spade. That couldn't be a coincidence.

"No, forget it, I'm fine," Wynonna said not sounding fine at all, wiping at her nose and pushing past the others and out the door.

Nicole gaped wordlessly as Wynonna simply abandoned the situation, marching back down the hall towards the stairwell. Nicole looked from the doorway, to the body then back to Dr. Reggie.

"Did you do this?" she asked plainly.

"Christ, no!" he replied, finally having the good grace to look appalled.

Nicole clenched her jaw and grabbed the case file that Dr. Reggie had left on the nearby slab.

"Photograph the tampering and bag that playing card," she instructed, heading for the door to follow the Earp. "I'll be back here in the morning to ask you some more questions. I suggest you go home, in case there actually is someone else in the building."

Dr. Reggie nodded vigorously as Nicole jammed her gun back in its holster and sped after Wynonna, keeping her eyes peeled as she went for any sign of another person lurking around any corners. Logically there was no way anyone else could be in the building that shouldn't. The exterior doors that didn't already require security codes to open were locked up for the night before the majority of staff went home. But somebody must have disturbed the body. She checked doors as she went, making sure all were locked - which they were.

I'm not sure what's worse, she thought grimly as she returned to the bullpen, finding someone or not finding someone. Whoever had been there seemed to have disappeared.

Wynonna was pacing in a distracted circle by the front desk, picking agitatedly at her fingernails. Nicole wasn't sure what to say. The whole experience obviously had the Earp completely disoriented.

"Wynonna-"

"-Dammit, left my drink downstairs," Wynonna muttered, looking at her empty hands.

"Oh I'm sure Dr. Reggie won't have drunk it all yet," Nicole said dryly, dropping the case file back on her desk. "Maybe the walk back down there will help… clear your head?"

"Pfft!" Wynonna scoffed, heading instead for the break room.

Nicole followed, trying hard not to get mad at Wynonna's obvious plan to just breeze past what had just happened in the morgue downstairs. She huffed irritably. Nicole didn't care if the case was Black Badge jurisdiction, there was no way that the 'classified' excuse was going to fly today. Something was going on and Wynonna was knowing more than she was admitting. It was time for some answers.

In the break room, Wynonna was rifling through the cupboards, presumably in pursuit of some kind of beverage to calm herself down.

"Nobody keeps booze in here, Wynonna," Nicole pointed out, leaning against the table. She paused and then added: "Except you. You want to tell me what the hell is going on?"

"Yeah. Dry morgue air is murder on the schnoz."

"Bullshit! I think somebody's trying to scare you, toy with you. Why?"

"I picked up this case, like, an hour ago, how could…"

"It be connected to you? Yeah, I would really like to know that too. People getting eaten by something? Call Wynonna. Guy gets murdered by a man in a mirror? Yup, Wynonna to the rescue."

Nicole hadn't intended it to turn into a mini-rant but her frustration about being kept so blatantly in the dark was starting to force its way out. She knew that, strictly speaking, it was the BBD not Wynonna that they called, but Nicole was starting to see a blur forming in the line between the two. As she spoke, Wynonna stopped hunting through the cupboards and turned slowly to look at her, an entirely different expression on her face. The relatively open and chatty Wynonna that Nicole had been hanging out with was gone. She straightened up and leaned casually against the counter, wearing a superior kind of expression that Nicole recognised straight out of the Deputy Marshall Dolls playbook. She knew she'd pushed too far and was about to get the 'classified' speech, albeit Wynonna's very own version.

"Black Badge specializes in cases that are, uh, too complex for rookie flatfoots, so it makes sense that you're a bit confused."

Nicole found herself nodding in almost disbelief at the gall of it.

"I'm not."

Wynonna's eyes narrowed and she took a step forwards.

"Alternately... I don't suppose you have a deck of playing cards in this utility belt, huh?" Wynonna made to reach out for the pouch at Nicole's waist.

Nicole flinched automatically and peeled back harshly at the accusation, a whole different kind of disgust bubbling up inside her. What? Was Wynonna seriously implying what she thought she was implying. She scowled and straightened up, making full use of the height she had on the woman in front of her. She didn't generally go for threatening or aggressive behaviour, but the Earp had crossed a line. She didn't care if it was the drink or if it was ridiculous paranoia talking - she found the accusation revolting.

"Excuse me?"

"How do I know you didn't double back to mess with the body?" Nicole simply gaped, part of her simply astonished that Wynonna had just come right out and said it and part of her feeling stupid for being so surprised. Had she seriously thought this woman could be her friend?

"Yeah, you're awfully interested in me and my sister," Wynonna went on, laying as much threatening undertone into her voice as possible. "Maybe I should be grilling the shit out of you. Maybe you're the crazy one."

Nicole felt a minor tug at her insides at the mention of her interest in Waverly, but it was fleeting. Mostly she just felt hurt. Sad. Angry. Angry that Wynonna was such a mess, such a wreck of a person that her first reaction when things got dark was to lash out and push people back. That she was so paranoid and angry and - yes, maybe so crazy - that she couldn't even trust a cop.

And suddenly Nicole felt like she could see it: the thing everyone else in town saw when the watched Wynonna go by. She could see the aggressive, crazy ball of rage that had hurt so many people and made such a mess of peoples' lives.

And a small voice, deep inside of her knew that she was seeing things this way because she too felt hurt. Because Wynonna was building up a barrier between them and because she was getting so tired of being fed the same bullshit about the town mysteries that she thought she was going to burst. Which was why she aimed for something equally sharp and spiteful to say in return.

"You of all people should know better than to try to make me question my sanity."

She turned on her heel and strode out of the room, marching back to her desk. She sat down and place both palms flat on the desk surface, taking a deep breath. She looked at the clock; still a few hours before her relief came on duty. She glanced at the Joyce Arbour file and then pointedly tidied it away with the stack of papers in her tray. She could have kept looking into it now. Could have gone back down to the morgue to ask Dr. Reggie a few more questions, but she wasn't sure she would be able to keep a clear enough head not to lose her shit with him if he didn't answer.

She felt so angry. It was anger she didn't know what to do with. Anger built up from all the closed doors, classified cases and non-answers that she'd been facing for weeks. Perhaps Wynonna was just the catalyst. Perhaps it wasn't really her fault.

Nicole looked up as Wynonna walked past her at that moment, silently disappearing into the Black Badge offices without even a glance in her direction.

No, Wynonna had definitely been a dickhead. And she was angry about that too. Angry that Wynonna was close enough to whatever was going on that she must have at least some of the answers, but wouldn't share them. Angry that someone who perhaps didn't even deserve to wear a badge was able to investigate things that she, a top-of-her-class cop, couldn't. Angry that she would speak to Nicole that way and that she would dare to accuse her of something so vile. Angry that she clearly needed help, but would rather offend and reject a potential friend than open up.

She took another deep breath and grabbed at the speeding fine paperwork she had lined up in front of her. She dug her pen unnecessarily hard into the paper as she worked and decided that she was done with Wynonna Earp, just like that. There was no helping someone that couldn't be helped and she'd be a fool to bother trying again.

"Haught, it's Wynonna Earp."

Nicole grit her teeth and clenched the telephone receiver in her hand a little tighter.

"What do you want?" she asked shortly?

Wynonna had stormed out of the precinct just over an hour beforehand without a backwards glance or goodbye. And she hadn't even locked the door after her.

"Look I know I'm not winning any Officer-Girl-Scout-points with the show I put on earlier but I need your help."

Nicole laughed hollowly. "You're kidding right?"

"I'm serious. Some shit went down at the homestead tonight and I still can't get hold of Dolls and I just. I just need you to come down here alright?"

Nicole felt her chest tighten. "What kind of shit?"

There was a contemplative sigh from the other end of the line, followed by a pause.

"Well look I've got bodies that are gonna need dealing with-"

"What?" Nicole hissed. "Is Wa-" she corrected herself quickly. "Is anyone hurt?"

"No! Well… I mean, yeah obviously, but nobody we know. Well, nobody we like. Some creeps tried to get into the house. It didn't work out so well for them."

Nicole tried to focus, her heart racing in her chest. Wynonna hadn't mentioned Waverly. That meant she had to be ok. Whatever had happened, Waverly had to be ok. She forced the panic aside.

"Wynonna you're calling in a crime-scene, you gotta give me some information to work with here."

"Shit, Haught no. This isn't a case for Purgatory's finest, I just need your help. Off the record."

Off the record? She can't be serious.

"Wynonna I'm a goddamn cop. You can't tell me there was an incident at your homestead and that there are bodies to deal with and ask me not to follow protocols."

Wynonna groaned irritably down the phone. "Ugghhh what good is being friends with a cop if you're just gonna be Queen narc. I just need you to help me with this until I can call in the Black Badge cavalry."

Nicole rolled her eyes and grit her teeth. "Wynonna, you're a Deputy. If Black Badge has jurisdiction then fine. Investigation's yours and we'll put the bodies on ice until you can reach your bosses but as of this moment you've reported a serious crime and I will be calling it in."

There was another pause on the line.

"You can do that? Just, pop the dead guys in the fridge on hold?"

"Wynonna, I'm not gonna let you hide bodies at your house until your spook-tastic boss arrives," Nicole said firmly, grabbing her cell phone and her keys from her drawer, readying herself to leave. "I'm calling Nedley and the coroner's team-"

"No, not Nedley. For real, not Nedley."

"He's the Sheriff, Earp."

"He'll full-scale freak out. It's better if you don't know why. Just… just get here ok? No Nedley."

She hung up.

Nicole glared at the receiver as if her death-stare would somehow reach Wynonna through it, and took another deep breath.

This is like the longest night of my life, she thought wearily, making the mistake of thinking the worst had already passed.