By Juli Monroe
Nickie Elder stepped off the plane in Toronto. At first he was thinking too hard about the case at hand to notice the airport. He'd been asked to consult on a bizarre murder that followed an identical MO as one earlier that year in Sloanville. He checked the name of the M.E. he was supposed to be working with. Natalie Lambert. A pretty name. He wondered what she was like.
Without realizing it, he arrived at the baggage pickup. *Hey,* he thought, *that can't be right.* He'd never been in Toronto, so how'd he know how to get to the baggage claim. He finally took a good look around the airport. Funny, this place looked an awful lot like Sloanville International. He shook his head. Must have been built by the same contractor.
He walked outside and hailed a cab to take him to the Coroner's building. Once settled into the cab, he ran over his notes of the Sloanville case one more time. He glanced out the window of the cab and almost dropped his papers. *Wait a minute. This looks just like Sloanville.* He recognized all the buildings and realized that the cab was taking exactly the route he would have taken to work from the airport, if he had been home instead of in a strange city. There was just one thing different about the skyline; there was the tall, narrow tower thing on the horizon. He wondered what that was, and that single difference allowed him to finally convinced himself that his mind was playing tricks on him. *Working too hard, Nickie boy. Got to take that vacation to the Bahamas. Get away from the formaldehyde fumes. Rots the brain, they do.*
Then the cab pulled up in front of the Coroner's building, and he almost asked the cab driver to take him straight back the airport. The building was exactly like his office at home. Too weird.
He paid the cab driver and walked into the building. Everything was the same, right down to the furniture. He was relieved to notice that the people, at least, were different. He walked over to the information desk.
"I need to see Dr. Natalie Lambert. I'm here to consult on a case."
The clerk behind the desk nodded and checked some papers. "Of course, Dr. Elder. Do you know how to get to her office?"
"No. I've never been here before." He hoped the clerk wouldn't notice the odd quaver in his voice as he said that. She gave him directions, the exact route he would have taken to his office back home.
*That's it,* he thought. *Straight on the plane to the Bahamas as soon as this is over.*
He walked down the eerily familiar halls to Dr. Lambert's office. Any minute, he expected to run into a colleague. He briefly wished Peter Caine were here. He'd know how to handle this. Caine'd seen enough weird stuff with that father of his.
Finally he arrived at Dr. Lambert's office. Yep, exactly where his was at home. He shook his head and walked in. A young woman with a thick mane of auburn hair sat at the desk, busily typing into a computer.
"Dr. Lambert?"
She glanced up. "Yes. May I help you?"
Nickie stepped forward and offered his hand. "I'm Dr. Elder. I'm here to consult about the Miller case."
Dr. Lambert stood up to shake his hand. "I'm really glad you're here. I was just about to do the post. This way."
She led the way out of the office. They discussed the details of the case on the way to the autopsy room. Nickie watched her admiringly as she walked in front of him. She was enough to make him forget how familiar this building was.
Arriving at the room, Nickie and Natalie put on gloves and started to examine the body. During the post, Nickie was constantly distracted by the other coroner. She was really pretty, and somehow on her, formaldehyde smelled good. Eventually, he noticed that she wasn't exactly paying attention to her work either. She seemed to be making excuses to touch his hand or arm, and every time they touched, sparks seemed to jump from the contact.
Finally, he couldn't stand it any more. "Natalie...may I call you that?"
She looked at him with adoring eyes. "Of course, if I may call you Nickie."
"Of course." Suddenly, he felt very shy. "Natalie, in just the..." he glanced at his watch, "...thirty-eight minutes I have known you, I feel such closeness." He shook his head. "I can't explain it. It's like we're meant for each other." He hoped he hadn't gone too far.
Apparently, he hadn't. She reached out and held his latex-gloved hand between hers. "I know what you mean, Nickie." Her eyes grew far away. "How long I've wanted to call someone Nickie instead of..."
Nickie squeezed her hand. "Natalie. Will you marry me?"
Natalie threw her arms around him. "Of course, Nickie. You are the man I've been waiting for all my life."
"Let me take you back home with me. I know this priest who will marry us right away."
She pulled off her gloves and threw them on the ground. "Let's do it Nickie. Right now."
And, hand in hand, they left the autopsy room, their partially dissected patient lying in pitiful abandonment on the table behind them. As they walked together to the front door of the building, Nick Knight entered and saw them. His eyebrows drew together in a frown. Natalie smiled when she saw him.
"Oh, Nick, isn't it wonderful! I'm going to get married." She again turned adoring eyes on Nickie. "I've finally figured out what I wanted, Nick. I didn't want a Nick after all. What I really wanted was a Nickie!"
And Nickie and Natalie swept by the vampire cop like he wasn't even there. He turned as if to say something, but they were gone.
Nickie and Natalie bought tickets for the next flight to Sloanville. The flight wasn't until the next morning, but that was fine. They managed to occupy themselves.
It wasn't until they landed in Sloanville that Natalie noticed something other than the presence of her beloved.
"Nickie," she asked as they walked to the baggage claim. "this airport seems awfully familiar..."