Page 6 of Cadaver Lab: Mind Over Murder

Ignoring Gabe’s comment Natalie turned to Liam and saw how delighted he looked at how the proceedings had devolved.

“Schadenfreude,” she said in his direction with a scowl.

“Schadenfreude?” he repeated.

“Schadenfreude,” she said again with a definitive nod.

“Are you having a bout of some sort of German-language Tourette syndrome?” he asked.

“No. It means taking pleasure in someone else’s misfortune,” she explained.

“I know what it means. I just never expected the word to come spontaneously shooting out of my girlfriend’s mouth.”

“It’s not spontaneous. It’s you. Here. Now. Taking pleasure in Harper’s misfortune,” she said softly but with fervor.

“Oh, come on. Tell me your bestie Gabe over there isn’t enjoying this display of Mudville insanity at its finest.”

Turning to look, she saw it looked as though Gabe was indeed deeply enjoying the melee too.

What was wrong with these men? She was surrounded by male idiocy.

When she didn’t answer him, Liam followed up with, “I’ll take your silence as confirmation that Gabe too finds this display ridiculous? Ha! I knew it. Come on, Nat. Just admit it. This is entertaining.”

“For once I completely agree with the big guy. Tell him that for me,” Gabe said.

“No,” Natalie answered Gabe, refusing to be his living interpreter. “And where is Millie anyway? Why are you here alone?”

If Millie were here, she and Gabe combined had the power to be heard by all livings, freeing Natalie from having to act as go between.

“New episode of Real Housewives,” Gabe said, without taking his eyes off Harper and her renewed verbal sparring battle with Pompous Doug.

“Why is Millie not here?” Liam asked, as always looking annoyed when he could only hear Natalie’s half of the conversation.

“New Real Housewives is on,” she answered.

Liam’s brow furrowed. “Jeezus. That girl lived a happy afterlife for a hundred and five years without the benefit of train-wreck television. One year of being exposed to you, Gabe and Harper and now she’s a television-obsessed couch potato.”

“Hey! Watch what you’re saying over there, buddy,” an insulted Gabe leaned forward to say over Natalie, even though Liam couldn’t hear or see him.

“Stop. Both of you.” These men! It was like refereeing children. And Natalie wasn’t even getting paid to babysit them.

Another intense, “Shhh!” from Alice helped to silence the boys in men’s bodies and finally the two quieted. Only then could Natalie concentrate on following the conversation…if it could be called that. It had become less presentation and more free-for-all as the minutes ticked by.

“None of the characters are actually any of you,” Harper tried to say over the noise.

“The sexy neighbor is obviously me. Though I never flirted with the UPS driver like you wrote.”

“No, it was the Amazon delivery guy instead!” someone shouted from the back.

“That’s not as bad as what she said about me. She wrote I made everyone sick at the church dinner with my cooking.”

“That wasn’t about you. I needed a scene in the book for comic relief.”

"You were horribly critical about some of the library's policies.”

“That was just a plot device to build tension⁠—”

“She called our town bar a dive!”