Chapter 4 moves Book 7’s central mystery forward while quietly setting up its most personal subplot. With his apartment move-in favor to Jaz finished, Dean gets word from Tammy about two more calls that fit the same pattern as Stacey’s: a young woman carving unidentifiable runes into her own arm, and an elderly man who overdoses after confessing he needs to “pay” for years of cheating people as a banker. Both patients spoke of guilt and atonement in language that no longer sounds like coincidence.

What makes this chapter satisfying for readers who like their urban fantasy grounded in procedure is Dean’s approach to the problem. He doesn’t just accept Gibbie’s sin eater theory — he pulls up a map, cross-references patient addresses and workplaces, and starts building a real picture of where the sin eater might be operating in Elk City’s downtown business district. It’s classic Station U problem-solving: medical instinct paired with supernatural research, using the tools of the job to track something no ordinary first responder would even believe existed.

Threaded through the investigation is the chapter’s other big reveal: Dean is planning to propose to Jaz, and he’s arranged to meet Gibbie’s diamond merchant contact in the Unusual community to shop for a ring. It’s a small, human counterweight to the mounting sense of dread building around the sin eater plot — a reminder that even as Elk City’s newest threat gathers strength, Dean is still trying to build an ordinary life in the middle of an extraordinary one.

📖 Read more of Dean Flynn’s story — get The Paramedic’s Doom on Jamie Davis’s site:

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The Paramedic’s Doom — Chapter 4

The next two days flew by for Dean. It surprised him when it took him most of both days to get everything put away and the boxes carted down to the recycling bin in the parking lot. He was proud of how much he’d accomplished, though. The apartment was much more homey now that everything was put away in its proper place. Jaz was happy with the results, too. Dean knew she hated everything to do with getting her apartment set up. She wasn’t terribly domestic.

Dean stopped by Jaz’s office on his last trip up from the recycling dumpster. She hunched over her desk, buried in paperwork with her reading glasses on. He knew she was self-conscious when wearing her glasses. Dean didn’t understand what the big deal was. He kind of liked the bookish look on her.

“Hey, I just wanted to let you know I’m all finished upstairs. Maybe we can plan to go out tonight and celebrate?”

Jaz looked up from her work. She shook her head.

“I’m not sure I’m going to be able to get away early enough for dinner. Maybe we can schedule it for another time?”

Dean was a little disappointed, but he tried not to show it. He knew how busy she was with getting security operations ramped back up to the level they were at before her family died.

“We can do that. I do go back to work starting tomorrow night. But maybe after the next round of shifts we can plan to celebrate getting the move completed. Does that work for you?”

“Honestly, Dean, that would be perfect. I should have everything for this new project completed by then. Thank you for understanding.”

“Hey, what kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t cut you some slack for being the upwardly mobile career woman? Since you’re working late though, I think I’ll head back to my apartment for the night. I haven’t been there for a few days. I need to check the mail and look in on the Baxters.”

“That works. I’ll call you tomorrow before you go to work.”

Dean smiled and leaned over her desk, sharing a brief kiss before he turned and left.

He didn’t like how the work stressed her out. She’d never planned to be the executive in charge of her family’s security business. That had always been her brother. She was digging in with gusto, though, which he appreciated. Hard work had rewards of its own and he knew it would pay off for her in the end.

Dean headed out, driving across town to go back to his place. He wasn’t sure his plan would work and he was glad he’d been able to keep the secret of why he really wanted to stay at home tomorrow.

He planned to meet with Gibbie to get together with a diamond merchant the vampire knew in the Unusual community. He knew almost nothing about jewelry but Gibbie’s long experience with all of his girlfriends over the years had made many connections with various jewelers in the area. He’d offered to introduce Dean to one of them and promised to get him a nice discount, too.

The first thing he did when he got home was throw a load of his uniform shirts and pants into the laundry. His landlords, the Baxters, had recently put in a second clothes washer and dryer in the back of their garage right below his apartment. They told him it didn’t make any sense for him to go and spend all his time off at the laundromat when he could do laundry at home.

The Baxters were a sweet old couple who rented him the apartment over their detached garage. They both treated Dean like he was the son they never had. At first, it made him uncomfortable, but over time, he grew to appreciate the way they looked in on him and took the time to get to know the young man who lived over their garage. He’d resolved to pay them back for their kindness with extra chores around their property and home just like he thought a dutiful son would do.

Dean was going to miss living here after he and Jaz got married. He thought they’d miss him, too, though Mrs. Baxter had told him on numerous occasions how much she liked that nice girl he was seeing.

While he was waiting for the laundry to get finished, Dean went ahead and logged in to his work email account from home. On the screen, there were the usual announcements and calendar item emails notifying him of updated training and protocol options for him to get his continuing education credits. He flagged them to look at later while he checked the other two emails that caught his attention. They were both from Tammy and the subject line read “Sin Eater.”

Both emails contained links to patient care reports on calls she and Brooke had been on while he was off. He was logged in to the secure portal system allowing him full access so he clicked on the links and brought up the confidential medical reports on the two patients.

The first was a twenty-two-year-old woman who suddenly displayed cutting behaviors that alarmed her parents. When the paramedics arrived, the woman was carving designs that looked like runes of some kind in her forearm with a box cutter. Tammy had made a note in the report that she could not find any reference to the specific runes during her brief search. The woman had spoken about the need to atone for her past transgressions.

The second report linked dealt with an elderly man who had taken an overdose of pain medication in an attempt to kill himself. When Tammy and Brooke revived him, he told them he had to die to pay for all the people he’d cheated as a banker in the community over the years. There was a note in that report that local police had been informed and we’re looking into the possibility of criminal activity in the man’s past.

After looking through the reports, Dean agreed with Tammy’s assessment that these both sounded like people who had run-ins with the sin eater loose in the community.

On a hunch, Dean pulled up a map of Elk City on the screen and looked up the locations of the two ambulance calls. He also cross-referenced the workplaces listed for each person in an effort to see if their paths might have crossed during the course of the day. While their homes were nowhere near each other, they both worked within a couple of blocks of each other which might indicate the sin eater was somewhere in and around the downtown business district.

It wasn’t much to go on, but Dean figured he and Barry could head out on their shift and pick up a meal in that area while he scouted around to see if he could spot anyone matching the vague description they had for the sin eater.

Dean tapped a reply to one of the emails thanking Tammy for sending him the information. Anything they could do to cut down on the call volume they’d seen over the last several weeks would help. Even a couple of fewer ambulance calls translated to a break in their already busy days.

Dean spent the rest of the evening searching for information among the many myth and legend databases he’d discovered since he started working at Station U. While he waited for his laundry to be done, he typed in every version of sin eater he could think of using different keywords and phrases to learn everything he could about these particular rare creatures. He had to figure out a way to find this Reggie and figure out what dire situation or impending doom was about to occur in Elk City and its surrounding community.

By the time he was finished searching, it was late in the evening, well after midnight. Checking the last load of laundry and bringing the clean clothes upstairs, Dean turned in for the night. He had a busy day tomorrow. He was meeting Gibbie at noon to talk with the diamond merchant. When that was finished, he had to head back home and get ready for work at six o’clock. His first day of night shifts hit on the weekend which always led to a series of exciting 911 calls.

📖 Loved Chapter 4? Get the full story — get The Paramedic’s Doom on Jamie Davis’s site:

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