The following ten minutes, I stood at the counter in the store, staring at Mike. Every time I looked away, my gaze wandered back, like if I didn’t keep an eye on him, he’d get up and start coming after me for a replacement brain. I swallowed the bile threatening its way up my throat.
I wasn’t even able to wait outside. I think my current state—soaked in blood—would worry the neighbors.
When I felt like I couldn’t stand one more second alone in that shop without losing my mind, an ambulance showed up with its lights on but no siren. Three cop cars pulled up, followed by an unmarked car, which Winter and Lancaster climbed out of. They rushed across the sidewalk and to the door, uniformed officers following.
Winter immediately paused when I turned to face him.
“I can explain,” I stated, holding up my bloody hands as an act of submission, but I think it gave off the wrong signal.
“Where is he?” Winter demanded, then looked in the direction I pointed. He turned and gave orders for the store to be checked, and the officers split off to lock down the location. Both Winter and Lancaster pulled SIG P226s from their holsters. Winter moved forward first, with Lancaster following close behind as backup.
Interesting partner dynamic. Iknewshe wasn’t in charge, despite having taken the lead in questioning me the day before.
They were gone for several moments before the scene was declared secure. Officers came back to the front door, a few stepping out to cordon off the front of the shop.
Winter was on his phone, giving stern orders to some unlucky soul on the other end. When he hung up, he was standing near Mike’s body, looking down. He crouched to examine without touching. After a pause, he stood back up, asking for lights to be turned on as he studied the floor.
One of the officers found the shop lights, and I winced slightly as the room blew up white and pushed my sunglasses back onto my nose with a bloody knuckle.
Winter took careful steps around my melted-snow-and-blood trail, eventually making his way back to me. “Mr. Snow.”
“Detective Winter.”
“Do you give all of the men in your life a murder case for Christmas, or just the really special ones?” he asked, hands in his pockets as he stopped to tower over me.
Shit.Why had calling him seemed like a good idea?
“Can I explain?”
“Please,” he said. I swear he nearly growled.
I started to give him an abridged story—Dad’s house to Mike’s shop, to no Mike, to dead Mike. “Want me to tell it to you backward?” I asked after finishing.
“Why?”
“Because you look like you’re sizing me up for a jumpsuit, and if I were lying, it’d be harder for me to get the facts straight backward,” I answered.
That made him snort. “Is that so? Why’d you enter the shop when it was clearly closed?”
“I told you, the door was open.”
“And you didn’t think that was strange?”
“Well—no, I did, but Mike lives right upstairs. I thought maybe he had just run down for something.”
“Why continue when no one answered your entrance?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Something didn’t seem right.”
“Why didn’t you just call the cops?”
“I did.” I pointed at him.
Winter frowned and was silent for a moment, like a man desperately collecting his patience. “What happened when you called me?” he finally continued.
I glanced down at my sticky hands. “In the T display, over in the back. I—there’s a cat back there.”
“A cat?”
