Page 20 of The Turning of the Tables

Rule Two, I tried to remind myself, but every thrust, every brush of calloused fingers on my skin, every drop of sweat that slid down Elliot’s muscular chest, every breath I took that tasted of Elliot’s skin… It was like a drug, filling my lungs and pores. I didn’t want anything else. Anyone else.

One hand closed around my cock, and I could feel what felt like every whorl and ridge of his fingertips, every callus, every bend at the joints. I was trembling on the edge, my body wound so tightly that I could barely breathe. I could feel the throb of every thrust, Elliot burying himself all the way inside my body, his fingers tightening around me, but not moving, all but forcing me to push my hips up to get more friction out of his hand, the motion doing maddening things to the feel of him inside me.

“Fuck,” he gasped out, thrusting hard into me, the fingers at my one hip convulsing as he let out a long, deep moan as he came. The hand around my cock jerked sharply, drawing me after him as I gasped, spilling over his fingers.

God damn Rule Two.

5

ELLIOT CRANE

Why are there so many loud, drunken people outside my window?

SETH MAYS

It’s St. Patrick’s Day.

It’s Wednesday. Does this city think it’s Dublin?

RVA will take any excuse to drink overpriced craft beer.

This city’s a bunch of lightweights.

I wouldn’t tell them that.

I can take them.

I snortedand tucked the phone inside my bunny suit, then pulled on a pair of gloves. I didn’t know if Elliot had any intention of actually going out drinking for St. Patrick’s day at eleven at night on a Wednesday,although he was probably right that he could take out most of the hipsters that I was sure currently populated the streets around Scott’s Addition by Elliot’s hotel.

I spared only a moment to wonder what Taavi and Hart were doing—if Hart was working, as I and almost the entire RPD were, just like every other damn St. Patrick’s Day since I started processing crime scenes.

Even though itwasa Wednesday, we’d had to get some uniforms to come in and keep away the gawkers who wanted to know what was going on by the police tape and flashing lights. The drunker they were, the less likely they were to process that it might be a problem if they tried to scoot either under or over the police tape. And because most of the uniforms were distributed elsewhere dealing with St. Patrick’s Day, we were a little shorthanded on crowd-control.

Andthatmeant that Quincy and I had to keep removing people, then changing gloves so we could go back to evidence collection.

I’d gone through six pairs so far. Quincy was only on three—because I’m a big guy, so I can intimidate drunken people more easily than she can. Also because I told her just to deploy me after the second time, since she kept getting hit on by drunken frat-boy types.

Funny how they don’t hit on me. Not that I want to get hit on at work in any capacity, but somehow I just don’t give off the same vibes as Quincy.

I was trying to keep half an eye on the perimeter while also looking for any trace evidence that wasn’t in the immediate vicinity of the body, which Quincy was documenting. She’d started taking a course in crime scene photography, which was a good thing for us tonight, since our usualphotographer was otherwise occupied, and nobody particularly wanted to wait for her to get here from wherever they had her working. Quincy was a decent photographer in general, and I had no reason to think she wouldn’t be just as good at this.

Detective Fairfield was standing behind Quincy as she took close-ups of the body, staring down at the victim.

That was his ‘thing.’ All detectives have a ‘thing.’ A way they process a crime scene. Hart always gave the body a once-over, then walked the room, looking like he was about to touch everything, although he never did. I assume he still does the same thing, although I no longer have the privilege of doing it with him. Maza looks at pretty much everything except the body—I mean, he does look at it eventually, but he likes to look at the rest of the scene first. Detective Clements talks to herself, softly, under her breath, reasoning through things. Detective Maginot always crouches down next to bodies and inhales, deeply. Maginot is weird. Nice enough, but weird.

Somehow, despite the lack of light and extremely high level of distraction, I still caught the slightly darker smudge on the brick wall, and I pulled my little flashlight out of my pocket to look at it. The stain was dark red, shading toward brown, with that particular not-quite-sheen that drying blood has. I’m not supposed to speculate, but it looked to me like someone had reached out and steadied themselves on the wall before—I looked back the direction I’d come—staggering toward where they fell down dead.

I slipped under the loose crime scene tape, risking moving away from the scene in order to figure out if we needed to expand it.

Another wall smudge.

And then the site of what had clearly been a scuffle on apatch of pavement that looked a little worse for wear. There were a couple loose cobbles—you get those around Richmond, especially the older parts—and the sand from underneath them had been scuffed around in a vaguely circular kind of pattern. I crouched down next to one of the bricks, its surface slightly darker on the top than the bottom. Or, more accurately, what had been its bottom (and was now the top) darker than the sun-exposed and dried top side (on which it was currently lying). That and the sand suggested that someone’s shoe had probably snagged it.

There was another brick, this one broken, smeared with blood. And there were scattered blood drops around the area.

I went back to find a uniform to expand the taped-off area.

I found Schitikova, who had also worked the Johnston scene with me. “We need to expand the scene,” I told him, then explained what I’d found.