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“No. He wasn’t on site yet. The captain called my boss, and my boss called me. Rollins didn’t come past the door. I’m not sure he even knew we were without boots, which it seems to me he should have.”
Not the best lead detective work, but then he called me for a reason. He clearly felt in over his head and on this one, I can objectively say, who wouldn’t?
“I have on boots. They have them downstairs. And do not ever agree to contaminate a crime scene for political reasons, which is what they gave you, or I will personally beat your ass. Did you tell Rollins what was going on?”
“No, but the captain—”
“You should have told Detective Rollins, who is in charge of this crime scene, and could have called the captain. What is your name?”
“Noah James.”
“All right, Noah James,” I reply. “Where did the water come from?”
“Bathtub. Bloody water dripped through the downstairs tenant’s ceiling. And I don’t carry an FBI badge. I do what I’m told.”
“And I’m telling you right now, you fucked up. Don’t do it again. The man who’s in pieces has to count on us to do him justice. You did him an injustice. Where’s the weapon?”
“You mean the chainsaw? Because we all concur that’s what happened here. Not here,” he adds. “And everyone wants to know how he got it in and out of the apartment and how no one heard it running.”
“Gather the evidence before the water destroys it. That’s what I need you and everyone else to focus on. Has the ME been on the scene yet?”
“Came and went. He said he was going to be of a lot more use in the lab than here.”
Of course, he did, I think. Again, though, who wouldn’t want the hell out of here? “Who was it?”
“John Nguyen.”
The feisty redhead who doesn’t match his name but defends it fiercely. I’ll take him. We need just that kind of attitude on this case. “What else do I need to know?”
“Not much else to tell.”
“Well, find something,” I say.
He gives me a nod and turns away.
“Agent?”
I turn to find Jack still standing on this side of the door. “They’re saying there are plenty of boots. I don’t know what is going on but everyone is too busy to bring them up. Like we aren’t the most important part of this investigation.”
“Unless the killer is in the room right now, we’re only one piece of the puzzle. Call Rollins. Tell him I told you to and get us some damn boots.”
“I did. He had no idea there was an issue. He’s making a call.”
He should have known, and normally I’d burn him alive for this, but this is not a normal crime scene.
I turn away from Jack and curl my fingers into my palms. If we get those boots at all, it’s not going to be fast. That’s just more time for something to get screwed up before I see it. I’m already standing in the river with no warning at all, no signs of blood outside this door, and I want to know how. And did whatever was done to not leave a blood trail, screw something up? John Nguyen knew what he was doing. This is a disaster from start to finish, but I need to just get my job done and get the hell out of here.
I glance down at the water, and will myself to see it as nothing else. It’s time to step back into my Otherland and work this crime scene because I’m not there right now. I fight the urge to draw a deep breath when the air smells of blood and death. Instead, I count to five. That’s all the time I give myself to get my shit together.
And when I look up, I am in the right head space—in my zone—and ready to deal with my phobia after I leave this apartment and not one second sooner.
I also feel eyes on me and I scan the apartment to find Noah standing on the other side of the kitchen bar, staring at me. The freaks and creeps are all around me, and anyone who’s walking around in blood without rubber boots is both. And that makes Noah a freak and a creep.
Chapter Thirteen
I’m contemplating Noah’s motives for carelessly and perhaps intentionally contaminating the crime scene when Jack steps in front of me, slopping fucking bloody water all over the damn place, including me, in the process. His thick skull just can’t take a hint. I turned away from him and offered him a view of my backfor a reason.
“Can you be a little more delicate when dealing with the crime scene? Stop slopping water and blood everywhere. And does this, any of this, even bother you at all?”
