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“Don’t worry about it, doggo. You’re not the problem, anyway.”
Which wasn’t entirely true. He wasn’t causing me any additional physical pain, but the damn dog beingworriedabout me was making it hard for me to swallow my already somewhat dry peanut butter and cheese sandwiches. But I needed the calories and the protein, so I made myself eat them anyway.
It was almost one before I managed to get my brain shut off enough to even think about sleeping, but at least I wasn’t stupid enough to try sleeping on the couch. I was going to be in enough pain as it was.
13
Two days later,and I still felt like I’d been run over by a goddamn Mack truck. When I’d managed to drag my sorry ass out of bed the day after the riot, I’d called Raj and given him the description of the dickweed who had shoved me into the MFM protestors.
Raj had opened a file and also freaked out at me for a good ten minutes.
I told him to shut the fuck up because I was really sick of both people and animals—or people-who-were-animals—freaking out at me.
I’d woken up to Taavi’s nose literally in my face and had gotten a whine within seconds of opening my eyes. Doc had texted twice, then called when I didn’t respond to the texts because I was taking an hour long shower to try to become a functional person with movable limbs.
When I’d dragged my ass to work, Dan Maza had fussed at me, Captain Villanova had fussed at me, Caro had fussed at me, and Bowman had fussed at me.
Everybody else had given me funny looks that ranged fromoh-shit-I-hope-that-doesn’t-happen-to-metotoo-bad-the-bastard-didn’t-die.
I really dislike being the center of attention, but, thanks to Dan’s heroic recounting of the day, I absolutely was.
And Dan had also apparently called Raj, who’d texted me to say he had two additional witness statements on my assault. I had no idea who the other one was, but I was glad there was at least one other person on the goddamn force who thought fragging the elf was a problem. It would’ve been nice to know who had my back, but I figured either way it meant my odds were slightly improved.
I’d willingly spent the day doing paperwork, since as long as I stayed at my desk, I didn’t actually have to stand up and move, and standing up and moving was very bad.
At least until Villanova walked out into the bullpen and barked “Hart!” at the top of his lungs.
I looked up. “Sir?”
“Short Pump condo complex. Looks like another one of those magical disappearing bullets.”
Fuck.
“Yessir.” I painfully pushed myself to my feet and grabbed Taavi’s leash. He was on his three good feet in a flash, a soft whine pushing at the back of his throat. “Yeah, bud, you’re coming along this time.” I was pretty sure a murder scene wasn’t going to have a riot, although I really wasn’t thrilled that it sounded like an Ordo case. I thought we’d left those the fuck behind when Victor Picton died and most of his cronies were thrown in jail.
Doc and Ward pulled in to the driveway of the crime scene as I eased myself out of the Charger, and I sighed, hoping Doc wasn’t going to give me shit about being up and running around. Not that he had to—I was giving myself shit about being up and running around. Taavi was helping.
I let the Xolo out of the passenger side, keeping his leash looped around my wrist, then waited for Doc and Ward to catch up.
“What’ve we got?” Ward asked as he pulled up a black gaiter patterned with gold and silver stars.
“According to the Captain, a dead body with an invisible bullet,” I answered.
“Shit,” was Ward’s assessment of that.
“Pretty much,” I agreed.
Doc grunted.
I flashed my badge, and we crossed the crime scene tape, making our way into the condominium. The victim was in the kitchen, lying on her back with a perfect hole in her forehead. There were shards from what I guessed had been a drinking glass, and I held Taavi back so he didn’t get too close and step on one. Dr. Peter Tierney, the mid-sixties ME who refused to retire because he genuinely liked his job, was already crouched next to the body, a liver temperature probe pushed into her abdomen.
Ward made a small noise and looked away, and I distracted him by handing him Taavi’s leash. Someday, I hoped the poor bastard would stop getting nauseous at crime scenes, for both our sakes and the sakes of the CSIs who had to keep cleaning up after him. A quick assessment told me that he was probably going to keep his lunch down, at least for now, so I turned my attention back to Tierney.
“What makes you think the bullet isn’t still in there?” I asked him.
“Caliber’s too large,” Tierney answered, withdrawing the probe and making a note on his tablet with a stylus.
“Meaning?” I asked.
