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How I shot him right in the eye? Stood over him until he cooled?
After an hour on this rooftop, I give up the ghost on this search, frustration bubbling and my stomach empty. My cell buzzes.
I’m worried about Taney. She wants to meet at Clydesdale Park. Thoughts?
I stop dead in my tracks, inches away from the edge of the building. That park needs to be razed to the ground. It’s a disgusting travesty because there are no real trees, no real playground, and no mother in her right mind would take a kid there. Which is how the scum who never manage to rise in Empire Bay the way Broderick did use the greenspace as their own.
No, don’t. Not alone, I hastily type back.
It’s way too dangerous even in the daylight.
With dusk approaching and turning the sky a bruised peach and lavender? When there’s enough darkness to hide the assholes?
Maybe I should be happy that she’s even sending me a text, but at this point the worry encompasses everything. Every sick and depraved piece of me is up in arms imagining her there. My stomach refuses to settle.
My partner is with me.
End of story, then.
She wants me to back off without saying as much.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
I’m in the SUV a long moment later, hoping to catch Layla and make sure she doesn’t damn us both by getting herself killed.
TWENTY
layla
One hour slips awaybefore I even have time to blink the grit out of my eyes. We’ve got a male vic this time, with the same slash marks as the last four bodies. No lighter on him, though. From the looks of the frozen scream on his face he died horribly, the attack a surprise.
I want to believe Gabriel didn’t leave me last night only to go back to the docks.
I’d texted him right after we found the body, ignoring his message about his meeting with Broderick and working my way around to his whereabouts last night.
He’d made a dick joke. Once his meeting ended, he made sure to tell me.
Told me he’d gone home and to bed after jerking off thinking about me.
I’d rolled my eyes, but was he telling the truth?
I hope so.
Yet I’m back at the docks taking care of another body, doing my best not to dwell on the way Gabriel has the uncanny ability to worm his way past my walls.
“L? Get out of your damn head,” Devan calls. “I need you.”
We keep everything we need for collecting evidence in the trunk of our vehicle. After a quick call to the higher-ups, we get to work, securing the scene and preparing to document the murder.
The crime scene techs show up within a half hour. Any horror I might have once felt at being around dead bodies quickly disappeared under the weight of experience. Of years doing this kind of stuff.
Poor asshole, though. No one deserves to die this way. Not in a place like this where the only company you keep once you pass is the fish floating on top of the water with the rest of the scum and detritus.
“Clear the way for the chief!”
One of the crime scene techs straightens and lifts a gloved hand to his forehead like he’s ready to salute.
Chief Inspector Henderson knows what it’s like to get her feet dirty even though she ascended to her current position many years ago. She tramps through the grime with harsh steps that have the dust and dirt clinging to the shiny tops of her shoes.
