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The man in the doorway stopped. He had a nice tan, and his blond hair was almost white from summer sun, and the jeans and the Auburn Police Department uniform shirt showed off a hard body, which was probably why, Jem guessed, the jerkoff was wearing a size too small. Shock painted his face for a moment as he stared at the big man. And then he said, “Emery?”
The blond man, the one with the swimmer’s build, held himself tightly, and his face was a mask. He’d sensed something, probably some more finely tuned version of the tension that Jem had picked up on, and whatever it was, it had put him in fight mode.
But all the big man—Emery—said was, “Fuck off. Right now.”
The guy in the Auburn PD shirt shrank inside his shirt. It only lasted a moment, the way his shoulders curved and he sank down. Then he looked like one of those car wash inflatables, puffing himself back up, a nasty grin cutting across his face. “Well, well, well. Emery Hazard. Didn’t think I’d run into you.”
“I won’t tell you again,” Emery said. “Fuck off.”
But the cop, whoever he was, made a show of peering past Emery, looking into the room. “Now, what do we have here?”
“Officer—” Tean began.
“Chief. It’s chief, pal. Chief Cassidy.”
“Oh,” Shaw said, “North’s middle name—”
“Shaw,” North barked.
Shaw shut his mouth.
“I’ve got eight guys mucking around in a murdered woman’s bedroom,” Cassidy said. He wrinkled his nose. “And made a fucking pigsty of it. What the hell am I supposed to think about that?”
“Don’t overexert yourself,” Emery said.
The nasty smile hooked at the corner. “I think you’d all better come into the station and explain yourselves.”
“What do you mean, a murdered woman?” Tean asked. “Did something happen to Yesenia?”
Jem shook his head.
“No, I want to know—” But Tean cut himself off and let out a long, hard breath.
At Cassidy’s instructions, they moved out into the hallway, where a uniformed officer watched them. She was Black, hair buzzed, and young, and she stood there like a statue when Cassidy left them.
Before long, Cassidy was back, accompanied by another officer and, this time, Missy. She was a wreck: eyes red, face puffy and streaked with snot, looking small with her hands cuffed behind her back. The officer was carrying something in an evidence bag, and Jem thought he saw the rust of dried blood. They stopped at the bank of elevators.
“Missy?” Tean called. He took a step, and the Black officer put a hand on her service weapon. Tean stopped, but he shouted, “Missy?”
She glanced over at the group of men, and for a moment, nothing registered in her face.
“No talking,” Cassidy said.
“Tean?” Missy said.
“I told you no talking.”
“They said—”
Cassidy shoved her, and Missy stumbled forward. She started to fall and caught herself.
“You piece of shit,” Emery called at Cassidy.
But the shove, or the fall, or something had shaken words loose for Missy, and as Cassidy strong-armed her toward the elevator, she called, “They’re saying I killed Yes. They’re saying I killed her. There’s a t-shirt, they said. In the reservoir. And that poncho in my room—”
She was still shouting as Cassidy herded her into the elevator car, and then the doors slid shut, and she was gone.
7
