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Fletch and I never made it back to the station after arriving at the bay and adding to our caseload. We didn’t get back to the George Stanley, either. We simply followed our noses after the M.E.s loaded our newest body up, starting with the deli the 911 call originated from, and working our way out from there.
Sol Montiliano is a third-generation Sicilian Italian whose parents emigrated some sixty years ago for a life in America. His deli specializes in spicy sausage infused with herbs and flavors.
And no, he doesn’t know what happened to the girl down at the bay. His pal Mook told him to call it in.
Mook, once we got to him, said his pal Tony told him to call it in.
Tony is pals with Percy, the homeless guy.
And that’s how we got nowhere fast.
After tracking down that trail of nothing, Fletch and I worked on identifying the woman.
Kylie Bastion. She turned twenty-four last October, and was already in our system because she got herself arrested two years ago, after belting her baby daddy for, according to the case notes, hitting her.
I figure he thought a tap would go unchecked. So he rearranged her face and made a mess that wasn’t reported—at first. But the following day, by her own admission, she went and bought herself a slugger and returned the favor. Shattered his jaw, nose, and eye socket, and though I think the investigating officer might have gone a little easy on her, considering her crime, I can’t find it in my heart to wish he’d done better.
The boyfriend went to prison for assault. Kylie was let go, because it was self-defense…sort of.
Dude spent a little over eighteen months behind bars. But fourteen days ago, he was released to reenter society. That places him at the top of my list of suspects.
Now we have another young mother dead, and another small child without the most important female role in his life.
Those facts alone—female victims,mothers, with young sons—all lend credibility to Minka’s hypothesis earlier today. And the fact she could make those inferences when she had barely anything but a gut instinct to run with makes my stomach flip with nerves.
There’s no room for guessing in our field of work. But her accuracy is astounding.
Damn her for being so clever.
At an unexpected knock at my apartment door, I stop just in front of my couch and glance across the room with a scowl. I was settling in with a soda and my laptop, while Fletch is off doing his own thing, and Minka’s toxicology people take their time running Kylie’s blood. But now someone is at my door, and there isn’t much of me willing to host a friend, maleorfemale.
Running a hand over my face and trying fruitlessly to work through the fatigue dragging me down, I step around my couch and make my way to my door.
“Whoever you are, go away.”
I haven’t slept properly in… too long. I absolutely don’t intend to stay awake tonight when exhaustion begs me to give in. But I cross my living room on socked feet and yawn as I move.
It could be Fletch dropping in, done with his errands and wanting a friend; or it could be Tim, coming to expel his brotherly wisdom about the woman who rarely visits him now, although she’s his next-door neighbor and he has physical possession of her new coffee machine.
He says it’smyfault she doesn’t visit him anymore.
Stopping at the door and peeping through the hole, I frown when I find the very top of a woman’s head.
She’s looking down at her feet. Or at a phone. Or at fuck knows what. But she’s not looking at me.
Still, I know who the fuck she is.
Swinging the door wide, I feel something terrifying click in my chest when Minka’s eyes come up and stop on mine.
She carries a leather satchel across her chest, the same bag I’ve seen a few times since meeting her, but not once have I gotten a peek inside. She wears yoga pants now, and not the slick, black suit pants from earlier today. An oversized hoodie drowns her in fabric, and her hair, in a sleek ponytail earlier, now sits in a messy bun on the top of her head.
It’s like she went home and messed herself up on purpose. Like she craves shedding the professional exterior the moment no one else is looking.
But she came to me in her imperfect state. She sought me out and came to my home, even at the risk of encountering the sophisticated rumor named Chloe.
“Your lips are blue again.” I grab the leather strap of her bag and tug her into my apartment.
