Sterling Quinn stood at the edge of the penguin habitat with her arms crossed and a frown on her face. She leaned over the rail that kept visitors from falling into the penguins’ home and sighed in aggravation.

She was the first field agent on the scene, and about 20 feet beneath her lay a dead body ironically dressed up in a tuxedo and looking like the penguins’ leader. The body was surrounded by a little over two dozen penguins that seemed perplexed by the intruder in their midst. The birds waddled around like little macabre pallbearers, and sometimes, they stopped to shake their little rear ends in excitement. Each time they passed the body, they seemed to take delight in grabbing the deceased’s clothes in their beaks, attempting to tear the fabric to shreds.

Agent Quinn drew her hand over her face and stifled her desire to scream. Whoever created this scene needed a sharp kick in the rear end, and she was feeling fed up enough to deliver it.

The squawking and high-pitched braying sounds made Sterling desperately wish for a pair of noise-canceling headphones. She performed a massive eye roll while trying to come up with a better strategy for rounding up all the waddling renegades. While Sterling watched from the catwalk above the penguin habitat, her hand flew up over her mouth, and she made little gasps while the tiny creatures continued to stomp all over her crime scene along with the blundering techs meant to round them up.

Deep down, Sterling understood that they were just wild creatures avoiding capture and following their instincts, but she swore it looked like the little cretins were doing the penguin stomp on purpose. Unfortunately, the crime scene techs weren’t having much success with the little critters, and Sterling tried counting to 10 before she blew her stack but quickly reached her limit and had to start over. Her fingers pinched the bridge of her nose, and she shook her head while closing her chocolate brown eyes and willed this to be someone else’s crime scene. Anyone else’s crime scene.

Never in all her years of bureau training did Sterling recall a case of skittering penguins ruining the evidence at a murder location. While recalling all her manuals that covered unique crime scenes, Sterling was positive that penguins were not found in any of her textbooks. Tossing her loose honey-blonde hair behind her shoulder, she flagged down one of the techs that she recognized from several other cases. It was hard to tell who was who while they were dressed in their hazmat suits. Their manner of dress always reminded her of kids wearing bright yellow slickers with matching booties. What was his name? Thomas? Daniel? Joseph? No, wait, it was Robert, wasn’t it?

Stopping one of the flustered crime scene techs, Sterling asked, “Robert, where’s Anne?”

“It’s Oliver, Agent Quinn. You didn’t hear?” he responded, pulling down his mask. “She took a job as the new coroner for New York City and left the bureau with little notice.”

Sterling grimaced. Her inability to recall the tech’s name was embarrassing. Her long-time boyfriend, ADA Malcolm Grant, was always telling her that she should be more invested in the people surrounding her. Even though she had always been a bit of an introvert, people sometimes mistook that for being aloof. The last thing Agent Quinn wanted was to give the rest of her coworkers the wrong idea. Sterling certainly didn’t look down on them and had always felt that the techs worked hard at a thankless job.

There had been several changes at the bureau recently, and Sterling felt a lot like the coyote that had chased the roadrunner off the edge of the cliff and looked down to find that she was running on air, only to plummet.

Internally, Sterling grumbled and swore, but when she met the gaze of the crime tech, it was apparent that her complaints weren’t as silent as she believed. He looked frightened of her, so she gave him a forced smile to reassure him that she wouldn’t shoot him on the spot.

“Did anyone think to tell me that Anne had left?” Sterling vocalized loudly, and hearing the peevish tone in her voice, she cringed.

“It was in an email,” Oliver replied meekly. From the heated look he received, the tech quickly turned his back on Agent Quinn while scuttling off to join the others in trying to round up the elusive penguins.

“Well, that’s something you don’t see every day!” a male baritone said beside her. There was something about his voice that was smooth and reminded Sterling of cascading silk. After a slight pause, a crinkle formed at the corner of his eye, and he added, “But they’re kinda cute, aren’t they?”

Sterling turned to her right to see a man handsome enough to be a model standing there before he casually leaned over the railing for a better look at the scene below. His Texas drawl was unmistakable, and she stared at him, narrowing her eyes despite his friendly intonation.

“Sir, this is an active crime scene,” Sterling stated from between clenched teeth, her cheeks turning crimson with annoyance.

“I can see that,” he replied, nodding and smiling without taking his eyes off the stubborn birds flopping around below, evading all attempts to corral them. When he turned to face her, there was a twinkle of mischief in his dark brown eyes, and then he dared to wink at her.

The unspoken darlin’ hung in the air between them, daring Sterling to take the bait. While the stranger’s look was a tad smug, there was a certain charm that radiated from him, and Sterling felt more irritated as the seconds ticked by. She could almost picture him tipping the brim of a cowboy hat even though he wasn’t wearing one.

“Sir,” Sterling repeated, trying hard not to blow her temper, “I have no idea who you are, but you can’t be here.” Sterling stared the man down and swore he was attempting not to burst into laughter. She bit her tongue before saying something that would get her in trouble with her director, Peter Wolfe. He’d made it clear that she had been skating on thin ice lately and that she needed to keep her nose clean.

Without a partner to help keep her grounded, Sterling had been warned that she was beginning to stray from department protocols, and one more altercation would end with her being suspended without pay. Despite her protests, Wolfe had insisted on assigning a new partner during Alexander Hoff’s sabbatical, and the last thing she wanted was another partner to tiptoe around.

“Oh, I think I am supposed to be here,” he replied while pointing his index finger at the floor beneath his feet.

“Unless you’re the new coroner,” Sterling continued, eyeing him up and down. “Which I sincerely doubt, considering you’re wearing a Brooks Brothers original black navy suit. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”

A playful smirk tugged at the man’s lips showing his amusement, and his hand cupped the edge of his suit at the chest level while reaching for his interior pocket. “I have to admit,” he said. “You’re good. There aren’t many that can tell one suit from another.” While reaching inside for his identification credentials, he moved his jacket aside long enough to allow Sterling to eye the gun he wore in a custom, hand-tooled shoulder holster.

Sterling looked alarmed and went for her firearm, causing the man to raise his hands with one of them holding out a wallet she recognized. It was an FBI identification holder, and she relaxed and returned her firearm to its holster. “You might have opened with that,” she said crossly. Craning her neck to read the card, she could finally make out his name while the badge rocked back and forth like a sign banging in a windstorm.

“Drake Archer?” Sterling asked, then paused while waiting for an answer. When none came, she had to ask him, “And you are?”

“Your new partner.” His answer was blunt, yet there was still that annoying hint of charm in his tone that set Sterling’s teeth on edge. She was outraged. How dare he patronize her!

“No,” Sterling replied vehemently, reacting to Drake’s know-it-all smile. “My partner is Alexander Hoff, but he’s…”

“On extended leave,” Drake said, finishing her statement. “Hoff and I are old buddies from academy days, and he requested that I fill in for him until he can come back.” The unspoken if hung in the air making their exchange more uncomfortable.

After being paired with bad partners, Alexander Hoff had come with his own problems, but for some reason, he and Quinn had always clicked, and neither one of them could figure out why their chemistry complimented each other. Not too long ago, shortly before partnering up with       Quinn, Hoff met his future wife, Jessica, and had toed the line since that introduction.

It wasn’t long before they ran off and eloped in Vegas, and that’s when Hoff found out that his wife was loaded, not with alcohol, but with money. Lots of money! Jessica was a super rich sugarcane heiress with a home office in Honolulu. It sounded like an excellent place for a honeymoon, but a couple of weeks had turned into months, and Sterling secretly wondered if he’d ever come home. While Hoff was in Hawaii living the life, Sterling was stuck with another new partner and an annoying one at that.

“I’m working alone until Hoff comes back.” As hard as she tried, Sterling couldn’t keep the irritation out of her voice. Her partner’s departure had left her with abandonment issues, although she understood why he’d left.

“The director and Hoff said that since they don’t know when that might be, they want you to work with a partner. I got the impression that it wasn’t a request.” Drake paused while waiting for his new partner to object again. When Sterling didn’t reply, he added smugly, “That’s where I come in.”

“Doesn’t anyone feel that they have to tell me anything?” Sterling practically shouted, making the techs flinch and freeze in place while the penguins continued to flop, waddle, and squawk over and around the dead body. Her hands covered her forehead and eyes while she massaged her temples with her thumbs, willing her migraine to recede. She muttered, “This is a nightmare.”

“Hey!” Drake yelled while trying to gain the attention of the techs below. When that failed, Drake stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly, loud enough to pierce the sounds of mayhem below. They all froze and turned to investigate what was going on, and the current silence was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. It had worked, perhaps a bit too well.

The new agent muttered a huh under his breath, and an embarrassed smile crossed his lips, leading to a nervous chuckle. After all, no one here knew him. Why should they pay attention to a stranger? Drake leaned over the railing to address the techs in the pen below. “Grab a couple of pails of fish. The smell and the promise of food will get those little guys out of the area and back into their pens.”

Sterling stood there with her mouth open. Did this interloper just take over her crime scene? She opened her mouth to give the new agent the tongue-lashing of his life when she noticed that his advice was working.

A couple of the techs closest to the back room disappeared and reemerged quickly with pails of a stinky fish stew composed of sardines, smelt, herring, and anchovies. Shaking the buckets and holding their noses, the techs were relieved that the penguins began to respond. With some techs leading and the rest bringing up the rear and shooing, the penguins started to retreat from the crime scene.

Like the Pied Piper leading the rats from the city of Hamelin, the penguins began to willingly follow the techs back to their enclosure. Sterling eyed Drake suspiciously, and her mouth fell open.

“How?” her incomplete question trailed off into silence.

“Oh, um,” Drake coughed into his hand. “Yeah. When I was a kid, I worked at SeaWorld in San Antonio for several summers. I was up every morning at five and was on my way to work by five thirty. Every morning, I was greeted by a mountain of frozen fish and it was my job to sort them into the appropriate buckets. Then, I weighed each of them to ensure they were given the correct amount and that the fish was high quality. It was a filthy job and by the end of the day, I stood in the shower for hours, but it still didn’t remove the stink.”

“But, I…” Sterling began indicating his manner of dress. “I mean…”

“Oh, well, ah,” Drake stuttered. “Ahem. My old man insisted that I understood what real work was. He built his fortune with his own two hands.” Drake leaned against the railing and added, “I’m sure that any of the handlers here would have told you the same if they hadn’t been sent to the locker rooms to wait for their interviews.” He shot her an innocent look that was meant to be charming, but the look she gave him in return intimated that she had his number and that he wasn’t fooling anyone, especially her, with his boyish charms.

Sterling’s eyebrows were furrowed so deeply that they almost met in the middle. She couldn’t decide if she hated Drake or was in awe of this self-confident agent that had invaded her life only a few moments ago.

Magically, a couple of the techs appeared with more bait buckets filled with fish, and the penguins honked and cooed in contentment while they single-file followed the crime techs into the back holding pens. Their little wings were held away from their bodies in excitement while their short, squatty legs waddled, trying to keep up with their new handlers. The birds that had been lingering in the water made for shore and fell in line behind the others.

Sterling watched in amazement as the chaos of only a few moments ago disappeared. Without turning to face Drake, she muttered, “You should have gotten here sooner.”

“I just flew in on the red eye this morning,” Drake said. “I was thinking I would like to take in some of the sites here in Boston. The aquarium was on my list, but seeing all this, I think I’ll pass.”

“Hmm, pity,” Sterling said unsympathetically. “Murder does tend to ruin the magic.”

“Hoff said you’re a tough cookie,” Drake replied, giving Sterling a knowing sideways glance. He turned to face her while leaning on the railing. “I can respect that.”

Below, the techs made a final sweep to make sure that they hadn’t missed any birds, and when they came up empty, they ushered a slim figure wearing a white coverall into the area so that she could examine the body. Carrying a medical bag, the woman knelt and began to examine the dead man.

“The new coroner, I presume,” Sterling said to no one in particular under her breath. Turning to Drake, she asked, “Know anything about her?”

“No, why?”

“Well, you seem to be a fountain of information. I just figured you’d know all about her, too,” Sterling added sarcastically.

As if on cue, the new coroner marched toward the agents and lowered her hood, revealing a head of golden hair that was complimented with piercing blue eyes.

“No, but I’d like to,” Drake mumbled.

Chapter 2

Sterling couldn’t help but notice the significant differences between this coroner and her predecessor. Anne had been a top-notch forensics expert, complete with frizzy hair and a rounded gut from socking away too many brewskis with the guys during football parties. In short, Anne was a bit frumpy but she was tops in Sterling’s eyes since she had come up with some minuscule pieces of information that broke many of her cases wide open. Anne had been a genius, complete with coke bottle bottom glasses and zero sense of humor.

Heading toward them was a woman that was at least half Anne’s age and was so thin that it would have taken four of her to fill Anne’s smock. The new coroner would have looked more at home on a designer’s runway, wearing flowing gowns of organza and silk, rather than her white hazmat suit.

“Kristin Miller,” the new coroner said, addressing the agents above her.

“Ah, welcome,” Sterling replied. “I’m Agent Quinn and this is Agent Archer. It looks like we’re going to have a tough first case for you.”

Glancing over her shoulder at the mayhem, Kristin couldn’t help but nod in agreement.

“Is it possible that he just fell in?” Drake asked. “It’s a pretty big drop.”

“Considering that he’s way over there,” Kristin said without looking back at the dead body or Agent Archer while hitching her thumb in the general direction of the corpse. “I’d say that he was placed there or lured there. The penguins took care of any footprints, so we may never know definitively how our victim arrived at his final destination.”

“So, not death by penguin,” Drake said, tongue in cheek.

“I think we can rule that out,” Kristin replied, meeting his gaze for the first time and adding a flirty smile. Her blue eyes sparkled for a moment and then she turned to face Sterling. “It’s unfortunate that the penguins destroyed your crime scene, Agent Quinn, but I’ll see what magic I can perform. I’ve been known to pull one or two rabbits out of my hat when cases look bleak. My initial check of the body points to murder since there seem to be a lot of inconsistencies. Still, I’ll have to hold my final judgment until I can perform the preliminary autopsy back at headquarters. Do we have an ID on the victim?”

“Unfortunately, not yet,” Sterling said with disappointment. “No one seems to know who he is, so my guess is that he’s not tied to the aquarium in any way. Our crime scene techs have been too busy herding all the penguins out of the area to spend much time on the deceased.”

Kristin peeled off her latex gloves, revealing meticulously manicured nails that were painted fire engine red. “The tox screen will tell us more, but I noticed a patch of skin that is bluish-purple surrounding what looks like an injection site,” Kristin pointed at the back of her own neck to indicate where it was located on the deceased.

“I can’t help but think I’ve heard of something like this before,” Drake blurted out suddenly.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Sterling replied. “A dead body surrounded by penguins seems like something out of a bad made-for-television movie.”

“No…” Kristin interjected, looking up at Drake and boring her blue eyes into his as if willing him to read her mind. Breaking off their moment, she blinked a few times while deep in thought. Then she pointed at him in agreement. “You know… you’re right, I have heard of this before.” Her index finger covered her mouth while the rest of her hand cradled her chin. She pondered the scenario for a few moments and then her eyes lit up like a firecracker when it suddenly all made sense.

“Spencer Manning!” Kristin and Drake said in unison.

“Spencer Manning?” Sterling asked. “Is he our victim?”

Kristin looked over her shoulder and then back at Agent Quinn. “No, Spencer Manning is considerably younger than our victim. And thinner. This guy is a little chubby.”

A blank look filled Sterling’s face since she had no idea who Spencer Manning was.

“Spencer Manning is a murder mystery author that bases his books in his hometown of Boston,” Kristin began. “He’s written a murder series featuring a hardcore female detective named Aurora Hardcastle who chases down serial killers.”

“I knew this looked familiar!” Drake exclaimed, snapping his fingers. “I can’t believe that I didn’t see it sooner. This is a perfect representation of his first book, Swimmin’ With the Fishes.”

“Oh,” Kristin exclaimed in a tone that was a cross between thoughtfulness and dread.

Sterling looked at her blankly and repeated what the coroner had said, “Oh?” she paused, praying that there wasn’t more bad news. “Oh, what?”

“If the killer is copying Manning’s first murder mystery, then there should be another body in the aquarium,” Drake responded slowly, reading the new coroner’s mind. “There wouldn’t happen to be a giant ocean tank here, would there?”

“As a matter of fact, there is,” Sterling answered slowly, her tone filled with worry. “It’s four stories high with lots of places to hide a body.” Pointing at the tech she’d spoken with earlier, she motioned for him to approach. “Robert.”

“Oliver,” he replied with annoyance. He’d worked on three of Agent Sterling’s cases and was perturbed that Sterling couldn’t remember his name.

“Sorry,” Sterling said, finding that she genuinely meant it. Malcolm always told her that she needed to get to know the people she worked with better. Sterling hated to admit it, but he was right; she had to stop being so hyper-focused on the case that she ignored conventional etiquette. This case was in its infancy and already Sterling felt like everything was running off the rails. “Can you find someone in charge that can take us to the back of the giant ocean tank?”

With a curt nod, the tech quickly disappeared and returned a few minutes later with the aquarium manager.

“Agent Quinn, this is Margaret Johnson,” Oliver said.

Sterling found herself looking at a frail, older woman who appeared nervous. She was wearing a sophisticated purple dress that showcased her unique silver hair and lavender eyes. In her youth, Mrs. Johnson had likely been exceptionally attractive. The fragrance that she wore was unmistakable… Cinnabar by Estée Lauder.

Sterling inhaled the spicy mix of jasmine, orange flower, clove, and patchouli, and for those few moments, it brought back a feeling of home. While the scent was no longer in production, Sterling recalled that she had borrowed it without permission from her mother’s perfume tray more than once when she was younger. Even though it had been her mother’s prized perfume, she never minded sharing it with her only daughter, and Sterling recalled that she’d always turned a blind eye to her daughter’s harmless thievery.

“How may I be of assistance?” Margaret asked.

“We need access to the giant tank,” Sterling requested. “We have reason to believe that there may be a clue or a second victim inside.”

“Oh, dear, that will ruin the chemistry in the exhibit’s filtration system,” the older woman replied, wringing her hands. “This way, please.”

“Oliver,” Sterling said carefully so that she didn’t call him the wrong name again, “could you please make sure that they bag the body in the penguin habitat and send it back for Kristin to examine? And please escort our new coroner up here to accompany us while we search for another body.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’ve obviously read these novels,” Sterling said while turning toward the new coroner, “which will give us some helpful insight while we search for another possible victim.”

Nodding in agreement, Kristin quickly followed Oliver back through the penguin housing, only to emerge a few minutes later on the catwalk so that she might join the other agents.

“Wow,” Sterling said, holding the back of her hand over her nose after the coroner joined them. “That’s a really fishy smell.”

“You get used to it,” Drake supplied. “I’ve smelled a lot worse.”

A flustered Margaret Johnson led the trio to the guts of the aquarium center. Behind her, Kristin merely chuckled in amusement while she followed the small entourage behind the scenes of the giant aquarium tank carrying her coroner’s bag.

“Well, this is huge,” Drake announced when they arrived in the backstage area of the four-story tank.

“The deepest point of the tank is 23 feet,” Margaret replied. She was nervous and acted like a tour guide since providing specifics about the exhibit gave her something to say. “It’s 40 feet wide and holds 200,000 gallons of salt water heated to between 72 and 75 degrees for its inhabitants.”

“Look at that great turtle,” Kristin exclaimed as a green sea turtle swam by.

“That’s Myrtle, our star resident,” Margaret said proudly. “She’s lived here since June of 1970.”

“What else is in that tank?” Sterling inquired, wondering if there was anything dangerous residing inside the vast habitat.

“Oh,” Margaret began and then paused while she mentally took an inventory. “There are moray eels, barracuda, stingrays, a few smaller sharks, loggerhead sea turtles, and some colorful reef fish.”

“Is that a body?” Kristin asked, pointing to a diver’s suit she’d spotted on the bottom of the tank.

“No, that’s just a dummy inside a diving suit placed among the coral reef for representation,” Margaret responded. “We nicknamed him Henry.”

Sterling watched as a small hammerhead shark swam by. She gulped and then made an exasperated sound. This killer was making her life hell. “We’re going to need a professional diver.” Flipping her shoulder-length hair behind her, Sterling began to punch in the director’s number to see if he had any recommendations. After only one or two rings, a hand reached for her phone and turned it off.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Sterling remarked, “We need a diver to search the tank.”

“There’s no need,” Drake said quietly. “I’m an accomplished diver.” He then looked down at his prized suit with unspoken worry.

“Don’t worry, hot stuff,” Kristin said, sporting a dazzling smile. “I’ll make sure that nothing happens to your precious suit.” The coroner paused and crossed her heart. “I’ll even place it in an evidence bag and seal it tight.”

Drake winked at her and asked the aquarium’s director to help him find a wetsuit to wear into the tank.

As Margaret led Drake to the back, Sterling could hear her telling him to be careful with their coral exhibit since it was handmade and painted by local artists.

Sterling didn’t need to see her new partner’s face to know that he had just directed an eye roll behind the back of the older woman in silent response to her request. It wasn’t long before Margaret returned, handing the suit to the coroner. Kristin chuckled and took the offered clothing off the older woman’s hands.

“Ah, a man and his suit,” Kristin joked. “The unspoken love affair.”

In the silence that filled their time together, Margaret spoke up hoping to fill the uncomfortable void as they waited for Agent Archer to suit up and enter the tank and begin his search. “Did you know that our giant tank was built first, and then the rest of the aquarium was built around it?”

“It’s an interesting design,” Kristin replied while taking in the architecture surrounding them.

“Why are there so many framed windows?” Sterling asked. “Most tanks I’ve seen are just one large panorama view.”

“The designer did that on purpose,” Margaret stated proudly. “This way, each time someone stands in that single frame, it’s like they have a personal window to interact with the inhabitants.”

Before the aquarium manager could interject with any more fun facts, all of the women had their attention drawn to Agent Archer, who had entered the tank with a noticeable splash. He used strong but swift movements to explore the tank and began a grid search similar to those the agents used on the ground.

Sterling felt uneasy and fought the urge to begin pacing back and forth in front of the giant tank. In reality, Drake had only been in the water a couple of minutes, but it seemed like hours. She was beginning to think that this case would be a career killer and wondered if it was too late to follow another vocation—something quiet yet fulfilling, like a mad scientist out to destroy the world.

***

Drake methodically checked every nook and cranny while staying out of the way of the eels and small sharks. Thankfully they’d all been fed recently, so they paid little notice to the diver who invaded their world. So far, everything looked relatively normal, but in reality, Drake wasn’t sure if he was looking for another dead body or just a clue. What he was looking for could technically be the size of a postage stamp and reminded him of the saying, looking for a needle in a haystack.

Fighting the urge to glance toward his new partner for direction, Drake pressed on. He didn’t have to look to know that Sterling was either tapping her foot, standing with her hands on her hips, or fidgeting with her hands. What Sterling did really didn’t matter because finding whatever he was looking for would take as long as needed.

Making his way to the bottom of the tank, Drake saw something that looked out of place. He already knew that the diver was a prop, but there was something off about its positioning. Obscured by a school of colorful fish, Drake peered inside the diving suit and was startled by what he saw, but there was no denying it, this man was no dummy and, without a doubt, he had been murdered.

Drake swam toward the top of the tank and then flashed Sterling and the others a thumbs-up to indicate that he’d found something.

Margaret led Sterling and Kristin to the staging area so they could talk with Drake after he returned to the tank’s surface. On the way there, Sterling passed the sea dragon exhibit and took one moment to embrace the calm beauty of the magnificent little creatures. Their fluttering wings were hypnotic, and Sterling allowed herself a moment to collect her thoughts while marveling at how colorful they were. Each dragon had a long proboscis which was spotted and dark purple and bled into a yellow collar that, in turn, melted into iridescent blue and purple stripes.

They reminded Sterling of creatures from a fantasy novel as they gracefully glided through their tiny habitat with their small leafy appendages. For that one moment, Sterling was at peace, and she took a deep breath and steeled herself for what was to follow. If only she’d known how complicated this case would become, she might have stolen a few more moments to enjoy the grace of the little sea dragons.

Agent Archer remained in the water with his muscular arms folded over the top of the tank. Sterling was surprised at how well-defined his muscles were, and his suit jacket had hidden how physically fit her new partner was.

“Well?” Sterling asked and silently prayed that there wasn’t anything in the tank.

“Oh, there’s a dead body, alright,” he replied.

“Are you sure?” Margaret asked, seemingly unaware that the agents didn’t need to answer her questions.

“I’m pretty sure,” Archer replied, addressing the agents while answering the civilian’s question. “We’ll need an extraction team to get the body out of the tank.”

“Is that really necessary?” Sterling asked. “It’s impossible to collect evidence from the bottom of the tank, but…” looking at Kristin, “Perhaps the filtration system?”

Kristin nodded in agreement.

“The guy’s wearing cement overshoes, so he’s going to be too heavy for me to lift out of here,” Drake said. “We’re going to need some sort of winch to lift him out.”

“Excuse me?” Sterling responded, “Did you say cement overshoes? Like how the mafia from the 1920s would kill someone and encase their feet with cement?”

“The very same,” Drake responded.

“Can we tell if the victim was alive when he was placed in the water?” Sterling asked.

Drake shook his head. “Our new coroner has her work cut out for her. He’s encapsulated in some sort of clear bag under the diver’s suit, and his face… yeesh, what a mess.”

“Sorry,” Kristin said while shrugging her shoulders. “At this point, based on what Agent Archer has provided, there’s no way to tell until I autopsy him.”

“Aren’t there cameras back here?” Sterling asked the aquarium manager.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. We are replacing the surveillance system next week since the last one stopped working a few days ago,” Margaret said, her voice trailing off once the coincidence hit home.

“Well, that’s mighty convenient,” Drake replied while climbing over the side of the tank and beginning to towel off. “Any chance the system was sabotaged?”

Sterling was silent. Director Wolfe wasn’t going to be happy that this day had turned into one big dog and pony show. The answers were going to take a lot of time to find, and she feared they were just getting started. Perhaps they could procure a lead after interviewing the staff.

“I better make a few phone calls,” Sterling muttered. “We’re going to need a pretty extensive extraction team.”

“How about Kristin and I handle the extraction team,” Drake offered, “while you start interviewing the staff?”

While Sterling wasn’t a fan of giving up control of anything having to do with her cases, Agent Archer had a point. If she tried to handle everything herself, it would be days before she could go home, all the employees would be stuck there all that time, and Director Wolfe would accuse her of not being a team player. Wolfe had made it clear that she needed to allow others to assist her in crime scene processing so he would be pleased that she had relinquished control to her new partner. If his actions messed up the case, then Wolfe could put Archer’s head on a stake instead of hers. It took her exactly 30 seconds to nod in agreement. What Archer didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

While she walked away from the area, Sterling could hear a small chuckle escape from Agent Archer. She fought the urge to go back and tell him what a manipulative bastard she thought he was, but that would make her look like she wasn’t a team player.

Director Wolfe wasn’t the only one that kept telling her that she couldn’t expect to ride shotgun over every little detail. Sterling’s significant other, Malcolm Grant, had also been telling her that being a control freak wasn’t healthy and that he wished she would be as invested in their relationship as she was in her cases. His assessment didn’t seem fair to Sterling. Malcolm knew that she was a workaholic when they first met. Her habit might have become more intense over the years, but she had always been overly involved with her cases.

Malcolm’s observations had been a tough pill to swallow, and Sterling admitted that she had been the one having trouble maintaining the commitments they shared. With a promise to do better in their relationship, Sterling had been working hard to feel empathy toward others. Even with a partner to take some of the heat off, Sterling found that giving up even a little control made her irritable. The last thing she wanted was to go home tonight and take that sentiment out on Malcolm.

Her phone buzzed with a notification, and Sterling frowned at the screen. Malcolm! It was as if he had a sixth sense when she was experiencing control issues. It contained one simple word.

Malcolm: Dinner?

Her heart felt heavy, and she knew that she couldn’t possibly make it home in time for dinner. She’d be working late for sure, probably an all-nighter, and she hesitated to respond, knowing that he would read too much into it.

Sterling quickly sent her reply.

Sterling: Sorry, darling, caught a rough case, and I’ll be working late with my new partner. Ugh, don’t get me started! Raincheck?

Sighing, Sterling put her phone in her jacket pocket. Malcolm deserved better and this wasn’t the first time she’d wondered why he stayed with a crazy woman.

Continue Reading The Blank Note

The idea of visiting the grave still seemed unreal. It was a dreamy feeling that started when she and Malcolm parked the car just outside the wrought iron gates—at the stone wall that bordered the cemetery. The dread grew worse when Sterling got out of the car and the autumn chill bit at her cheeks.

She dug her hands into her pockets and listened to Malcolm shut the driver’s side door behind him. The trees on the other side of the gate, which would have been lush and green only a month and a half ago, were partly orange in some places and mostly dead. The branches were skeletal fingers that writhed and curled in the wind.

Malcolm placed a hand on her shoulder. It was comforting. She nuzzled her cold cheek against it and waited for him to sigh, which he did, like clockwork.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

She wasn’t, of course, but saying it out loud seemed disrespectful. If someone, somehow, was watching her from beyond the grave, they’d want her to be confident instead of what she was: horrified and scared.

Sterling Quinn had to put on a good face, so she took the first step into the cemetery.

Abigail’s grave was in the far corner across from the entrance. Behind it was a long expanse of farmland—deathly quiet at this time of day. It made a tranquil backdrop to the headstone, which was still shiny and polished.

Sterling’s breath hitched when she was close enough to read the name, the birth date, and the death date. Malcolm reached for Sterling’s hand but she’d already pressed it up against her lips to repress a whimper.

Abigail.

She stopped a mere foot or so from the grave and let the cold wind blow her hair all around her face. That dreamy sensation had only gotten worse. Apparently, in dreams, things that were written down tended to change when you looked away from them. A clock might read 3:45 p.m. one second, only to be 1:09 a.m. a second later. Same with names.

Sterling let her eyes fall upon Malcolm. She stared hard at the hunched angle of his body—the way his shoulders bowed in.

When she looked back at the headstone, the name was still the same.

Abigail.

“It’s not a dream,” she said. “Is it?”

“An elaborate one. Maybe.”

“A dream that won’t let us leave?”

“But it will. Eventually.”

“If we’re dreaming.”

His eyes glazed over. Where did he go? A memory, no doubt. But which kind? A happy one to distance himself from the moment? Or a sad one where he was forcing himself to remember?

For her, happy memories were a fictional retreat. They had happened but they weren’t what was currently happening. What was happening was pure horror. Anguish. In that way, the sad memories were more real. And to remember them was to do penance.

Abigail was, after all, her daughter.

The saddest memory played through Sterling’s mind.

She parked the car in front of the school. When she looked over, she saw that Abigail was in the passenger’s seat, as quiet and withdrawn as she’d been all morning. On the far side of her, students clambered up the stairs and into the school, their voices combined into a prolonged din.

For most kids, the next move would have been to open the door and walk up the steps to go to school. But not Abigail. She sat as still as a statue, eyes focused on some point between her feet.

“What’s her name?” Sterling said.

“Whose name?”

“The girl who’s bullying you.”

Abigail rolled her eyes. “There’s no girl.”

“You don’t think I can—”

“Why does it have to be that? Why can’t it just be—”

“Abigail…”

“Hold on. Why can’t it just be that I don’t like school? Maybe, you know, I’m flunking biology.”

“Are you flunking biology?”

“No. I’m just saying—”

“If you were,” Sterling said, “flunking biology—you’d tell me, right?”

“Probably not.”

“So, are you?”

“No.”

Sterling almost said, “So you are,” but stopped herself.

“Maybe,” Abigail said, “the teachers are creepy.”

“But you won’t tell me which one it is.”

“Which reason is that I don’t wanna go?”

“Right.”

“I mean, I’d rather not…”

“Okay,” Sterling said. “You’re afraid I’ll come after her. Is that it? You’re trying to protect her?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s too big for anyone to solve.”

“No thirteen-year-old girl is a problem too big to solve.”

“Well, this problem isn’t a thirteen-year-old girl.”

“Then what is it?” Sterling said.

“I don’t wanna tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because…”

“Jesus, Abigail, because why—”

“Because it’s everybody.”

There was real pain in the way she said that. Everybody. She meant it. She didn’t mean it in some exaggerated sense. She meant everybody was part of the problem.

Words failed Sterling. They jumbled up on her tongue and fell out in a kind of gargle like someone had pulled a stopper out of a drain. She could only center herself in a literal way, by facing out the front window and placing her hands on the steering wheel.

“Is it because you’re adopted?” Sterling said.

Abigail, sotto voce: “Yes.”

Middle schoolers were cruel. Insecure. They’d latch onto whatever gave the slightest appearance of weakness and drag you into the dirt with it. Most of them probably came from broken homes. Maybe they wished they’d been adopted by someone who cared for them. This was their way of diminishing someone who had the life they wished for.

But what was the point of playing psychiatrist? Sterling didn’t know what made young people tick any more than anybody else. They were a mystery— a devilish enigma.

For a second it looked as though Abigail might weep. There was a thing she did with her face. The spot between her eyebrows would crinkle. She’d bring her right hand up to her forehead and place her left under the opposite elbow.

She did that and Sterling went to put a comforting hand on her, but she withdrew when her phone rang. That wasn’t a problem. She could let it go. Abigail wanted her to. She was sneaking glances over to see what Sterling would do.

“Abigail…”

The phone continued to ring. It was annoying. Buzzing. The name on it was Wolfe, which meant some god-awful thing from work was intruding on her time with her daughter.

“I’m—”

The ringing continued.

She gripped the phone so tight she thought it might crumble. This was followed by a slight but pregnant moment of silence, during which Abigail put her hand on the door and went to open it.

“Wait,” Sterling said.

Abigail did. She held still against the endless buzzing of the phone.

“Are you okay?”

Abigail nodded.

“Can we talk about this when you get home?”

Abigail nodded again. She left the car with as defeated a posture as Sterling had ever seen. For someone so young, she looked like she was carrying an immense weight on her shoulders—heavy enough to nearly snap her slight frame in half.

Sterling pinched the bridge of her nose and answered the phone.

To this day, she couldn’t remember what the phone call from work was about. But she did remember that that was the last time she saw Abigail alive.

***

When Sterling had first adopted Abigail—only six months or so earlier, once she’d learned Abigail had been in the system her whole life and never had any takers— Sterling had made a habit of picking Abigail up from school and taking her home. Once Abigail’s desire for independence had taken over, the agreement changed. In effect, Abigail walked herself home, so long as she maintained the habit of punctuality.

Abigail had never wavered from this agreement. She’d always shown up on time unless they had agreed otherwise. So, when she failed to show up later that day, Sterling knew for certain that something was wrong.

The street she and Malcolm lived on, Beat Street, was filled with parents. Filled. All their kids went to the same school. All those kids, as seen through the front window, walked home at roughly the same time. Every single weekday.

They walked up their driveways. Their mothers greeted them. Some mothers did so with smiles. Some with their hands on their hips.

At the end of the cul-de-sac, Sterling’s driveway was empty.

Maybe something had come up. That wasn’t impossible, was it? Sterling had thought, trying to calm herself. Someone asked Abigail for help and Abigail—

But what about the conversation we had in the morning? It’s everybody. Who would have asked her for help?

An hour later and the driveway was still a ghost town. Sterling tried calling Abigail’s cell phone—probably ten or more times before she gave up. Then she called the school.

The principal gave her the runaround, which wasn’t unusual. Those sycophantic scum-suckers were always wary of a lawsuit and masters of creating sentences with no meaning. So, it made sense when he said things like: “The premises are vacated in a timely fashion, at which time the students are given the task of ensuring their arrival within an appropriate time frame, as determined by the guardians of said child.” It was like talking to a legal brief.

Luckily, Sterling had been trained to deal with such people. She broke through to him eventually, at which point he said, “I saw her heading out the back door. I’m assuming to avoid the other kids. They’ve been mean to her; I don’t know if you heard…”

Sterling got in her car and drove through every inch of road around the school. She spoke to everyone she saw, showed them a picture of Abigail, and quickly moved on when she didn’t get a positive response.

That yielded nothing. She went home to see if Abigail had shown up. She waited for Malcolm and then the two of them went around knocking on doors.

Nothing.

At that point, she filed a missing person’s report. The police opened a case and put their best guys on it. Malcolm organized his friends at the DA’s office; Sterling used hers at the FBI.

And yet, no matter the work she put in, how many hours she dedicated to finding her lost daughter, there was a quiet voice somewhere in her that told her it was hopeless. Utterly so. No wonder she tried to quiet it down. No wonder she pretended it wasn’t there.

As time went on, she couldn’t pretend any longer. It got louder, and angrier, and screamed at her in the night. The voice followed her around like a parasitic shadow, sucking the life out of her. She could be out at dinner, trying to listen to a friend or a colleague, and the voice would tell her she’d seen cases like this before. She’d known families who’d gone through what she was going through.

How many times did the kid turn up alive? How many 13-year-old girls get kidnapped by a stranger and don’t wind up in a ditch somewhere?

But, then again, maybe it was doing her a favor. Because when she got the call that Abigail had been found, at least she wasn’t surprised.

***

“Your phone’s ringing.”

The words cut through the memory as though Malcolm had hacked at them with a machete. The scene in her mind split down the middle and revealed the grave, the farmland, and the dull overcast sky.

“What?” she said.

“Your phone’s ringing.”

The wound from the hacked memory remained. She should stitch it back together. Not answer the phone and accept this new reality. Stitch it back together and return.

But Wolfe was calling. As always. As usual.

It could have been important. It could have been nothing. She hesitated, looking at the phone screen like she was staring down the length of that machete, aimed no longer at the memory, but at her and threatening her life.

“It’s okay if you need to answer it,” Malcolm said.

“Wolfe’s trying to pull me away from here. I know it. Away from her.”

Malcolm didn’t respond because she assumed he knew there was no point. She always wanted to nestle herself into that cold, unforgiving memory. But when duty called, she was helpless.

She stepped away and answered.

“Where have you been?” Wolfe said. “I’ve tried calling—”

“I’m at the grave.”

“Whose grave?”

“The grave.”

Silence. It lasted almost a full minute. No doubt Wolfe was scolding himself.

“I need you to come in,” he said. His voice sounded worn. As though something had gotten the better of him. “There’s been a murder. It’s a big one.”

Chapter 2

Walking through the doors to the FBI office was like coming back to a broken home. Some parts reminded her of finer moments in her life: cases solved, other agents consulted, friendships forged. But mostly there were memories of when things had gone wrong. And in the FBI, when you got put on a job, it was because something had gone very, very wrong.

She knew the way to Director Wolfe’s office so well that could get there with her eyes closed. As she opened his door and knocked on it on the way in, she could already see the layout in her mind’s eye. Where the desk was. Where the chairs would be. Hell, she could even remember the way it smelled.

All of these fragments came back to her as she opened the door. Nothing in that room had changed.

“Sterling,” came Wolfe’s voice. “Come on in; you’re early.”

Wolfe was sitting with his feet propped up on the desk. In that usual, “I was born handsome” way. His hair was shorter than it had been the last time she saw him. Other than that, he was the same.

Someone else was in there though. Someone sitting in one of the guest chairs, with his back facing Sterling.

She took the seat next to this strange man and snuck a look at him. About her age. Broad-shouldered. He had a square jaw that made him look like an old movie star.

“Who’s the muscle?” she said.

“This is Special Agent Jordan Mitchell.” Wolfe smiled. “I’ve been telling him all about you.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Mitchell said. “Any leads on who did it?”

Sterling shook her head and avoided eye contact with the man.

“We’ll get him,” Wolfe said. “Meantime we’ve got—Mitchell, maybe you should fill her in.”

Mitchell faced her. The way he made and broke eye contact, it seemed like he was calculating his moves. Like he was someone who’d been trained on how to be personable and appear trustworthy.

“You heard of a place called Townshend Falls?”

“East of here, no?”

“That’s right. Idyllic. Worst crime in the last fifty years was when someone poisoned a farmer’s dog.”

He grabbed a file from Wolfe’s desk and handed it to her. Inside was a report from the local police department about a homicide.

“Someone killed the judge?” she said.

“Oliver Greene was the guy’s name. Nice fella. Fair but firm. You know the type.”

“Except this report’s—what, four years old now? And it looks like nobody found the killer. So, I guess you got new evidence.”

“There’s been another murder,” Wolfe said. “Same MO. Whoever did it covered the body in rose petals.”

“Who bit it this time?”

“Local guy.” Wolfe gestured toward the file. “It’s all in there. Reggie Velmer. Last seen at the local watering hole. Was supposed to come home to his pregnant wife. They are not super wealthy but well-to-do by local standards. Anyway, he never came back and the next morning they found him in the tall grass. Nearly had his head hacked off.”

“Hacked?”

“By the looks of it.”

Sterling looked over Velmer’s picture and held it side by side with Judge Greene’s.

“What do these two have in common?” she asked.

“Well.” Mitchell shuffled in his seat. “That’s the thing. Greene was tied down, gagged, and kicked in the stomach until the goddamn thing burst. He was also found at the bottom of an outhouse.”

“So, the methods are different. They don’t have the same hair color, body shape—nothing.” Sterling thought for a second. “The rose petals could be there just to throw us off.”

“That’s why we called you in,” Wolfe said. “We were hoping you could figure this out for us.”

It would mean weeks at a motel. Eating takeout every day. Getting strange phone calls early in the morning. She’d done this long enough to know the ropes and how to live and breathe her assignment.

But despite Wolfe’s appearance of asking her permission, he was just being polite. He was the director. That meant he was calling the shots.

“Could you give us the room?” she said to Mitchell.

Mitchell registered this as a strange request. He shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. Looked to Wolfe for his cue.

Wolfe gave him a nod and he got out of his seat and quickly went through the door. Sterling didn’t say a word until she heard the click of the latch.

“I know what you’re gonna ask,” Wolfe said. “The answer is no.”

“You have no idea what I’m gonna ask.”

“‘You’re about to say, ‘If I go through with this, I want to be put on Abigail’s murder. And, I’d like to have Hoff as my partner.’”

“So, I’m guessing that’s a no? Why not?”

“Because,” he said, “we don’t let agents investigate their own family affairs. And, Hoff is not back. He’s still enjoying the Hawaiian beaches and sunshine. Last time I spoke to him, it seemed like he’s not coming back anytime soon, maybe never.”

“Family affair?”

“You know what I mean. You’re too close. You remember—what the hell was his name? Short guy. With the hair.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Dave…”

“No, no. Daniel. Last name started with an S.”

“Well, whatever,” Wolfe said. “Somebody defrauded his mother out of her life’s savings. We told him at the time we’d put somebody else on it. He decided that wasn’t good enough and nobody could get the job done as well as he could.”

“What happened?”

“What do you think? He had it in his head he knew who the guy was. Nabbed the wrong man. We had to work double time convincing a judge to let him off with a suspension.”

“Daniel Sallust.”

“Yeah, that was the guy. Anyway, you see my point.”

She leaned back in her chair. What would happen if she decided to call an early retirement? Let me run this case or I work somewhere else.

Maybe he’d grumble a bit. Wrap his fist around his thumb. Stick his tongue into his cheek and say, “Fine. But I’m gonna need you to play this straight.”

Then she’d gallivant off into battle, find the man who’d killed her daughter, and bring him to justice. Just like in a Clint Eastwood movie. Dirty Harry, or something like that.

Hell, that’d never happen. To begin with, he’d never believe her. She needed this job. Not for the money—although the money was good, of course. And didn’t everybody need a job with benefits? The benefits at the FBI were enough of an enticement on their own.

No, she needed the job because if she wasn’t doing it, she would go squirrelly. Her brain started to misfire. She got antsy.

“Look,” Wolfe said, “if it makes you feel any better, I’ll find some way to keep you in the loop. You won’t be on the team officially but you won’t just be an idle spectator.”

“And that’s the best you’re gonna give me?”

He nodded. It was a quick little thing, where he lowered his head once before setting it back to resting position.

It’d have to do. For now.

“I wanna know about Mitchell,” she said. “How’d he get a hold of this thing?” She gestured to the file.

“He’s leading the investigation. Had a bit of a mishap with his previous partner.”

“What happened there?”

“Goddamn car accident, if you can believe that. Anyway, he’s in the market for someone to ride shotgun with him. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s ready to take you along.”

“So what?” she said. “I’d be following his lead?”

Wolfe smiled. “We both know how much you like that.”

“I work better when I’m in charge.”

“Don’t we all?”

“Then maybe you should find someone—”

“Listen.” Wolfe let impatience into his voice for the first time. “I know you wanna look for Abigail’s killer and I know you wanna run this investigation, but that just ain’t gonna happen. Now I’m still Director so why don’t we just cut the—”

She smiled. “Alright,” cutting Director Wolfe off.

“Alright, what?”

“I was just thinking it might be nice to get back to work again.”

“You were, were you?”

“Yeah. So, why don’t you put me on the job?”

Wolfe looked like he’d grind his teeth down to nubs if he didn’t stop himself. Instead, he stuck his fingers into his mouth and whistled for Mitchell to come in.

But in a strange turn of events, Mitchell opened the door a split second before Wolfe produced the whistle. The seeming coincidence of their timing drew a smile on both Wolfe and Sterling’s faces. Wolfe even seemed ready to comment on it until he and Sterling noticed the severe expression Mitchell wore.

He was staring at something on his phone.

“What is it?” Sterling said.

Mitchell spoke to Wolfe, almost like he was ignoring her. “She’s in?”

“Why don’t you ask her?” Wolfe said.

“Okay because we have to—”

“Mitchell.” Sterling stood up when she said this. “What’s going on?”

“Get your things. We’re leaving.”

“Leaving—”

“There’s been another murder. Two, to be specific. And whoever did it left more roses on the bodies.”

Continue Reading The Last Witness

“I’ve been thinking,” Harrison Fisher said, breaking the silence while tapping his forefinger pensively on his upper lip.

Layla gripped the steering wheel hard enough to turn her knuckles white. Thankfully, it was dark, and her lover wouldn’t notice her reaction. Are we finally going to have the talk? Mentally, she crossed her fingers that he wouldn’t bring up the subject of divorce. She wasn’t ready to accept the responsibility that she was a homewrecker. Someone just like Layla had torn her world apart as a young girl, and she’d never forgiven the woman. At least Harrison has no children to destroy, she thought.

“You should live closer to me so we can see each other more frequently,” he responded. “I miss you.”

“Don’t you think your wife might become suspicious if you’re suddenly gone more often? You’ve often complained that she creeps around a lot, spying on you. What if she decides to hire a private detective to follow you?”

Reaching over to fondle the base of her neck, Harrison continued. “Look, it’s not just the sex, although I’m always open to a bit more of that,” he chuckled, “but I truly enjoy spending time with you. Take tonight for example, I’ve always wanted to drive through Lake Gibhot, and Renee will never venture somewhere new.”

“Harrison, it’s dark out,” Layla commented, bristling at the mention of his wife’s name. “It’s not like we can enjoy the scenery or stop and have a picnic.” She loved Harrison but hated being reminded he was a married man fooling around with a much younger woman. When he got like this, it made her worry that Harrison was indulging in a mid-life crisis.

“That’s not the point.”

“What exactly is the point?”

“You’re adventurous and open,” Harrison replied. “I’ve never met someone with your imagination and drive. We could do anything together.”

“I think it’s a bad idea,” Layla said and bit her lower lip. “It’s certainly not in my budget to live in the city, and if you think you’re going to pay for it, remember that if she starts to snoop, a regular monthly payout is going to be noticed and send up a bunch of red flags.”

“There are secret accounts she doesn’t know about,” he muttered.

“If a lawyer digs deep enough, they’ll find them.”

“Who said anything about lawyers?” Harrison squeaked, dropping his hand from Layla’s shoulder-length auburn hair.

“You do know you aren’t the only one that might hire one, right?”

Harrison sat in silence. He’d never actually considered that mousy Renee might be the one to call an end to their marriage.

“All I’m saying is that we should just leave things as they are,” Layla said quietly, “for now. It’s not like you’re planning on moving in with me anytime soon. There’s no rush.”

Jealousy reared its ugly head, and before Harrison gave much thought to his response, ugly words just tumbled out of his mouth. “Are you too busy all the nights we aren’t together? Do I have to worry about you seeing someone else?”

“First of all, NO!” Layla exclaimed, her voice escalating. The hitch in her chest felt as though Harrison had stabbed her. The last thing she wanted was to fight. Growing up, the Johnson household had been filled with knock-down-drag-out arguments that had led to Layla leaving at an early age. It was rather ironic that her home life had become broken by both of her parents seeking love in the arms of others. “And even if I was, you go home every night to your wife. I don’t even have a cat!”

Layla felt dizzy and upset, which caused her to look away from the road for only a moment and lose track of how fast she was driving. It only took an instant while the car sped around a bend in the lane, causing neither of them to see the broken-down vehicle until it was too late.

“Look out!” Harrison exclaimed.

With Layla’s reaction time delayed, the car couldn’t escape running into the back of the disabled Honda which blended in perfectly with its surroundings.

Layla’s eyes were wide with fear while she stomped on the brake with all her might, trying to avoid the inevitable collision. Her panic-filled screams echoed through the car, and she felt as though her lungs would burst. Her attempts to slow the Maserati were unsuccessful, and when it seemed helpless, Layla raised her arms in a futile effort to shield her face. The initial impact, the crunching of the metal, and the breaking of glass were only the beginning of her descent into a nightmare.

When Layla dared to open her eyes, she frowned, her mind enveloped in a fog. No longer seeing the other car, she allowed her right hand to cradle her head. Her airbag hadn’t deployed, and Layla could feel something wet trickling down her forehead. Daring to check on Harrison, she could see that his airbag had worked and he seemed dazed from the collision.

“What—the—hell—just—happened?” Layla panted in between quick, shallow breaths. Without realizing it, she whimpered in response to her pain and panic. “Where did the other car go?”

Opening his car door, Harrison fought with his airbag to escape and check out the damage. After a fair amount of struggling, he managed to break free. Harrison felt disoriented, and for a moment, the world swung around in a disturbing and distorted sensation, making him wonder if he had a concussion.

Staggering to the front of his car, he placed a hand on each side of his forehead after an initial inspection of the damage to his car. How was he going to explain all this damage? Between the dented fender and the torn-off bumper, his beloved Maserati appeared to be totaled. Turning left, he caught sight of the other vehicle just as he lost his balance and stumbled against the front of his car.

“Oh, my god,” he whispered, then turned toward Layla, still frozen in panic behind the steering wheel. “Are you hurt?”

Unable to form words, Layla’s only response was a long string of sobbing and nodding.

“Just stay put,” Harrison ordered. “I’m going to check on the other car.”

Carefully descending the steep incline, Harrison silently prayed that the car they hit was empty and the driver had already been picked up by a friend or, better yet, an Uber. The hill was steep, and with every step, little rocks dislodged to create a miniature landslide. Just when Harrison thought he’d mastered his balance, his right knee buckled, and he slid down the slope, momentarily catching his leg on the stubborn roots sticking out of the soil in the dark.

Righting himself by hanging onto the side of the prone vehicle, Harrison fumbled to retrieve his phone from his pocket to use it as a flashlight. While they had hit the broken down car from behind, rolling down the hill had caused additional damage, and Harrison frowned at the wreckage.

Just as Harrison was about to lean through the driver’s window to check inside, he became startled by the sound of twigs snapping. Turning around to face the direction of the road above, he noticed Layla gingerly making her way down the incline.

“Don’t come down here,” he hissed.

“I can’t stay up there alone,” she whined. “Is there a driver? Are they okay?”

Nature’s answer was to grant them with the passing of a dark cloud previously covering a full moon, and Harrison suddenly felt as though he was standing in a spotlight. “I was just going to check.”

Flashing the light over the interior, he could hear the car’s metal creak as it slid another inch or two down the slope. Startled, he jumped back from the heavily damaged car and held his breath as if it would stop the vehicle from sliding further forward.

“Stay where you are,” Harrison commanded, holding his hand toward Layla.

Shining the light inside of the little Honda micro-car, he froze. “Damn,” he whispered.

“Oh my god!” Layla uttered, holding her shaking hand up over her open mouth. The young woman inside looked to be a teen, maybe twenty-ish tops. The victim’s front was drenched in newly spilled blood, the flow originating from her nose and mouth. Her white blouse was full of wet, crimson flowers, and a sickening white bone protruded from her arm. If she had been conscious, she would have been screaming in pain.

“I thought I told you to stay away,” Harrison muttered, flashing his light at his mistress. “We’re in big trouble.”

“What are we going to do?” Layla quietly replied. Tears pooled in her eyes, and she started to sob. “We need to call the police and get this woman an ambulance.”

Careful not to touch the driver’s door, Harrison reached in and checked for a pulse. Finding none, he turned and shook his head at Layla.

“Noooo,” she wailed and collapsed into a heap on the ground.

“Ssssh.” Harrison comforted Layla and rubbed her back while trying to get her to calm down. Layla was breathing so erratically that he feared she would hyperventilate, and then he would have an entirely new set of problems.

“I killed her,” she muttered as she sat up and buried her face in her trembling hands. “I—I—I killed her.”

“Layla, snap out of it,” Harrison ordered gently.

No scenario ended well as Harrison ran through each one. Whatever choice he made would make the headlines, destroy his business, and end life as he knew it simply because he’d had an affair.

Staring into the night sky, an idea began to form. Harrison played it over and over in his mind until it was the only way it made sense.

Gently pulling Layla up by her arms, he made reassuring shushing noises while stroking her hair. In order for his plan to work, he was going to need Layla’s help. Without it, they were both screwed.

“What are we going to do?” Layla asked in a trembling voice.

Wrapping his arm around her, Harrison tried to be supportive. If Layla lost it now, he could never pull this off alone.

“It’s late, but we have to hurry in case someone drives by,” Harrison began while silently thanking the heavens that it was so late at night that any chance of traffic and potential witnesses was minimal. “Do you see how the car is facing the lake?”

Layla silently nodded, her cheeks damp and filled with mascara smears.

“We’re going to take advantage of the I-95 Seaboard Killer.”

Widening her eyes in horror, Layla shook her head and clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Look, she’s already dead,” Harrison reasoned, “and the serial killer the feds are searching for has already killed a bunch of women. This extra death will only add one more to his list of kills. No one will know. I doubt even he will by the time she’s found.”

“We will,” she whispered and gulped. “I don’t know if I can live with that. Can you?”

Harrison felt like he was inside an elevator in freefall. Could he live with it?

The alternative was ugly, and Harrison wasn’t sure he could survive the scandal. When looking at his trembling mistress, he wasn’t sure if she could withstand this, no matter which path they chose. At least this way, they had a chance to live the rest of their lives. Their only other option would destroy them both.

“I can,” he lied, trying to be strong and make her believe that she, too, could live through this. Trying to convince himself, Harrison added, “It was an accident.”

Tearing off his shirt, Harrison quickly wiped down every surface of the micro-car he’d touched. After that, he tore strips out of it and wrapped both of their hands in the fabric so they wouldn’t leave any fingerprints when they both attempted to hide the car and its dead occupant.

“C’mon, Layla,” Harrison assured her. “We have to hurry if this is going to work. If we get caught, we’ll end up in prison for the rest of our lives.”

Once the damaged car got rolling, it wasn’t long until gravitational force pulled it into Lake Gibhot, and at first, the car looked like it was going to float instead of sink. It entered the water with a quiet bloop and swoosh noise, and Harrison released the breath he’d been holding, thankful that the car had been quiet upon entry. After all, he’d never done this before and had no idea what to expect.

Layla dug her fingers into Harrison’s arm, her voice filled with a new sense of panic. “Why isn’t it sinking?”

“It will,” Harrison assured her. “It’s a lighter car, so it will take longer to sink. Don’t worry. Now, let’s get back to my car.”

With a sharp intake of air, Layla panicked. “What will we do about your car? It’s got a lot of damage.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Harrison assured her. Suddenly, he was very thankful to have a storage unit in the middle of nowhere. First, he’d store the car and then figure out what to do next. Underneath his overnight bag in the trunk, he found some bungee cords to tie up the sagging bumper, and within a few minutes, they would be back on the road with Harrison behind the wheel and sporting a fresh shirt.

Quickly checking out the homes that he could see through the treeline, Harrison breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t spot any telltale lights shining. This area was predominantly a retirement area for those who coveted peace and solitude outside the big city hustle and bustle.

He froze when he heard a dog bark. Cautiously, Harrison drove off and went as far as he dared without any headlights to draw attention to their position.

Layla was curled up in the passenger seat, softly rocking herself back and forth while trying to find comfort.

“Tomorrow, this will all seem like a bad dream,” Harrison assured her. He said this to convince Layla and himself that it could be months or years before the police found the car.

If we’re lucky, it will never be discovered, he thought.

Chapter 2

“Is something wrong?” Janice Schumacher asked in an annoyed tone. “Your hand is shaking, and I don’t want to lose an eye.”

With a frightened look, Layla gulped and redoubled her efforts to ensure that her wealthy client got the makeover she had come to expect every morning. She needed the income but was distracted and unable to shut out the local news story currently playing on Janice’s television.

“S—s—sorry,” Layla stammered. Last evening’s events were still etched in her mind, and she felt understandably shaken. If it hadn’t been for the dwindling funds in her bank account, she would have never left home this morning. It’s not every day that you make a criminal mistake, kill someone, and then try to pin it on the local serial killer.

Layla kept repeating her mantra: I’m not a bad person. I’m not a bad person. But she knew she was lying to herself. Luckily, her client was far too interested in her trashy magazine to notice her makeup artist’s face becoming ashen and pinched with worry.

There was too much fearmongering and misinformation fed to the public for Layla to ever give news reports the time of day, but now they had her full attention. It was about her and what she had done. Until this morning, Layla believed them to be a cover-up of what was really going on. A sleight of hand, if you will, but wasn’t that what she was doing now?

The local anchorman shuffled his papers and turned to face the camera prompt light, his expression grim. He took a moment to clear his voice before delivering bad news to his audience.

“In local news, it seems that a young local woman has become the latest victim in a series of killings attributed to the I-95 Seaboard Killer. Unlike many of the previous victims, twenty-one-year-old Olivia Evans was found within hours after her car had been pushed into Lake Gibhot.

“Officials believe they may have a break in the case because the car failed to sink completely like other victims, creating a more accurate window of opportunity to extract evidence from her murder.”

Swiveling, the anchor stared into the next camera, and continued his report.

“It was fate that a local man happened to be walking his dog in the secluded area when he spotted the roof of a car above the water level.”

A video clip appeared on the screen over his shoulder depicting law enforcement, and other investigators on the scene before a woman’s hand appeared over the lens, informing the news crew to move back behind the crime scene tape.

“The FBI has recently been called in to investigate this multi-state murder spree.”

“It’s about time they called in the FBI,” Janice shouted, gesturing angrily toward the television screen. “Our local police force is about as clever as a turkey in a driving rainstorm.”

Layla stared at her employer, her mouth opened, feeling frightened. She panicked, wondering if Janice had already figured out she was guilty.

Staring at her assistant in the mirror, Janice squinted in annoyance. “You know, because turkeys are so stupid that they look up in the pouring rain and drown.”

“O—0—of course,” Layla replied, mouse-like.

After delivering a few seconds of disturbing information, the broadcaster moved on to the weather and the upcoming heat wave about to descend on the Eastern seaboard. Disinterested, Janice delved back into her magazine, wondering what the Kardashians were up to next.

Shattering the silence of the moment, Layla’s phone blasted “Treat Me Right” by Pat Benatar from within her pocket. With fumbling fingers, she raced to get to it and turn it off as she’d meant to do earlier. Mortified, she met Janice’s disapproving gaze.

“You’re not paid to take personal calls,” Janice reprimanded her.

“I forgot,” Layla replied breathlessly. From the ringtone, she knew Harrison was trying to call her, and he’d be upset that she’d sent him to voicemail. It wasn’t much of a stretch to guess that he’d just seen the same news broadcast she had.

Harrison had been a huge mistake, probably the biggest one in her life. Layla had sworn that she loved him, but that was before last night. His coldness regarding that poor woman made her reassess how she felt about him, and Layla was paying for her rashness now. It was too late to take her decisions back. No matter how much she regretted them, there was no way to go back in time and set things right. She was tied to Harrison whether she liked it or not.

Pasting on a smile to mask her fear, Layla moved on from Janice’s hair to applying foundation and the rest of Janice’s makeup. Layla dreamed of working in Hollywood or Broadway as a makeup artist to the stars, yet here she was, stranded on the East Coast, struggling and failing at everything she touched.

“Remember, heavy on the concealer,” Janice reminded her. “I’m not as young as I used to be, and I can’t have someone noticing these bags under my eyes.”

“Going somewhere important today?” Layla asked, trying to take her mind off her panic.

“Oh, you know, just lunch with the girls at Movello’s.”

Layla knew exactly what that meant—a seafood lunch with several bottles of wine split between four ladies reliving wild tales of their youth. Whether imagined or real, the ladies probably didn’t know the difference anymore because no one called them on their bullshit, no matter how imaginary it might be.

Janice’s husband was often out of town on business, and Layla was beginning to understand why. However, at that moment, she would give anything to trade places with her client. Janice may have been a bore, but she had a safe life with piles of family money and no one to answer to.

If she lived through this, Layla vowed to make better decisions and no more married men. Nothing good could ever come of it, and the proof of that was being blasted all over the news for her benefit.

***

“Darling, have you seen this?” Renee Fisher said from behind her husband’s turned back.

Understandably, Harrison’s mind had been elsewhere. Pounding down his second cup of coffee, he had been reliving the events of last night, wishing that he could banish the outcome from his memory. Because of being so wrapped up in the previous evening’s cataclysmic aftermath, Harrison barely heard Renee calling his name.

“Harrison? Harrison?” Renee called with each repetition gaining in intensity.

Harrison was met with his worst nightmare when he turned to look at the screen. They had found the car sooner than he’d imagined. Without enough time passing, would there be trace evidence left behind? Did he wipe everything down enough after touching the dead woman’s car? Had he managed to pick up any pieces of his car that might have been left behind? It was dark, and he couldn’t be positive that he’d succeeded. He knew that her car would be found sooner or later, but he prayed for later. Watching their tragic mishap broadcast on live television caused his heart to pound and his brow to break out in a cold sweat.

“Are you feeling okay?” Renee asked her husband, concern filling her eyes. She crossed the kitchen and held up the back of her hand to check for a fever. “You’re burning up. You must have caught something at the hotel this weekend. Were any of your business associates ill?”

“Huh?” Harrison froze, recovering from his initial shock. “Oh, they were fine,” he assured her.

Renee absently reached out to smooth her husband’s ruffled bangs and was taken aback when he pulled away from her touch.

“Didn’t the meeting go well?” she asked, still stunned by his rejection.

Knowing that their marriage had problems, Renee attempted to open communications with her husband, but he rarely responded the way she hoped. Little did she know that his meeting was all part of a cover for his weekend liaisons with his mistress.

While it was true that Harrison wanted to grow his realty business, the tales of expanding his borders past Boston would, for now, be only a ruse. There was no sense in building his business only to lose half of it in a divorce settlement. It did, however, provide an excellent cover for him to be away from home without raising any suspicions.

“I hope they catch him. What a vile man,” Renee exclaimed.

“Hmm, what?”

“Seriously, Harrison! It’s like you’re on another planet. This serial killer is doing horrible things to good people.”

“Yes, awful,” Harrison agreed absently. “Excuse me.”

“Where are you going?” Renee asked.

Grabbing the bag out of the trashcan, Harrison held it aloft. “Just taking out the garbage, dear.”

Quickly, he tied up the ends and made haste toward the garage so that he could get away from his wife. Once, they’d been in love, at least he thought they had, but then she became needy after her miscarriage. The way she hovered reminded him of a relentless, blood-thirsty mosquito.

After their loss, Renee hadn’t expressed any interest in sex, which had driven a solid wedge between them. Harrison could simply leave. There were no children to have a custody battle over. The sale of the house could be split between them, and Renee was free to have all the belongings she wanted. He could always buy new stuff.

There were lingering memories of happier times. Things that Harrison wasn’t quite ready to relinquish, such as recollections of how Renee would playfully laugh at him when he loaded the dishwasher wrong or when they’d read a book together in bed before making love.

Now they slept in separate bedrooms and spent more time apart than most enemies. The only communication he usually received from her was checking on him to see if he was really golfing. Their relationship had become stifling, and shortly thereafter, he met Layla, kept a burner phone, and left town on adventures he craved. He justified his actions by blaming Renee for it all, refusing to see that it took two to destroy a marriage.

“Damn it,” he swore under his breath when it became obvious that Layla rejected his call. When he tried again, it went straight to voicemail and he knew she’d turned her phone off.

Stifling the urge to curse loudly, Harrison rapidly sent her a text.

Harrison: We NEED to be on the same page about what happened.

Harrison angrily shoved his burner phone into his pocket after ensuring it was turned off. He couldn’t have it ring around Renee. That would be a disaster. It had been a stroke of genius to blame the accident on the I-95 Seaboard Killer. After all, what was one more death when you already have at least 20 deaths to your name?

The fact that Layla wasn’t answering her phone made him worry that she’d grown a conscience. Has she already gone to the police? Is she giving us both up? Harrison thought.

Closing the trash lid, he returned to the house to give Renee her expected peck on the cheek and grabbed his travel mug of Jo.

***

Disoriented, Sterling Quinn arose from a troubled slumber. When she reached for her boyfriend, she expected to find him still in bed. She was startled to discover that he wasn’t there, and his side of the mattress was cool to the touch.

She and her boyfriend, Malcolm Grant, had just purchased the home of their dreams a couple of years ago, purposely situated as the last house on a beautifully manicured cul-de-sac. There wasn’t much known about the previous owner who had disappeared mysteriously, allowing the house to become bank owned.

Sterling had fallen in love with it because the echoes of the house made her feel secure. After she and Malcolm had bought the house, she found an inconsistency in the blueprints and discovered a secret room. The presence of a safe room had done a lot to confirm her fascination with the place. Between them, they had seen horrific cases that would haunt the most seasoned law enforcement personnel, and this hidden feature bolstered her sense of security.

The master bathroom door swung open, and for a moment, she had to stop and admire Malcolm’s good looks. When she looked into his steel blue-gray eyes, she didn’t see the acting ADA, who had a reputation in court for being a shark. Instead, she saw the caring and protective man that had stolen her heart. She had to pinch herself sometimes to check if she was dreaming about the existence of their relationship. It was too perfect at times.

“Nervous, darling?” he asked with a hint of mischief in his gaze.

“Of course, I’m nervous,” Sterling replied. “It’s not often you get a second chance at the bureau. It’s practically unheard of.”

“I’m sure you can put that all behind you. Director Wolfe assured me you’d receive fair treatment.”

“Yeah, sure he will,” Sterling snorted. She and FBI Director Wolfe had worked together before, and she knew that there was going to be plenty of animosity between them.

Malcolm sat down on the edge of the bed and kissed her deeply.

Inhaling his cologne, Sterling felt a twang of arousal and regretted not taking another week before restarting her career.

“Oooh,” she groaned while playfully grabbing at the top of his charcoal paisley power tie and running her fingers down to the pointed end. “Mr. Grant, come back to bed. We can start our new jobs tomorrow, can’t we?”

“As tempted as I might be, no can do, darling,” he responded. “This I-95 serial killer case has been dropped right into my lap, and I’ve got to get out ahead of it before the good citizens of Boston crucify us. And you have some higher-ups to win over with your built-in grace.”

“What was I thinking?” Sterling whined while regretfully emerging from bed. “Do you think they are going to turn a blind eye to the hornet’s nest I stirred up? Law enforcement never forgets when you bring down their own house in a mushroom cloud that flattened the city and my career along with it.”

“Now, now,” Malcolm replied, patting her bottom. “They got what they deserved! Let’s not forget that they tried to kill you to keep you quiet.”

“Pretty sure they’re sorry they missed.”

“You may think that now, but one day you’ll look back on this and laugh,” he said. “Meanwhile, you better grab a quick shower while I get your breakfast started.”

While Sterling was still thinking up a quick retort, Malcolm grabbed his jacket and made his way down the stairs and into their kitchen.

Towel drying her honey-blonde hair, Sterling inhaled and closed her eyes in ecstasy. Malcolm was making his famous cinnamon French toast. If she hurried, it would still be warm. Making record time while combing her hair and putting on her silken robe, she arrived in the kitchen just as the hot food graced her plate.

The small kitchen television was on and tuned into the news. Malcolm was watching it with a burning interest. Without taking his eyes off the screen, he reached over and tapped Sterling on her arm to gain her attention.

“This guy never stops, does he?” Malcolm muttered. “Another victim so quickly on the heels of the last discovery. He must have been in a hurry to be this sloppy.”

“Maybe this will be the break needed to solve the case,” Sterling agreed. “See you after work?”

Malcolm looked her up and down. “My love, wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”

Continue Reading Behind the Mask – (2^nd Edition)