Chapter 1

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.

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