Sizzling desire and office politics don't mix ... do they?
Forensic specialist Stevie Daniels will be day-shift supervisor. She's earned that promotion. But first, her boss has tasked her with digging up dirt on Vin Vasher, the rebellious night-shif...
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Stevie drove her blue Jeep, behind the crime lab van carrying Ron, Tom, and Marcus, to a home south of downtown. She could've stayed at the lab and let the guys handle this dead body call, but an extra pair of hands and eyes, even for a few hours, went a long way toward making everyone's workday a little less taxing.
She glanced around, as they snaked through a peaceful upper-middle-class subdivision in the South Mountain area. The homes were pleasant enough, but for Stevie, they lacked any individualism and pizzazz. A cut-and-paste neighborhood of boring beige stucco homes, bland tile roofs, and a scant patch of grass hardly justifying the ownership of a lawnmower. One or two windmill palms gave a sense of height to the otherwise bland-upon-bland landscape.
A shudder shook her core. "Gak, just kill me if I ever think about joining The Stepford Wives' Club."
At their destination, Detective Keith Morris greeted them. "Better break out the camphor for this one."
"And good day to you too," Ron said. "If it's that bad, how about opening the windows?"
The detective chuckled. "And deprive you guys of getting the full effect like we did? Nahhh."
While Ron went with Keith for the preliminary walk-through, Stevie leaned against one of the patrol cars and soaked up some sun. Behind closed eyes, she calculated if she bowed out at three, and got home by four, she could get a few hours of rest before having to deal with Vasher. She grunted. Sucks, but still better than pulling a triple.
Ten minutes later, Ron returned, calling out orders. "Marcus, you have the outside until Dave and Jung can get here. I didn't see any obvious signs of a break-in but give all doors and windows a good going over. Tom, you're inside on the first floor. Stevie, you're with me, and the late Mr. Getty."
Stevie retrieved her kit and smeared on a thick corpse-mustache. She followed Ron and Keith, mirroring their exact footsteps. In the living room, her trained eyes fed an endless stream of data to her brain. Two beer bottles, Dos Equis. One empty, the other only half empty. No evidence of a struggle. Beer nuts, some on the counter. Spilled out when a hand reached in?
She paused at the bottom of the stairs. Her heart quickening at the blood drops on the carpet. Small directional splatter on the wall too. In the upstairs hallway, she noticed the drops were about three feet apart. Not walking. Running, or staggering.
As each deliberate step brought her closer to the bedroom, Stevie's arm hairs rose with a sudden chill gripping at her skin. She'd seen her fair share of dead bodies—three hundred give or take—but it didn't stifle the initial shock, which only a vulture would rejoice in seeing.
Muscles in her forearms and legs started to twitch.
At the entrance to the bedroom, her head jerked back as the first full wave of putrefied death slipped past the sticky white ointment and infested her lungs. The hideous mustard-colored walls closed in on her. Heat flashed through her body as if she were standing in the middle of a pyre.
