“Rick,” Kitty said, soft enough so only he could hear as they walked past the rows of desks. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it, sugar.”
He slowed to steer her toward her desk with a touch at the elbow. She sat, drew a steadying breath, and squared her shoulders, her chin high again, as if daring anyone to ask why her eyes were red. Satisfied, Rick turned toward the corridor and went straight into the men’s room.
The tiles were dim under the old bulbs, the space quiet save for the drip of a leaky faucet. He hooked his jacket on the door, took a urinal, relieved himself, and moved to the sink, rolling his sleeves up. The mirror showed him a picture of a man who’d spent the night on an office couch instead of a bed: jaw shadowed, eyes puffy, hair flattened on one side and sticking up on the other. For a split second, the memory rose uninvited—Ash’s lips around his cock, the cramped stall, the reckless heat of it—then he shut it down. He brushed his teeth, then washed his face until the water ran cold and his cheeks burned pink. In a moment, he resembled a human being again.
Straightening, Rick ran a hand over his hair and tugged his tie straight. When he shrugged into his jacket, he looked presentable enough. A cop ought to at least smell clean before shaking down the lab for answers. With that thought, he flicked off the faucet and headed for the elevators, hoping Gloria had something solid waiting.
As the car descended, his thoughts slid again where they always seemed to when things went quiet. Rick pulled his phone out, thumb hesitating over the screen. He wanted to hear that velvet voice to calm the noise in his head. But it was still early. Ash would be dead to the world, and Rick wasn’t about to wake him just because he couldn’t keep his own mind straight.Instead, he typed a quick message—‘Call me when you’re up’—and slipped the phone into his pocket.
The elevator spat him out into the basement hall, cooler than the floors above. The hush was thick, broken only by the hum of vents and the occasional rattle of pipes. A tang of antiseptic clung to the air, the kind of smell you carried on your clothes if you lingered too long.
Rick followed the corridor to the glass-paned lab door and pushed it open. Gloria was at the counter, coaxing a smear across a glass slide with the edge of a scalpel, movements quick and neat despite the early hour. “Morning, G.”
She glanced up, gaze sparkling over her cat-eye frames. “Why, it’s Romeo himself.”
Rick snorted. “Don’t start. I haven’t had coffee yet.”
“Oh, darling, neither have I,” she said, tucking an errant curl into place, her pose ready for a close-up. “But I still manage to look alive.” She punctuated it with a faint flourish of her wrist, the overhead light catching in her heavy bracelet.
He gave her a dry once-over. “Date with the chiropractor went well, I take it?”
She raised her chin, perfectly penciled eyebrows shooting high. “I had a marvelous time, darling, simply marvelous. But I doubt you came all the way down here to hear about my love life.” She peered at him sideways, head tilted in suspicion.
Rick huffed in assent. Enough small talk. “Anything on the scalpel?”
“Plenty.” She set the blade down with a gentle clink and wiped her hands on a towel, the movement practiced, almost stage-ready. From a tray, she slid out a plastic evidence sleeve. “Prints came up Frost’s, no question. But…” Her mouth pinched thin, losing its theatrical lift. She tapped the sleeve with a fingernail. “There’s something odd. Ridge detail lines up a little too neatly with the butt we pulled from the last scene.”
Rick frowned. “Too neatly how?”
“Down to the minutiae points.” She angled the sleeve toward him. “Same print, same pattern. But even the same finger doesn’t stamp itself twice like that. You always get little tells—angle, sweat, pressure. This one’s… well, it’s an identical impression.” She hesitated, then sighed, the diva dropping to scientist again. “Could be a fluke. Or contamination. I need more analysis before I can be sure.”
“You think it might’ve been planted?”
Gloria met his look over the rim of her glasses, shrugging one elegant shoulder. “I wouldn’t go that far yet. Just saying it’s off. And you know I hate off.” She returned to her workstation, gathering her tools with small, precise gestures.
Rick studied her for a beat, then nodded. “Keep at it.”
She raised her coffee cup in a lazy salute, already half-absorbed in the slide under her microscope.
Rick moved for the exit, shoes dragging heavy on the tile. His hand closed around the knob when his gaze slid to something at its edge. A scarf hung on the stand beside the door, checkered silk draped carelessly over the hook. The pattern snagged his attention like a wire in the ribs, cold and immediate.
Ash’s vision.
The breath left his throat in a slow, hard drag. He didn’t turn fully, only angled his head toward Gloria. “Hey, G. This yours?”
She glanced over, waved her hand. “Gordon’s. That boy’d forget his own head if it wasn’t screwed on.”
Rick stared at the muffler, a cold drag settling in his gut. “He around?”
“Mm-mm. Another sick day. And guess who’s left picking up the slack.” Her tone was indulgent despite the scoffing. “He’s still the best damn assistant I’ve had, so I gotta cut him some slack.”
“Right,” Rick murmured while his stomach churned. It was too precise. Too coincidental. Too damned neat. “How long’s he been with you again?”
Gloria raised her head, her stare piercing even across the lab. “What’s with the sudden interest in my protégé? Did he spill his coffee on you or something?”
Rick tried to smile at her, but his jaw was clenched too tight. “Indulge me.”
