He answered on the second ring.“Hey?—”
Whatever she said hit him like a punch.His body snapped rigid, shoulders locking, eyes cutting to me for half a second before he turned the car in a different direction.Good thing we didn’t radio in that we would be on scene for backup yet.Whatever Nita said, we had a different call to answer apparently.
“Slow down,” he commanded, voice calm but tight.“Nita, slow down.What do you mean out of sorts?”
I felt it then.That low, crawling dread that started at the base of my spine and worked its way up.
Lamonte listened, nodding, running a hand over his face.“You couldn’t understand her how?”
Another pause.His jaw clenched.“She’s at her apartment?”
My chest went hollow.It was instinct that screamed this call was about Char.
Lamonte didn’t look at me when he said, “Yeah.We’ll check on her.We’re close.”
He hung up and tossed his phone on the dash as he flipped on lights and sirens while heading towards Char’s apartment complex.Were we breaking procedure?Yes.Did I care?Not at all.
“What’s going on?”I asked, though part of me already knew.
“Nita says Char called her,” he shared, passing through an intersection..“She was off.Slurring.Not making sense.Sounded scared but wouldn’t say why.Her phone location put her at her apartment.”
The word her landed like a bruise.“She ask for help?”I asked.
“No,” he said.“Which scares the hell out of her.”
It scared the hell out of me too.I was already pulling up the address in my head, already seeing the layout of the building, the narrow stairwell, the way the light flickered in the hall because the landlord never fixed a damn thing unless the city made him.
“Did Nita call it in?”I asked.
“She wanted us to go first,” Lamonte said.“Said Char would shut down if uniforms showed up.”
That tracked.Char hated attention.Hated feeling like a problem that needed fixing.
I stared out the windshield as the city blurred past, lights streaking across the glass.I hadn’t seen her in two weeks.Two weeks shouldn’t be enough time for the world to fall apart.
But it was.
We parked half a block away, lights off, instincts already humming.The building looked the same as always—worn brick, narrow windows, a single flickering porch light that did more shadowing than illuminating.
No movement.No sound.Lamonte checked the door to the stairwell.Unlocked.Unusual but not unheard of.
“Metro Police,” he called out as we stepped inside.“Charlaina?”Her neighbor across the breezeway moved out three weeks ago and to my knowledge no one else had been moved in yet.This meant Char was the only resident on the second floor.
No answer.The air felt wrong.Too still.Too heavy.We took the stairs two at a time.Her door was cracked.That was when my heart stopped.
Adrenaline rushed through me.I pushed it open.
The atmosphere hit me all at once.Heat, it was entirely too warm.Char didn’t like it hot, she preferred to bundle up and breathe in cooler air.The odor of something chemical, something sharp and wrong permeated the space.My eyes took a second to adjust to the low light, and when they did, my world shattered.
Char was on the floor.
Not just on the floor, though.She was limp, her limbs slack at angles that made no sense.Her shirt was bunched up under her ribs, her jeans half unbuttoned.
And over her… there he was.
Her ex.
Hands already on her waistband, eyes wild, mouth twisted in something ugly and desperate.
