I pointed. “The door’s not secure.”
His whole body stilled in that particular way it did when he was slotting into some bone-deep training. “Okay. Stay out here.”
He tugged a bandana out of his pocket and wrapped it around his hand so he could ease the door further along its track with his covered palm. It slid open with a soft scrape.
“Sanders?” His voice carried into the dimness. “Willie, it’s Carrera.”
No answer.
The smell hit first—stale beer, old takeout, and something underneath that made my stomach twitch. Not quite rot, but headed in that direction.
Against my better judgment—and his explicit instruction—I stepped in after him, keeping my hands tucked against my sides to avoid touching anything.
The main room looked like every cliché of an overworked, underpaid blue collar bachelor’s apartment: pizza boxes, fast food wrappers, an overflowing trash can in the corner, a sagging couch with a suspicious stain in the middle. An ashtray on the coffee table overflowed with butts. A glass pipe lay beside it, dulled by use.
“Willie?” I moved carefully past the couch. “It’s Madden Reilly, remember? We talked yesterday.”
No sound. No movement. The apartment had a feeling of emptiness, though I couldn’t put my finger on why.
Rios peeled off toward the kitchenette, scanning counters and sink, his gaze snagging briefly on an empty prescription bottle lying on its side. Even from here, I could see the label had been peeled halfway off.
I headed for the hallway.
There were only two doors—one slightly ajar on the right, one wide open at the end. The open door showed a stacked washer and dryer. The near door probably led to the bedroom.
“Willie?” I tried again, loud enough that if he’d simply passed out, he should have heard me. “We’re here to talk about what you saw. You wanted to help.”
Still nothing.
My pulse ticked faster.
I nudged the bedroom door with my knuckles, and it swung wider with a complaint of un-oiled hinges.
The room was a disaster—clothes everywhere, sheets in a tangle, an oscillating fan pointed at the bed. The blinds were mostly closed, slats tilted just enough to let in a dull stripe of light.
The bed was empty.
Then my gaze tracked to the floor at the far side, toward the bathroom doorway.
A bare foot stuck out. Toes splayed, skin waxy.
For a second, the world narrowed to that one image—foot, tile, dirty baseboards.
I rounded the bed in three quick strides and dropped to my knees on the bathroom threshold.
“Willie?” I said, even though I already knew.
He lay face-down on the tile, one arm pinned awkwardly under his chest, the other stretched out as if he’d been reaching for something or trying to crawl. His cheek was smashed against the floor, jaw slack. A dark bruise marred the inside of his elbow, but that could’ve been from any number of things—IV, blood draw, hard living. I didn’t see a pool of blood, no obvious trauma.
“Come on,” I muttered, because saying it made doing the next thing easier. “Don’t do this.”
I carefully stepped into the bathroom and pressed two fingers to the side of his neck, hunting for the flutter of life where a carotid pulse should be.
I’d touched a lot of people’s throats in court photos. In evidence. In autopsy reports.
This was very, very different.
No barrier of glossy paper. No buffer of time and professionals between me and the moment.
