Just skin. Too cool. Too still.
I pressed harder.
Nothing.
The absence was louder than any beating heart.
“Rios!” I barely held back the tremor.
His boots thudded down the hall, then stopped in the doorway behind me.
“What’ve you got?”
I lifted my face to him, fingers still stupidly on the place where life should have been.
“He’s dead.”
Seventeen
RIOS
“…and unless you’re planning to charge either of us with something, Chief, this is where you let us go.” Madden’s voice was cool and precise, every word edged in steel.
Carson bristled at that, color rising in his cheeks as he shoved his hands on his hips. “You’re not an ADA anymore, Counselor. And he—” a jerk of his chin at me “—isn’t law enforcement. Whatever you two think you’re doing, I suggest you remember where your authority stops.”
“Since we have none, our authority stops right here on this sidewalk. Where you have no legal cause to detain us further.”
It took everything in me not to smirk. Or applaud. Or both.
The marsh hummed in the mid-afternoon heat beyond the parking lot, indifferent to a dead man on a bathroom floor. Behind Madden, crime scene tape already blocked off Willie Sanders’s apartment. CSU was inside, and an officer was posted by the door. He looked vaguely familiar and kept glancing our way. At first, I’d thought it was at me, but it was her he was watching, his mouth drawn into lines of concern.
Carson scowled at the pair of us. “Get out of here, and stay out of my way.”
“Trust me,” Madden murmured under her breath. “I’d love to.”
He stalked off toward his cruiser, shoulders tight, barking something at one of the uniforms. I watched him go, a familiar cocktail of resentment and weary contempt twisting under my ribs.
Half of me had been braced for cuffs. For the old dance of “just come down to the station so we can clear a few things up,” which somehow never applied to anyone but me.
Having Madden there—calm, controlled, clearly stating the timeline and making it crystal fucking clear we’d had neither means nor opportunity—had been a shield I hadn’t known I’d get to have. She’d been clinical with her answers, precise with her terminology, and absolutely ruthless about procedure.
Her willingness to use her expertise in my—our—defense said more about her inclination to trust me than perhaps anything else.
Beside me, she’d gone very, very still. Shoulders drawn in a fraction. Mouth a line. I knew that look. Now that the immediate threat was past, her adrenaline was wearing off, leaving the crash behind.
“Come on. Let’s get you home.”
“I’m fine.” Automatic. Brittle.
“Sure,” I agreed. “You can be fine on your boat.”
Madden cut me a sidelong glance but didn’t argue when I began steering her toward the truck.
“Madden.”
We both turned at the voice. It was the cop who’d been posted at the door. He shot me an inscrutable look before focusing back on her.
“You okay?”
