He grinned and pulled out his phone to make the calls.
By the time we turned onto the long gravel drive that led to the house, the sun had dropped behind the ridge and the trees had gone to silhouette.
Jack killed the engine and we sat for a moment in the sudden quiet. Cicadas sang from the tree line, and somewhere down by the river, a bullfrog was putting on a performance. The humidity had loosened its grip as evening settled in, and the air coming through the cracked windows smelled like warm earth and honeysuckle.
I closed my eyes and let the quiet settle over me. The nausea had subsided, but the bone-deep fatigue of the first trimester was a constant companion I hadn’t quite figured out how to manage alongside murder investigations.
Jack reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Come on. You need to eat.”
“You say the most romantic things.”
“I know my audience.”
Doug was in the kitchen when we came through the door, standing in front of the open refrigerator in basketball shorts and a T-shirt that said TRUST ME, I’M A HACKER with the word HACKER crossed out and NICE GUY written beneath it in Sharpie. His hair looked like he’d styled it with a leaf blower.
“Hey,” he said, not looking up from whatever he was excavating from the crisper drawer. “I ate the rest of the leftover pasta. Don’t be mad.”
“We’re ordering Chinese,” Jack said. “You know Jaye doesn’t eat leftovers, so I’m glad someone is cleaning out the fridge.”
“Oh, good,” he said. “Because I ate the rest of the pizza for my midmorning snack and the meat loaf you made the other night for lunch.”
Jack’s mouth twitched with good humor. “I’m calling the team in. Can you and Margot be in the office in twenty minutes?”
Doug’s head whipped around so fast he nearly clipped it on the freezer door. “We got a case? Is it the boxer? I saw some of it on the news. You and Jaye got a few seconds of screentime.”
“That’s what I live for,” I said.
“You were looking pretty pale,” Doug said. “Margot said it’s because she thinks you’re pregnant, but I told her you always look pale and you never bother with makeup.”
“Thanks Doug,” I said. “I can always count on you.”
“Just keeping it real,” he said. “We’re going to need food. I’ll order Ming Palace on my way upstairs. I know everyone’s order. You people are always predictable.”
“Get extra crab rangoons,” Jack said.
“Obviously.” Doug was already thundering up the stairs, presumably to retrieve Margot from whatever digital slumber she’d been enjoying.
“Should we be offended at the predictability comment?” I asked.
“Probably.”
I closed the refrigerator door Doug had left hanging open and followed Jack down the hall to the office. The room was dark, and I flipped the switch on the gas fireplace while Jack hit the lights. Warm lamplight filled the space, catching the leather of the oversized chairs by the hearth and the reclaimed wood of Jack’s desk. Even in late May, the stone walls held a coolness that felt good after a day in the heat.
This room had become the real nerve center of every major case we’d worked. The conference table could seat eight, and the whiteboard wall—Carver’s custom-built electronic touchscreen system that covered the two corner walls behind Jack’s desk—could run multiple databases simultaneously, display evidence photos, and let us annotate timelines in real time. There was nothing like it outside a government intelligence agency. Maybe not even there.
Jack lowered the automated blackout shades while I logged into the desktop and started pulling up the autopsy photos and crime-scene documentation. Dre Washington’s DMV photo went into the center of the board first—always the victim at the center, always a reminder of why we were here and who we were working for.
His face stared back at me from the screen. Young. Handsome. Alive.
Jack’s hand settled on my shoulder, warm and heavy. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.
Cole arrived first, because Cole always arrived first. He came in wearing his Wranglers and boots, his Stetson in one hand and a six-pack of root beer in the other. Lily was right behind him, her dark hair pulled up in a messy bun, a paperback tucked under her arm and a blanket draped over the other.
“Evening,” Cole said, setting the root beer on the conference table and dropping into his usual chair at the end of the conference table, where he could stretch his long legs out and see the whole board.
Lily gave me a wave and made a beeline for the oversized armchair by the hearth, curling into it like a cat who’d already staked out the best spot in the house. She tucked the blanket around her legs, cracked her book, and was gone. Lily came to these sessions for one reason, and that reason was currently stretching his long legs out and opening a root beer. She’d learned a long time ago that the best way to spend an evening while Cole worked a case was to bring her own entertainment and stay out of the way.
Daniels and Derby came in together a few minutes later. Daniels had changed out of her field clothes into jeans and a Lauren Hill concert T-shirt, her braids pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Derby was still in his work clothes—pressed slacks and a button-down that had given up any pretense of being crisp about six hours ago. His hair was staging its usual rebellion, sticking up on one side despite what had clearly been a valiant attempt to comb it down. He pushed his glasses up his pointed nose and found his place at the table, setting up his laptop.
