With trembling fingers, I pressed the trunk release button on mykey fob. The lock disengaged with a soft click that seemed to echo in the space between us.
The officer stepped forward and lifted the trunk lid.
His reaction told me everything before I could see inside. His body went rigid, his hand immediately drawing his weapon as he stumbled back a step. "Jesus Christ," he breathed, the professional veneer cracking to reveal naked shock.
I moved to look, even as everything in me screamed not to. The world narrowed to the contents of my trunk—a man's body, curled in a fetal position, blood had soaked through the light-colored shirt, darkening to rust around what appeared to be a gunshot wound. His face was turned away, but I could see dark hair and pale skin with the gray undertone of death. I didn't recognize him. I had never seen this man before in my life.
My training kicked in automatically—assessing time of death (12-24 hours based on early decomposition), wound pattern (gunshot wound to the back of the head, and another in the back at close proximity, personal), body positioning (placed post-mortem)—even as my mind reeled in horrified disbelief.
"Don't move," the officer ordered, his weapon now trained on me. “Hand over your service weapon.”
I reached down, took my gun out of the holster, and handed it to him. His free hand reached for his radio. "Dispatch, I need backup at West Morrison Avenue. Code three. I have a 187 and a suspect in custody." His voice shook slightly on the last word.
Time seemed to stretch and compress simultaneously. I could hear my own breathing, too fast, too shallow. Sweat trickled down my spine. A car passed, the driver slowing to rubberneck before speeding away. The sun beat down mercilessly from a cloudless sky.
"Officer," I managed, my voice sounding strange to my own ears, "I don't know who that is. I didn't put him there. Someone must have?—"
"Hands where I can see them," he cut me off, his earlier recognition of me as a colleague completely erased. Now I was just a killer caught with her victim.
I raised my hands slowly, mind racing. If I submitted to arrestnow, I would be at the mercy of whoever had planted this body in my car. Someone with enough knowledge and access to frame me for murder. Someone who wanted me imprisoned or worse.
Rule Seven of The Profiler's Code echoed in my head: Truth before badge. The ultimate loyalty is to finding the truth, even when it conflicts with official positions.
The officer had positioned himself between me and the driver's door. His radio crackled with dispatch confirmation. Backup was on the way. Minutes, perhaps seconds, before my chance evaporated.
"Turn around and place your hands on the vehicle," he instructed, shifting slightly to retrieve his handcuffs.
In that moment of movement, I made my decision. Twenty years of respecting the law, of following procedure, of building cases meticulously within the system—all abandoned in a heartbeat of survival instinct.
I lunged forward, driving my shoulder into his midsection. He wasn't expecting resistance from a fellow law enforcement officer. His back hit the pavement hard, the impact knocking the wind from his lungs in a surprised whoosh. His weapon clattered away.
"I'm sorry," I gasped, though he likely couldn't hear me through his own desperate attempts to breathe. "I didn't do this. I have to find out who did."
I scrambled back into my car, hands shaking so violently I could barely get the key into the ignition. The engine roared to life. In my rearview mirror, I could see the officer struggling to his feet, shouting into his radio, his face contorted with anger and disbelief.
I floored the accelerator, tires screaming against asphalt as I pulled away. The red and blue lights receded in my mirror, but I knew they would soon multiply. Every patrol car in Tampa would be looking for me within minutes.
As Morrison Avenue stretched before me, the reality of what I'd just done crashed over me in waves of nausea and terror. I had assaulted an officer. I had fled a murder scene. I had left behind physical evidence connecting me to a homicide.
I had become exactly what the Profiler's Code warned against—a suspect running from justice.
Chapter 9
The memory dissolvedas I snapped back to the present, my fingernails digging half-moons into my palms. The Paradise Bay Motel room materialized around me in all its depressing glory—water stains spreading across the ceiling like disease, thin curtains that let the neon sign outside pulse through in sickly red intervals, and the ever-present smell of industrial cleaner failing to mask decades of cigarettes and desperation. I resumed pacing the five steps the narrow room allowed, wearing an invisible trench between the bathroom door and the foot of the sagging bed, where Matt sat, watching me with concern etched in the lines around his eyes. On the day of the escape, I grabbed our bags from the back seat, then left the car in an alley behind the mall before running to Matt, who was waiting for me at the entrance to Macy’s. After explaining to him what had happened, he had abandoned all the gifts for the kids and stopped a passing car using his badge. He then asked the driver for his vehicle for police matters, and as the driver got out, we took his car and drove off.
"Richard Collins," I said, the name still unfamiliar on my tongue despite having repeated it dozens of times since learning the victim's identity. "Fifty-five years old. Accountant at Meridian Financial.Divorced, no children. No criminal record. Not even a parking ticket." I ran my fingers through my unwashed hair, wincing as they caught in tangles. "I've never met him, never heard of him, never worked a case connected to him. There is absolutely no reason why his body should have been in my trunk."
Matt shifted on the bed, the ancient springs protesting beneath his weight. His prosthetic leg was propped against the nightstand, and he massaged his residual limb absentmindedly—a habit when he was deep in thought. The day's stubble darkened his jaw, making the scar above his right eyebrow stand out in stark relief.
"Rule Four," he said quietly.
I stopped pacing, my shoulders tensing at the reference. The Profiler's Code had been my professional bible for years. Now it seemed to be mocking me.
"The innocent run differently," I recited mechanically. "Those falsely accused behave distinctively from the guilty; they seek to prove innocence rather than merely escape consequences." A bitter laugh escaped me. "And here I am, running. Making myself look guilty with every mile I put between myself and that crime scene."
Matt's gaze was steady and analytical without judgment. "You made a split-second decision based on your instincts. Those same instincts have solved dozens of cases that stumped everyone else. I trust them."
A cockroach scuttled across the baseboard and disappeared behind the ancient television stand. The ice machine down the hall groaned and clattered, the sound carrying through paper-thin walls. Somewhere nearby, a couple was arguing in hushed, intense tones—the words indistinct but the emotion unmistakable.
