CHAPTER 5
The scent of blood had grown nearly unbearable since Lucky first called Atlanta PD. After years on the job, he normally adjusted to smells, no longer noticed them, or at least tuned them out. Pot, meth, and other drugs didn’t bother him much anymore, except to serve as a warning.
Not so with blood. The odor grew stronger, choking him, twisting his insides around until he fought bile rising in his throat.
Chastain’s body lay on the side of the bed closest to the wall, away from the door. The reason Lucky hadn’t seen him before the blood. Bare feet, shorts, polo shirt. He’d dressed the same the last time Lucky paid a visit to this house. The clothes of a man who should’ve been safe and comfortable in his own home.
A single gunshot wound to the head, execution style. No sign of a struggle. Poor guy hadn’t stood a chance.
If Lucky’d only been ten minutes sooner, or fifteen. Hell, maybe even five. Nothing he could do now. He backed away, letting a uniformed officer and the coroner through. No way left to help but let forensics do their thing.
Cops and coroners—Lucky’d seen both too many times over the years.
Voices broke the eerie quiet from earlier.
He trudged out of the bedroom, breathing in slightly less nauseating air. Photos lined the walls in the hallway, one he recognized as a group picture from Chastain’s business, taken at a company get-together of some kind. Smiling faces, Chastain at the front. Funny how he’d proudly displayed the photo among other happy memories hanging on the wall. Especially since one of the subjects had betrayed his trust. Philip Eustace, O’Donoghue’s former lackey, Rett’s former lover, and an all-around piece of worthless filth.
Additional photos showed Chastain and several others holding up strings of fish, a much-younger Chastain wearing a backpack in front of the Eiffel Tower. An award for Employee of the Year. Framed news articles, ranging from the ground-breaking at Chastain Pharmaceuticals, to company picnics. No apparent spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, or children.
He’d spoken once about a diabetic father, the reason he’d worked so hard on a drug to treat diabetes without injections.
Someone would have to break the news, likely to the elderly man in the last photo with Chastain, who shared his blue eyes and slim build. Walter excelled at such, but this time the responsibility didn’t fall on the SNB.
Atlanta PD would inform the next of kin. What would become of Chastain Pharmaceuticals? Would the revolutionary drug ever launch?
The journey from bedroom to den didn’t take nearly long enough for Lucky to finish beating himself up with a heavy dose of shoulda, coulda, woulda.
God, he’d love to see Bo about now. Their new jobs meant no more working together on cases. He’d have to stand on his own. Bo couldn’t hold his hand through every bad day. Funny how the changes crept up so gradually. Little pieces chipped away here and there, making Lucky more human, more caring. Bo had made him weak.
No. Bo hadn’t made him weak. Made him strong. Took the half-life Lucky’d lived before and gave him so much more. How Lucky’d hated himself and his past. Bo knew his past, didn’t hold it against him. Told him he was a good man. Showed him he was a good man.
Lucky didn’t stand on his own. Would never stand on his own again. Bo might not be here in the flesh, but he was here. Lucky pulled his phone from his pocket and scrolled through his pictures, finding one of Bo making a face at Alejandro. His reasons for living. He texted Bo,“I love you.”
In less than a minute his phone chimed.“I love you too.”
It was enough. Enough to keep Lucky going, straight into the den.
Black leather furniture, fireplace under the wall-mounted TV. Someone finally turned off whatever movie played. Curtains covered the top part of the window, like in Lucky’s living room. Also, like Lucky’s living room, this room screamedlived in. Closed blinds covered the windows. Fear might as well have hung in the air like the spice fragrance from one of those plug-in thingies Charlotte liked.
Chastain’s personality permeated the home. Neat, practical, friendly. Or friendly before success drew a target on his back.
A uniformed cop sat on an ottoman, a sprinkling of grey in this dark brown hair. Fifty-ish, hunched shoulders, a general world-weary look about him. Lucky knew that look. He’d felt the same far too often.
He bypassed the chair he’d once seen Chastain occupy and dropped down onto the couch. The leather squeaked under his ass. A cop. Someone else who should’ve been here in time to save this man. He held nothing back from his accusation. “He told me he called y’all. You wouldn’t come out here.”
“Sir, I don’t know anything about that,” the cop replied, hands up in surrender. “I can only respond if dispatch tells me about a call.”
No excuse. The dispatcher should have put the call out. “He said he was being followed, had strange vehicles driving by his house. He was scared, so he asked me to come over.”
Wasn’t this cop’s first rodeo. He ignored Lucky’s spoiling for a fight in favor of professionalism. “Did you get a description?”
Lucky’d done his time both as interviewer and interviewee. He’d much rather be on the other side of the notepad. “White van. Red Toyota Tercel. They quit making Tercels in ’98. So, old red Tercel. And half the crimes you respond to probably involve a white van.”
The cop shook his head, one side of his mouth quirking, more in disgust than amusement. “I’m telling you.” He let out a sigh and scrubbed stubby fingers through his close-cropped hair. He’d probably seen plenty in his day. Today was just another bad day of many bad days.
Like Lucky, he probably told himself “I’m too old for this shit” on a regular basis.
The officer scribbled on a note pad. “What time did you arrive?”
