Page 33 of Go Alone

Well, that wasn’t exactly true, but…

Dennis realized with sudden pristine clarity that he had been standing outside of the conference room for over a minute running away with some random thought of cowardly cleaners cowering in fear from the shadow of his menacing boss. Why hadn’t he gone inside? Why didn’t he just open the door and wake Raymond up? He knew Raymond. The man made teddy bears look like polar bears.

So why was he still standing here?

He swallowed, surprised at the lump in his throat. There was nothing wrong. What was his problem?

His hand jerked toward the handle and stopped there, gripping it until his knuckles turned white. Raymond lay where he was, his right hand on top of his left hand, his head turned to the right and resting with his left ear pressed to the fingers of his right hand, a small bald spot poking through his white hair at the crown of his head.

It occurred to Dennis that his chest wasn’t rising and falling.

He’s wearing a suit jacket. It’s not rising and falling because his clothing is baggy.

But it wasn’t. The suit was a twelve-thousand-dollar Cesare Attolini. Raymond had flown to Naples to be fitted for it. It wasn’t skintight, but it sure as hell wasn’t baggy.

The handle jiggled underneath his now-shaking hand.

If he’s had an accident, you need to open the door and find out so you can call for help.

He almost laughed aloud at that. His partner hadn’t taken a breath for at least three minutes. There was no accident.

It’s not true. Open the door. He’s fine. It’s early in the morning, you need coffee, and you’re freaking out.

That thought comforted him even though he hadn’t had a cup of coffee before nine a.m. in twenty years. It comforted him because if it didn’t comfort him, he was going to return to his office and stay there until someone else opened the door and checked on Raymond. Then people were going to wonder why he’d sat at his desk for over an hour while his dead boss sat in the—

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he barked too loudly. He threw open the door, reached for his partner’s shoulder, and said, “Raymond, wake…”

The last word caught in his throat. When he touched Raymond’s shoulder, his body rippled to the right. Rippled. Like a liquid. Something boneless.

And black grains poured from his mouth. Dennis’s first thought was that they were coffee grains, but coffee grains didn’t smell like the gardening department at Home Depot.

“Raymond?” he said again, his voice shaking. “Hey, man…”

Raymond sagged in the middle. Dennis’s hand jerked backwards. The castors on Raymond’s chair slowly straightened as the chair moved toward the wall behind him. Raymond lifted his head, and hope lurched briefly in Dennis’s chest until he realized that what had actually happened was that Raymond’s head had caught on the edge of the table and tilted so it was at a forty-five-degree angle with his temple pressed to the plastic grommet that softened the edge of the table.

That was a cheap damned table. They were the wealthiest property law firm in the state. They could do better than a particle board slab blunted by plastic weatherstripping.

He was absolutely stalling now, but he knew it and didn’t care. Living sixty-nine-year-old men didn’t lean their temples against the edge of a table with their arms dangling downward, their backs arched, and their mouths leaking enough potting soil to plant a sunflower.

The chair slid back further. Raymond’s head tilted up, up, up, then slid down, down, down. It hung for a moment, his crown pressed against the bottom edge—also protected by a plastic grommet—then slipped free. Raymond folded in half, then slid out of his chair, falling so his head slid underneath the legs of the table, his hands flat behind him, his ass in the air like he was in some mockery of a yoga pose.

Dennis stood there for another minute, trying to decide if he was sad, scared, or angry. Eventually, he decided he was in shock and it wasn’t going to get better.

He summoned the same willpower that had earned him success without compromising his morals and dialed nine-one-one.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“We’ll get this guy, Kate. We always do.”

Kate stared straight ahead, both hands wrapped around her coffee mug. That was still warm. The biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, and bacon strips on the plate to her left had slipped below lukewarm and were now best described as tepid.

Marcus had finished his breakfast because Marcus was a man and men would eat even if they were dying. Kate couldn’t bring herself to eat. Anita was in Wooster, taking care of paperwork she’d let slide since taking on this case, but Kate was pretty sure she wasn’t eating breakfast either.

But the case had stalled. There was no way around it.

“We’re close,” Kate said. “I can feel it.”

Denial. Nice one. Not as effective as self-deprecation but with fewer side effects.