Page 41 of The Writer

[Lucero] No.

[Shaw] You chased her through the woods. We have your tracks and hers.

[Lucero] No!

[Shaw] You knocked her out and carried her to Blockhouse for some privacy, and you destroyed that poor girl. You made her final moments on this planet the most terrifying she’d probably ever experienced.

[Lucero]No!

[Shaw] Then you took her life. Ended her like she was just some thing you had to discard. You left her out there to rot and couldn’t help going back to take another look at her a few days after. Probably got your rocks off again, you sick piece of shit.

[Lucero] I’m telling you, this was someone else!

[Shaw] Bullshit.

[End of recording.]

/MG/GTS

NOW

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“CHRIST, DECLAN. HOW the hell do you live in this mess?” Stepping into Declan’s living room, Roy Harrison wrinkles his nose. Using the tip of a pencil, he picks up a sock from the back of the couch and holds it at arm’s length. Studies it for a second, then lets it drop to the floor. “You some kind of hoarder or just a slob?”

“I bet your apartment looks like an IKEA store and a CDC lab had a baby. All sterile and white with stickers on the furniture for tab A and slot B left over from putting that shit together. Probably keep your underwear in color-coordinated zip-lock bags. Your bunny slippers lined up nice and neat next to your bed.”

“I feel like I need a tetanus shot just stepping in here.”

Declan doesn’t need this. Not today. “Do what you gotta do and get out, Harrison.”

When his prints came back on the knife, Declan agreed to let them search his place. He had nothing to hide and knew if he said no, it would make him look bad. The thing was, he’d agreed to let Lieutenant Daniels run the search, maybe someone from the Twentieth, someone quiet, not IAU. If he’d known they’d send Harrison and friends, he would’ve called his union rep and squashed it. Nothing he can do about it now. Harrison showed up with three others, all IAU, all people Declan didn’t know, and now they’re crawling over every inch of his apartment.

“Ignore him,” Cordova says. “He’s just trying to get a rise out of you.”

Harrison smirks. “I’m getting flashbacks to the photos of Lucero’s personal shithole. The two of you must read the same decorating blogs.”

There’s a woman poking around Declan’s kitchen, someone else in his bedroom, and a third in the bathroom. Declan can see only the one in the kitchen, and she’s systematically going through every cabinet and every drawer as thoroughly as he’s ever done on a scene. It’s creepy watching someone else go through your stuff. When she frowns down at the dishes piled in the sink, he wants to tell her the dishwasher is busted, but he keeps his mouth shut.

Cordova pulls Declan to the side and says in a low voice, “Why don’t you say you touched the knife back at Hoffman’s car? Some accident. It slipped off the trunk, you grabbed it. Reflex. It happens. I’ll back you.”

Cordova’s a good friend, but Declan can’t let the man lie forhim. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he says. “I sure as shit didn’t kill Morrow.”

If the look Cordova gives him is meant to be reassuring, it’s not. Seems like it’s pitying.

“Roy?” This comes from the woman in Declan’s kitchen. When Harrison turns, she bobs her head, signaling for him to come over. Declan and Cordova follow. She’s got Declan’s old knife block on the counter, the one he uses as a paperweight for bills. Apparently she braved the stagnant water in the sink and fished out all the knives among the dirty dishes. Each has been placed back in the wood block, something Declan hasn’t bothered to do since the day he brought it home. The block has sixteen slots in total; seven are now filled with knives, and nine are empty. “We’re missing some knives,” she tells Harrison.

A grin creeps across Harrison’s face.

“It didn’t come with enough knives to fill it. When I bought it, half those slots were empty,” Declan says.

The woman has her phone out now, the screen angled so only Harrison can see. The grin on his face widens. “You sure that’s the same one? How’d you find it?”

She points to the barcode sticker on the back of the wood block. “Scanned that and brought up the listings.”

Harrison looks like he might burst.

Declan fights the urge to grab the phone. “What?”

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