Page 4 of Stay in Your Lane!

“I did, but I canceled. I’ve got too much to do here tonight.”

Now that I thought about it, I couldn’t remember the last date my sister and her fiancé had gone on. “I can cover for you here. Go.” A second later I remembered my crime scene. Shit. But I’d made the offer, and?—

“No, that’s all right. You’re not as good at the makeup. I’ll handle it.”

I stepped back, stung. “I’m good at it,” I protested. “Not as good as you, but?—”

“It’s fine.” She met me with a vague smile. “You go. I’ve got this.”

“O…kay.” I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth or whatever, but it sucked that my familystillthought I was unreliable after I was the only one of them to get a damn degree in this field. Mom had taught Stuart and Leanne what she knew, and Dad had pitched in too, but by the time I was old enough tolearn from her she was gone, and Dad didn’t have the heart to train me by then.

Whatever, it was fine. I glanced at my phone as I trudged up the stairs to the family quarters on the second floor. Plenty of time for me to change out of the branded clothes, get a quick shower, and get back to the scene before it was cleaned up.

Sweet.

CHAPTER 2

KYLE

Iparked my truck in front of the double-wide trailer, squinted to see the house numbers in the beams of my headlights, then double-checked the address against the work order. Yep. This was the place.

Not that I’d had a lot of doubt—the police tape across the storm door kind of gave it away. So did the patrol officer leaning against his patrol car, eating an apple and looking bored out of his skull. I recognized him; he was blond with a stereotypical cop mustache, and he always seemed to have a chip on his shoulder, especially when he was stuck on this kind of detail. I couldn’t blame him; I didn’t imagine guarding a crime scene was the type of excitement most people signed up for when they became cops.

I jotted down my time of arrival, then opened the door and hopped down from the cab.

“About fucking time,” the cop—Officer Hansen, I realized as I came closer—groused. “I thought you were supposed to be here at eight.”

“Uh-huh. And if your radio is on, then you know there was a wreck on the freeway, so…” I flailed my hand. “It took me a little longer than it should’ve.”

He scowled, but I just shoved my clipboard at him. “Can you sign over the scene so I can get started?”

After he’d signed it and handed it back, I nodded toward the trailer. “Anything I need to know before I go in there?” The work order usually had a brief rundown of what to expect, but sometimes they left out little details like“a very testy family of raccoons moved in last week”or“the homeowner displayed a lot of artwork featuring hairy naked buttholes.”Yes, both of those things had happened. And I mean, wildlife did what wildlife was going to do, and people liked different kinds of artwork. No judgment. Just seemed courteous tomaybegive a dude a heads up before he strolled into a crime scene and found, in addition to everything he was there to clean up, a small army of hissing trash pandas or a tastefully-framed three-foot anus painting.

Officer Hansen shook his head. “Nah. The guy wasn’t the best housekeeper in the world, but…” He half-shrugged, then smirked. “Though, that’s what you’re here to take care of, so—lucky him!”

I made a face. Lucky him? The dude was lying on a slab somewhere after he’d killed himself. “Lucky” wasn’t really the adjective of choice in this situation, I thought.

“Okay. Well.” I motioned toward the truck. “I should get to work.”

“Yep. Have fun with that.” He clapped my shoulder, then did a double take at my forearm. “Hey, what’d you do? You aren’t trying to learn knife fighting again, are you?”

I rolled my eyes. Running my finger over the bandage, I said, “Nah. I wasn’t paying attention and Steve bit me.Again.”

The officer blinked. Then he shook his head and started toward the driver seat of his car. “I swear, kid. You’re the only person I know who gets war wounds from his petfish.”

“Hey, the other ones don’t bite me! Just Steve.”

Hansen shot me a look as he pulled open the door. “Give it time. Those things can turn a cow into a skeleton in under a minute.” Dropping himself into the driver seat, he added, “No sane person has them as pets, never mind sticks his arm in their tank!”

He slammed the car door before I could shout after him that piranhas only ate in that kind of frenzy when they were starving, which mine absolutelyneverwere. They made great pets, damn it! And they weren’t aggressive at all when they were happy, healthy, and well-fed.

Except Steve. God, Steve was a prick.

At least I’d had the traffic jam on the freeway to use as an alibi for being late to the scene. I didn’t need Hansen finding out—and passing on to my dad and brother, both of whom worked in the same precinct—that my stupid fish had taken a bite out of my arm. One that had bled more than usual and kept me from leaving the house on time. My family, like everyone else, already gave me enough shit over my school of piranhas. The less anyone knew that the little fuckers had made me late to work, the better.

Fuck you, Steve.

And technically, I shouldn’t haveneededto come here tonight. I swore to myself as I pulled on all my PPE. The scene had been released earlier this evening, and I could’ve just as easily shown up tomorrow. Another twelve hours wouldn’t make much of a difference on my end. And in most other jurisdictions, the cops would release the scene, and crime scene cleanup crews got there when they got there.

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