Shallow River

“Did some asshole seriously just kill our biggest lead yet?” I ask breathlessly.

“Fuck. That’s exactly what just happened.”

I punch the steering wheel, eliciting a pathetic, airy beep from the car. It gets swallowed by the loud yelling going on now that a person was just murdered right there on a street.

Angrily swinging myself the rest of the way out of the car, Amar and I cross the street to assist with a very dead Brian. The top half of his head is gone, leaving bloody sightless eyes staring up at the night sky as another sex worker gets picked up for a quick blowjob.

I heave out another sigh. “Want to bet that he wasn’t just murdered by the Ghost Killer?” I ask, sarcasm coating my words.

Amar snorts humorlessly. “I’d rather bet on what time we’re going to be getting home tonight.”

“Midnight,” I bet.

Another snort. “One thirty A.M.”

“YOU DO REALIZE WITNESSES don’t actually need attorney’s, right?” Ryan asks condescendingly. It takes a lot of effort to keep my fist planted on my desk and not plunged deep into Ryan’s mouth.

“He requested one,” I answer shortly, ignoring his tone. I didn’t get to bed until late last night and fifty bucks lighter.

“It’s been a year. Maybe it’s time to pass this one onto someone with more skill,” he says. I pinch the bridge of my nose, my frustration mounting and patience depleting at alarming levels.

“Ryan. Just introduce yourself to your fucking client and get out of my sight,” I growl. Not that he’ll stay that way for long. My morning is going to be spent in that interrogation room with Mr. Davis and his shiny new lawyer going over every detail of that night and arranging witness protection.

With someone like the Ghost Killer, you can never be too safe.

Ryan storms away from me and for a few glorious seconds, I embrace the solitude. This is also a great time to pour coffee down my throat. I slept like shit last night—the little sleep I did get. With Brian being dead, the case has gone cold yet again.

A man dead because a jealous boyfriend went into a fit of rage when he saw his girlfriend grinding her ass on another man’s dick. Such a fucking stupid reason to die. Brian has done much worse things to people for a lot less. It’s not like he didn’t deserve what was coming to him, but I would’ve much rather he spend the rest of his life locked up than murdered on a street because of a frisky girl.

Later, Amar and I will be making another trip to see Greg’s mother, Cindy, to see if we can get any more information out of her. Maybe about the other man involved in Greg’s murder—the man with the gold chain around his neck. Now, that she’s talking, she probably has a lot more information up her sleeve that she didn’t divulge yet.

The police report from last night crinkles in my hand. This case isn’t a dead end. I’m getting closer. But the Ghost Killer still feels just out of reach, dancing across my fingertips, taunting me.

“You alright, man?” my partner asks, jolting me out of my thoughts. Didn’t even see him come up to me.

“Yeah,” I sigh, rubbing my eyes with my pointer finger and thumb, hoping to wake myself up. All I succeed in doing is making my vision blurry and giving myself a headache.

Amar doesn’t look much better than I do. Dark circles under his eyes, drawn face and a perpetual frown. He’s as frustrated with this case as I am.

“I’m just ready for this shit to be over, man,” I sigh, taking another swig of lukewarm coffee. I grimace at the bitter taste.

“He’s right within our reach, I can feel it,” Amar says, stuffing his hands in his pockets and staring off into the distance.

“I do, too. I just wish I knew how close.”

Twelve

River

THE BRIGHT LIGHT FROM the television screen is the only source of light in the dark house. Numbness has a noise. Almost like white noise, but louder. It sounds like buzzing, a hive of bees swarming in my head until everything else is drowned out except the chaos inside me.

My eyes are vacant, staring at nothing, incapable of processing the motion picture playing in front of me. I’ve no idea how long I’ve been standing in front of the screen, acti

vely destroying my eyes as I try to claw my way out of the fog. Someone could be stark naked and doing jumping jacks in my face, and I wouldn’t notice.

Not when all I can feel, hear and see is utter numbness. It’s even on my tongue, sliding down my throat and into my innards, wrapping around every organ until it feels like I’m just a hollow body bag, nothing left inside of me but emptiness.

I need… I don’t know what I need. I need something.