Cast the First Stone (The True Lies of Rembrandt Stone 1)

I mean it as a joke, sorta, but I can almost hear Eve in my ears, don’t start. Some people want the suburban life.

“Enough,” Silas says, his mouth tightening at the corners. We’re opposites of the same coin, perhaps. He’s a sandy blonde to my dark brown, although his hair is cut short, and yeah, I’m starting to resemble a clichéd version of reclusive author, my hair long and curly behind my ears. Eve can nearly grab it into a ponytail. She doesn’t hate it, though—or at least I don’t think so, given the way she plays with it when we watch T.V. Silas is about my build, six foot flat-footed, and although I have a couple years on him, I’ve kept up my workouts. I could still take him in a pickup game.

Or in other games.

Silas’s gaze flickers to Cyra and Ash, comparing, maybe, the way it all worked out. I see old stories, old recriminations rising in his pale green eyes.

If he’d had his way, Eve would be living in some modern rambler on an acre lot overlooking a biking trail in some oak-shaded safe suburban neighborhood.

Instead, she landed a vintage fixer upper with character, situated just a few blocks off Lake Calhoun, in the shadow of Minneapolis, on a postage stamp lot.

With me.

I walk over to the cooler to grab a cold beer.

Ash is swinging, her pumps arcing her high into the wind, and I want to tell her to be careful. The words are almost out when a scream—followed by a word the seven-year-olds shouldn’t hear—turns me on my heel.

A crash, and I’m at the door, barreling inside.

Eve is standing at the sink, her hands in front of her, deflecting the spray of a broken faucet, the shards of a glass bowl littering the basin. “Rem! You told me you fixed this!”

I move her out of the way—the spray hits me full on, soaking through my T-shirt, my jeans—and I cup my hand over the torrent, even as I try and shunt the flow. “Turn off the water under the sink!”

“What—?”

I grab a towel and shove it over the spray, deflecting it down and hit my knees, digging out the cleaning products that clutter the cupboard before finding the shut off valve.

The spray dies and I sit for a moment in a puddle on our new wood floor. Eve is standing over me, and she’s not amused, the water turning her white blouse nearly transparent, her hair dripping. She picks up a towel and presses it into the ends of her hair.

“I’m a writer, not a plumber.”

She rolls her eyes, and that hurts just a little, but she offers me her hand. “You’re a detective. Figure out why my faucet is busted.”

Like daughter, like mother. “The rubber gasket on the seal is leaking.” I hear the doorbell and add, “You should go change.” I’m thinking of Silas, but I’m not keen on Russell getting a glimpse of the goods either.

She tosses the towel in the sink and I head to the door.

My step hiccups just a second before I open it because I recognize the man through the side lights.

Tall, skin the color of a starless night, bald, and by his stance, still training weekly at Quincy’s. He’s staring at the door as if he’d like to take it out with his X-ray vision. He’s holding a file box almost like a shield.

This will be fun.

I open the door. “Burke.”

“Sorry, I’m late.”

He’s not on the list, but of course Eve would have invited him. He offers me a smile, and I know he’s trying. But you don’t partner with a guy for nearly twenty years without knowing his tells, when and why he’d flinch, and most importantly, the ability to read the disappointment in his eyes.

Frankly, I’ve sort of gotten used to it.

“No problem.”

He sets the box down on a bench by the door. I recognize the handwriting, the frayed edges of the cardboard, the warped fit of the cover, and can’t help but react. “What is that doing here?”

“It showed up at the station with a note for you.” Burke lifts a shoulder. “Part of his estate, I guess.”

Police Chief John Booker, having the last word. Of course. “I thought the files were destroyed when we scanned them into the database.”