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

Everything feels so real. The odor of creosote, the acrid pinch of burned metal and rubber. The wind picks up ash and blows it at our feet. The air is thick with smoke and the humidity of the firemen’s spray.

The crowd is still murmuring, some people crying. Firemen are shouting, and sirens rend the air.

We interviewed her before, Laura Stoltenberg, a pretty blonde who looks like she might shatter, so I put my hand on her shoulder to keep her together. I don’t offer platitudes, but Eve has told me how sometimes it’s good to connect with people, to show them kindness, and while I know that, it’s taken me a few years to let it out.

I give her shoulder a squeeze of comfort.

Burke glances at me when I do this, and frowns, but turns back to her.

“Do you remember the people in the shop, anyone who might have looked out of place? Or was acting suspiciously?”

Bombings are still rare in 1997. It’s been two years since the Oklahoma bombing, only a year since the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, and it’s the current thinking that bombings are personal, that the perpetrator has a political agenda against this particular store. But in the twenty years since, I know that they can be as unpredictable as the weather in Minnesota. People choosing random places to make a point.

Of course, this is fourteen years before 9/11 and that was hardly random, so maybe things haven’t changed that much. And, my memory of two more bombings of coffee shops reminds me that there is a connection we never solved.

Not the first time.

Although, again, I don’t have a clue what is happening here. If it’s a dream, it feels painfully real. But like always, in every dream, I want to change things. And in the back of my mind, I’m hit with the crazy thought that if I can solve the crime, I might finally put a lid on my nightmares.

It’s a long shot, but as dreams, or nightmares go, this is the mother lode, so it has to mean something.

I’m not sure when I’ll wake up, but until I do, I have routines, habits, and a job that keeps me pinned to the moment.

“I don’t know,” Laurie says. “I stood in line like everyone else, trying to understand the menu. I only just heard of this place. I visited a Starbucks in Seattle, and I thought…” She shook her head. “Why would someone blow up a coffee shop?”

It hits me then that coffee mania is just beginning to hit the nation.

“Okay, Mrs. Stoltenburg, we’ll call you if we have any further questions.” Burke is helping her to her feet.

My gaze, of course, returns to Eve. She’s wearing her kinky, beautiful auburn hair down, the way I like it, and it looks like she’s let it air dry. I love her curls. It’s the one thing about her I always notice—how she wears her hair. Down, straightened, up, it has an allure to it I find fascinating.

That, and her eyes, green, with crazy amber highlights and yeah, I’m being poetic, but let’s not forget I’m a writer, or trying to be. I’m supposed to notice those things.

Let’s face it, everything about Eve can level me. Funny that only just last night we were talking about how we met. If I hadn’t slammed into Burke at the Cuppa, dousing him with the vanilla latte (he pulled out a clean shirt from the trunk of his car, of course), I would have repeated the past, the dream I can never seem to escape.

Until now.

In the standard version of my dream-slash-past, my coffee would have drenched her, she would have dropped her camera.

And—oh crap—I would have had a reason to see her again, to show up in her office with an apology coffee and an offer to buy her a new camera.

Instead, not only did I catch the camera, but I want to cringe at the words I now hear replaying in my brain. I forgot how beautiful you were—are.

Shoot, why didn’t I keep my mouth closed? This is why I never really dated long term. Because I wear my heart on my sleeve and frankly, my words get me into trouble.

Eve was the only one who could plow through my impulsiveness, my stupid words, to hear what I was really trying to say.

Truth is, I do better with the written word. Until recently, apparently, if the blank pages on my laptop are any indication.

The fire is out, and the guys in turnout gear are doing a walk-through, testing the place for hot spots. The EMTs and paramedics have triaged the victims and Eve and her crew are taping off the area for the evidence collection to begin.

Eve shoots pictures, directs traffic. She doesn’t know it yet but she’s about to become a legend in our department for her ability to dissect and analyze the scene, to piece together the evidence, and aid me in solving crimes.

We’re about to become a team that will last for the next ten years before we make it permanent.

Burke has left me—I didn’t notice that—but now he’s walking back, holding the little notebook that he’ll soon replace with a tape recorder. And eventually, his smart phone. Burke is into technology that way.

I try to put myself back in the game and scramble to say something halfway intelligent. “There’s a pretty big crowd here. Let’s make sure we talk to everybody.” Who knows but key witnesses might have slipped away last time.