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

She pulled out, driving through the darkened streets toward Lake Street, then past Lake Calhoun, glistening under the moonlight in Technicolor with the lights of the city.

When she pulled up to her house, Samson’s truck was parked out front. Moths played kamikaze with her lit porch light as she opened her door.

Inside, the kitchen light beckoned her and she found Samson sprawled under her sink, in his stocking feet and grout-splattered jeans. But along her kitchen counter, below the cupboards and along the back splash of her new stove, ice-blue tiles lined the walls, grouted with a foamy blue. And shoot, but Sams was right.

“Nice,” she said, dropping her satchel on her countertop. Samson climbed out, knocking his hat sideways.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” she said.

“I have beer in the fridge.” He climbed to his feet.

“I just need a bath. Please, please—”

“The water will be on in a jiffy. I need to finish connecting the new faucet.”

She noticed it now, a stainless goose neck. “The place looks good, Sams.”

He disappeared again under the sink. “Thanks. I know you had a rough day, so I wanted to finish it for you before you got home.”

Sweet. She opened the fridge, grabbed a couple beers and when he slid back out, handed him one. He opened it, then hers and tapped their beers together.

They drank in silence.

“Is it okay if I crash on your sofa?”

She grinned. “Yeah. Or in the second bedroom upstairs.”

“Great. Because I’m bushed.” He picked up his pipe wrench, dropped it into an open toolbox, then closed it. “I’m going to put this in my truck.”

She followed him to the door and walked out onto the porch as he went down the steps, then strode out to his Ford.

Sinking down onto the steps, she stared at the skyline in the distance, the purple lip of the IDS Tower, the shiny white of First Bank Place, and the glass curtain wall of the Piper Jaffray Building. A wall of clouds had moved in behind it, now starting to clutter the sky, and the scent of rain stirred in the hush of wind. Gooseflesh rose on her arms, despite the scrub of heat.

Samson returned and sat next to her. Took another drink, staring into the quiet neighborhood.

“I keep thinking about all those people today. They go in to buy coffee…and their lives are over, just like that.” Eve touched the bottle to her lips. “It could have been me. I go into that place off Lake almost every day.”

“Yeah. Think of their families, their spouses,” Samson said quietly.

She picked at the label on the bottle. “There was a kid—two years old.”

“Aw, man.”

“I know. And…well, I had lunch with Inspectors Stone and Burke today. Rembrandt thinks it’s just the beginning.”

Samson glanced at her. “Rembrandt?”

She didn’t pick up the bait, despite his smile. “What if he’s right?”

“Why does he think there’s gonna be more?”

“Instincts, he says.”

Samson made a non-committal sound. Then, “Just do your job, sis. And let Stone do his.”

She nodded. Took another sip of her beer, Rembrandt’s v