Butterface

Did squirrels collect shiny objects? Maybe it had left behind some doodads? She grabbed her phone from her back pocket, slid her thumb across the screen to turn on its flashlight, and shined the piercing beam into the darkness.

Four spindly sticks lay in a line, one with a gold ring around one of them. That’s weird—

Realization slammed into her, knocking her back onto her ass. She didn’t care, she just did the crab walk on her hands and feet in her rush to get away from the crevice between the walls, because it hadn’t been four sticks. They’d been bones. Finger bones. And the ring? It had been her grandfather’s.

…

“Hartigan,” Captain Grant hollered across the Waterbury detectives’ bullpen as he stood in the door of his office. “In here. Now.”

Ford’s shoulders jerked closer to his ears before he could stop the reflexive reaction. This wasn’t good. Not being called into the captain’s office, but that bark of an order usually meant a shit assignment was incoming.

The last time he’d gotten that, it was after the deputy chief’s son had gotten picked up on a pot bust. That case had been radioactive. They’d given it to Ford because he wasn’t the kind of cop who gave a rat’s ass about whose kid a perp was. Rules were rules, and they were meant to be followed.

He got up from his desk, shoving aside a box of Chapstick with the word bleach scrawled in Sharpie across the label. No doubt they were from Ruggiero and Gallo. The way they were describing what happened at the wedding to the rest of the squad was that they’d set him up with a life-sized Troll Doll who happened to have mob connections for that Kiss Cam stunt. Everyone had gotten a good laugh about that. Assholes.

At least the idiot duo hadn’t gone on to tell everyone about them giving Gina his hotel room key. That meant either the two of them finally discovered they didn’t have to be dicks all the time, or they were just holding onto that little tidbit until the worst possible moment—like when he got called into the captain’s office, so they could watch as the captain dialed up internal affairs and informed them of a possible compromised detective on the task force.

Ford strode into the captain’s office in the corner and stopped inside the door. “You wanted to see me?”

The captain didn’t look up from his computer screen. “Shut the door and sit down.”

The hairs on the back of Ford’s neck did the conga, but he did what he was ordered, just like he always did. Anyway, if this was going to turn into an internal affairs colonoscopy, he’d rather get the bad news without the entire squad listening in.

“I understand you had an incident this weekend with Gina Luca.” The captain turned in his chair, slid his glasses down low on his nose, and watched Ford over the rims of his bifocals. “Something about a Kiss Cam?”

Ford let out a breath. That had been embarrassing, but not something that internal affairs would want to talk to him about. “Yes.”

The captain took off his glasses and cleaned them with a small cloth beside his keyboard in total and complete silence. First the right lens, then the left, then flip the glasses and do it all over again. Slow. Deliberate. Total power move. The captain loved to make subordinates wait on his next words, and it drove some guys nuts. Ford wasn’t one of them. He just took the opportunity to let his brain spin out the possibilities of what could come next and options for dealing with them.

Finally, the captain replaced his glasses, then folded the cloth in half and then half again before placing it on his desk at a perfect parallel line to his keyboard.

“Is there any reason why you couldn’t interact with Ms. Luca in a professional manner?” the captain asked once he finally looked up at Ford.

“No sir.” He could get past having seen her naked—having trailed his fingers down her smooth skin—even if he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it.

“Good, because we need to use that perceived connection on her part to our advantage.”

Of the forty-eight possibilities he’d worked out, that wasn’t one he’d been expecting. “Sir?”

“She just called in a deceased person in her attic.” The captain templed his fingers and tapped them to his chin, silent and waiting for Ford to pounce. When he didn’t, the captain went on. “The body’s been there a while, decades, probably. Cold cases should take it but, as you know, her brothers have been making moves.” Another dramatic pause. The captain was a main player in the Waterbury Community Playhouse, and it showed. “We need someone who can give us intel on how much progress they’re making and if it’s tied to the heroin shipment that informant mentioned this week.”