hung up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, slipping into her panties and reaching for the pair of khaki pants she’d left on a chair the night before. She walked toward the bathroom, avoiding Alex’s work boots and fastening a bra as she went.
“What’s it this time? Someone shoot their neighbor’s dog?” Alex flushed the toilet and moved roughly past her.
“I don’t control the calls,” she said, but she was speaking to the air.
He was in bed, lying with his back to her side, when she came back out, fully dressed with her long brown hair twisted into a knot at the base of her neck. His short dark hair was disheveled and she could see the rigid set to his shoulders through the T-shirt he’d put back on. She took her weapon from the nightstand and checked it before slipping the holster around her shoulders with the ease of long practice. A light blazer on top, badge in the breast pocket and comfortable shoes on her feet. Nine minutes and thirteen seconds.
She leaned down to kiss Alex, but he didn’t open his eyes.
“Sorry,” she said in a whisper, breathing in his scent for a moment.
“S’okay,” he murmured, turning to press a brief kiss to her lips, but he sounded sulky.
Detective Oswald Plane, known as “Oz,” drove up in an unmarked sedan as she was pulling the door to the town house closed behind her.
“You gotta move closer to town, Land,” he said, shaking his grizzled head as she got in the passenger door.
“Yeah, move my paycheck closer to a living wage and I’ll see what I can do.”
Plane grinned, his walrus mustache parting to show large teeth yellowed from too much coffee. “Why don’t you just sleep with the chief?”
“And spoil the fun I’m having with your brother?”
This time he guffawed. Stephanie smiled and reached for the cup of take-out coffee closest to her. “You remember my sugar this time?”
“Oh, I know you like it sweet.”
“Sweet and hot, Oz, don’t forget it.”
Sometimes she wondered what Alex would make of this banter, whether he’d be appalled or embarrassed by the sexual innuendo that his girlfriend participated in with such relish. Fiancée, not girlfriend. She kept forgetting that. They’d been engaged for barely a month. The diamond solitaire sparkling on her hand was still new to her.
“Stop mooning at your ring, Land, and tell me where we turn off for the Hill.”
Stephanie flushed and looked up at the road ahead. “Another two miles at least. You need GPS. What’s up?”
“Some kid’s dead. Probably offed herself.”
“Shit. I hate those.”
“Yeah. If they’re going to kill themselves why can’t they go off a cliff in Morristown and spare us the cleanup?”
He reached toward a white bakery box sitting on the dash. “You want one?” he said, rustling around in it as the car swerved slightly on the road.
Stephanie steadied the corner of the wheel closest to her. “Way to be a walking stereotype.”
“They’re Danish, not doughnuts.” He took a big bite out of a pastry that managed to look pint-sized in his beefy hand.
“Same difference.”
“Now that’s just plain ignorant. They’re not the same thing at all.”
“It’s still just sugar and fat.”
“My two favorite food groups.” Oz grinned and waved the half-eaten Danish at her. “These are from Rosenbaum’s—best bakery in town. C’mon, have one already.”
“You shouldn’t be eating them.”
“Yeah, yeah—who are you, my mother?”
A patrol car was waiting by the stone-pillared entrance to flag them down—evidence that Oz’s notoriously bad sense of direction was known beyond the detective squad.
In the two minutes it took to climb the hill, Stephanie loaded up with latex gloves and checked to make sure that she had Vicks in her pocket. Oz shoved the rest of the Danish in his mouth and brushed crumbs off onto the floor.
They passed the main building, where a small crowd stood on the steps, and drove by a patrolman signaling them to go farther up the road. It ended in a large parking lot where Oz pulled up behind two black-and-whites, lights flashing. An EMS van was nearby and one of the paramedics was sitting on the back bumper smoking a cigarette. A sheriff’s department vehicle signaled that the crime scene unit had beaten them to the scene.
A uniformed officer, young and eager, practically hopped up and down next to an entrance in the woods.
“This way!” he called. “Crime scene’s this way!”
“Okay, junior, stand down,” Oz muttered, checking his weapon and adjusting his tie. Stephanie moved ahead of him, straightening her blazer as she walked.
“What is this, a nature hike?” Oz complained when they’d walked twenty feet along a footpath and still weren’t at the crime scene.
“Nice pond,” Stephanie commented.
“Yeah, fucking beautiful.” Oz was huffing and despite the coolness of the morning sweat was trailing down his broad face. He was a big man, both tall and broad, and he carried a gut. “Gotta lose this.”
“I’ll pick you up for the gym tomorrow morning.”
“I was thinking something easier. Like one of them gastric bypasses.”
“The only surgery you need is to staple your mouth closed.”
“Bitch.”
“That’s skinny bitch to you.”
“Laugh now. It’s all going to catch up with you when you hit my age and I’m going to be the one laughing when your tits droop and your ass spreads.”
Stephanie laughed. “You still going to be around?”
Oz was saved from replying because they suddenly came upon the crime scene. Another paramedic was standing there with a couple of cops and a young woman in running clothes. A crime scene investigator was expanding the perimeter of the scene, but that wasn’t where Oz was looking when he said, “Shit.”
Stephanie followed his gaze and swallowed hard. The naked body of a teenage girl was tied to a large oak tree, her red hair garish against the paleness of her skin. Very white, but with a purplish-blue sheen, it reminded Stephanie of skim milk.
“I thought you said it was suicide?” Stephanie said, ducking under the tape and drawing gloves on her hands. She stepped carefully toward the body, looking out for footprints or other evidence, and stepping around investigators taking pictures. She stopped short at seeing something else on
