If idle hands were the devil’s workshop, then James Capelli was about to become a master carpenter for the Prince of Darkness. But the intelligence unit at the Thirty-Third hadn’t seen anything more serious than a string of low-level smash and grabs since before Christmas, and as the guy who ran all of their surveillance and tech, if they weren’t busy, he wasn’t busy.

Which wouldn’t be so bad, except that whole devil’s workshop thing? Freakishly accurate in Capelli’s case.

“Okay. Time to stay busy,” he murmured, sliding his glasses higher over the bridge of his nose and killing the pang in his rib cage before it had a chance to fully form. Leaning back in his sleek black desk chair, Capelli sent a calculated stare over his work space. Eight years of running IT and surveillance for the Remington Police Department had given him plenty of time to cultivate the perfect technical environment, and he’d done it bit by bit (literally, because geek humor was a beautiful thing.)

Although he’d personally designed not only the network Sergeant Sam Sinclair and the four detectives in the intelligence unit used on a daily basis, but the state-of-the-art digital display board they used to collect and cross-reference data on any given investigation too, Capelli’s deep-down pride and joy was his own work space. An array made up of six twenty-seven-inch touch screens that could provide individual images or enlarge one across the entire display. Seamless connections to any database a cop could think of—as well as a handful no one other than Capelli could think of but hey, might be useful one day. Enough bandwidth to effectively run a small island nation, and hell if shit like this wasn’t exactly why he shouldn’t have free time on his hands.

His mind was always on, always alert and processing and moving at warp speed. And if he didn’t use his walnut for good, his past history would rear up in an instant to become an all-too-present reality.

One that would land him in jail. Or worse.

“Listen up, people. We have a case.”

The sandpaper edges of Sinclair’s voice hooked Capelli’s attention, along with everyone else’s from around the large, shared work space of the intelligence office.

“Okay.” Detective Isabella Moreno looked up from the stack of paperwork on her desk as if she’d just been handed a Presidential pardon, her brown eyes glinting in true let’s do this fashion. “What’re we looking at?”

Sinclair didn’t skip a beat. “Captain Bridges over at Seventeen just called in a pretty nasty fire at a residence housing a meth lab in North Point.”

“Was there a problem with the call?” Alarm streaked over Moreno’s face, but Sinclair canceled it out with a quick, tight shake of his crew cut.

“All first responders are accounted for and uninjured.”

“Oh. Good,” she said, although the simplicity of her answer was a poor match for the relief flooding through her stare. Logically, Capelli didn’t find Moreno’s reaction out of the ordinary; after all, she and her boyfriend, firefighter Kellan Walker, had filled their grave-danger quota for at least a year with the DuPree case—or okay, maybe for a decade. Possibly forever.

Emotionally, though? The response was as foreign to him as if Isabella had started spouting ancient Sanskrit backwards. Investing that much emotion in another person, whose behavior and actions you couldn’t predict or know inside and out one hundred percent of the time, without fail? Christ, it was an engraved invitation for disaster.

Once bitten, twice no fucking thank you.

“Alright,” said Moreno’s partner, Liam Hollister, the confusion in his tone depositing Capelli back to the reality of the intelligence office and the potential case in front of them. “So a meth lab in North Point got a little crispy around the edges. I’m not trying to thumb my nose at a case or anything, but isn’t vice going to try to swipe this one since there are drugs involved?”

“Probably,” Sinclair said, tipping his gray-blond crew cut at Hollister in concession. “But seeing as how there were also two bodies at the scene, that’s a pissing contest they’re not going to win.”

“Hey now.” Detective Shawn Maxwell propped his elbows over the paper-littered surface of his desk, his black eyebrows sky-high. “Bodies do give us dibs.”

“That they do,” Sinclair agreed. “So let’s run this. According to the ID in his wallet, the first victim is Lawrence Richardson, also known as the L-Man and a member of the Scarlet Reapers. Died of what looks to be smoke inhalation on the way to Remington Memorial, but docs are still working on an official cause of death. Lawrence has been arrested for a handful of petty misdemeanors and two prior counts of felony drug possession, one six months ago, one a year before that. Both kicked down to misdemeanors, but he did thirty days in lockup for number two.”

Sinclair gestured to the digital board at the front of the office without pausing. Not that he needed to. After eight years, he knew Capelli almost as well as Capelli knew him back, which by deductive reasoning meant he also knew Capelli would have the details on display by the time he was done turning around. Which, of course, he did, along with Richardson’s mug shot and a full list of his previous charges, because—hello—that was protocol. Why fuck with a streamlined process for data gathering when said process worked?

“Second victim is Malik Denton, also a known member of the Scarlet Reapers,” Sinclair continued, and at this, Detective Addison Hale piped up from the desk closest to Capelli’s.

“So this is drug related,” she said, the ends of her blond hair brushing over the shoulders of her long sleeved T-shirt. “I mean, the Reapers are the third largest gang in Remington, and they’re not exactly known for selling Girl Scout cookies. Plus, the L-Man died of smoke inhalation. Hardly shifty considering the fire likely started while these two jokers were cooking up a bunch of meth.”

Capelli knew the look on Sinclair’s face, and huh, that was weird. It wasn’t agreement. “Not so fast. Denton’s throat was cut nearly all the way to his spinal cord.”

Shock sizzled a fast path through Capelli’s veins, his fingers freezing over his keyboard. “Whoa. That’s pretty out of the ordinary for the Reapers.” Not to mention pretty personal for a gang murder. Unless the killer wanted to send a serious message or settle a serious vendetta, anyway. “Any evidence that the L-Man did the slice and dice or does it look like they’re both vics?”

“Preliminary crime scene reports are still coming in,” Sinclair said.

“So even if this wasn’t some sort of revenge thing against either Denton or the Reapers”—Moreno paused, her frown clearly marking the hypothesis as the long shot it was—“we’ve got at least one homicide with what’s got to be zero viable evidence between the blaze and the water used to put it out, and our only chance at getting any sort of lead is the hope that this wasn’t an internal gang hit, and that the other members of the Scarlet Reapers will cooperate. With us. In an investigation that’s bound to implicate them in multiple felony drug crimes for the meth lab alone.”

“Mmm hmm.” Sinclair nodded. “That about sums things up.”

Well. At least Capelli wouldn’t have to worry about the idle hands thing for a while.

“I’ll start running background on Denton and the L-Man—dump their phones, comb their social media. Oh, and I’ll sniff around for online chatter about any rival gangs who might have a beef with the Scarlet Reapers, too.”

He shifted back toward the keyboard in front of him, his brain already halfway through the process, but Sinclair kept the surprises coming by shaking his head.

“Do it on the way to North Point,” he said, pinning Capelli with an ice-blue stare that brooked less than zero argument. “We don’t have more pressing case work here, and you’ve got sharp eyes. With that photographic think-trap between your ears, you’ll be able to grab the details of this one better if you’re directly on-scene. Given how much potential this case has to be a righteous pain in the ass, the more we’ve got to go on from the start, the better.”

For a second, Capelli’s ingrained instinct to stay one step removed from all things directly criminal warred with Sinclair’s admittedly sound logic. But while he didn’t normally hit a fresh scene with the rest of the team, this certainly wouldn’t be his maiden voyage in the field. Plus, the look-see would keep his brain busy, which he not only wanted, but needed, so he squashed his unease with a quick lift and lower of his chin.

“You got it, Sergeant.”

“The fire is out, but Captain Bridges has to run a pretty tight protocol because of all the chemicals inside, so it might be a while before we can get anyone from the crime lab past the front door,” Sinclair continued. “Hollister, I want you and Moreno out there to canvas the neighborhood in the meantime. Maxwell, you and Hale go talk to the two firefighters who made the find on the bodies and see what they can tell you. Capelli, you stick with them and start piecing together the basics until we can get inside the house. Let’s go.”

All four detectives kicked into the simultaneous motions of double-checking the Glocks in their side holsters and the badges at their hips. Not technically being a cop, Capelli had neither, so he slid his black canvas jacket from the back of his desk chair, grabbed the organic Granny Smith apple sitting on top of his desk, and catalogued his thoughts in order of priority—grab phone records, cross-reference timelines and whereabouts of the victims with social media posts, pull bank records, credit card statements, any open investigations on the Reapers by vice and the gang task force unit—until Maxwell and Hale finished their lock and load.

“I’ll drive,” Maxwell said, reaching for the keys on the pegboard in the front of the intelligence office, but Hale slipped in to lift them with a giant grin on her face and half a second to spare.

“Not today, big man! You can, however, duke it out with Capelli for shotgun. I’ll even referee.”

“Actually,” Capelli said, calculating Maxwell’s reach and edging a full step outside of it, just for an ironclad margin of error in case the guy had gotten quicker since Capelli had last pissed him off. “I’ve got to take shotgun regardless so I can access the police database from the dashboard unit and start running case background on our way to the scene.”

While Capelli had fully expected the hard glint in Maxwell’s stare, it still tagged him right in the survival instinct. “You’d better find something good,” the detective said, tugging a black knit hat over his shaved head as they made their way down the hallway and toward the stairs leading to the main hub of the Thirty-Third precinct. “And don’t think you’re driving back, Hale. My patience only goes so far.”

“Oh, bullshit,” Hale said, so gleefully that Capelli had to wonder whether she had a death wish lurking somewhere beneath her blond ponytail and bright smile. “Once you get past that dark-stare, big-badass, moody-broody-tough-guy thing you like to broadcast like the six o’clock news, you’re really just a big teddy bear.”

Given how astronomically high the odds were that Maxwell was, in fact, reaching the outer limits of his already scant patience, Capelli swallowed his laugh and one-eightied the subject. “So, we’re headed to four ninety-two Crestridge Drive.” He bit into his apple and scrolled through the rest of the text alerts Sinclair had routed to his cell phone, scanning for the highlights. “The docs over at Remington Mem have confirmed smoke inhalation as the probable cause of death on the L-Man, but we’ll have to wait for the autopsy to know for sure.”

“Any word on whether or not he could be our ax man?” Maxwell asked, cutting right to the chase as they descended the last of the steps at the back of the precinct’s busy front lobby.

“Let’s see.” Capelli scrolled through the rest of the alerts, and whoa, plot twist. “Actually, all signs point to no. The hospital report says there were no signs of blood anywhere on the L-Man’s hands or clothes.”

Maxwell’s chin lifted a fraction of an inch, but it was the only sign of his surprise. “So either the L-Man had a full-on wardrobe change before he died…”

“Or he didn’t kill Denton,” Hale finished.

Capelli weighed the facts from the report, running the probabilities in his mind. “Although it’s not impossible that he killed Denton, given this? It’s pretty unlikely. The most probable scenario is that the L-Man was trapped in the house during the fire and his death was an accident.”

“Or he was locked in and murdered too,” Maxwell offered, and Hale chimed in with,

“At a fire that might have been an accident or might have been set on purpose to hurt both of them. Or cover up the murder…murders?”

Jesus. Calling this case a righteous pain in the ass might’ve been a gift.

Needing some concrete facts, Capelli tapped the image files that the doctors at Remington Memorial had sent over of both bodies. “Denton’s neck wound is pretty significant,” he mused.

Hale looked over his shoulder, immediately wincing even though she didn’t break stride over the threshold of the precinct. “Ugh. That’s grisly as hell.” She shuddered, but the unease on her face told Capelli it had little to do with the January weather they’d just walked into.

“It’s not your average slash job,” Capelli agreed, zooming in on the screen for a closer look at the wound so he could catalogue the particulars. “Sinclair wasn’t exaggerating about his throat being cut nearly all the way to the spinal cord. Whoever did this was either really pissed or using a machete.”

“You think the murderer used a machete?” Maxwell’s breath puffed around his face in the afternoon cold, his brows lifting to the edges of his cap in question, and Capelli lifted his hands in apology.

“Sorry, figure of speech. I mean, I guess the killer might’ve used a machete,” he conceded, because there really was a lot of gross tissue damage. “But I was referring more to the size and depth of the wound being comparative to a larger weapon. Truth is, unless it’s still sticking out of someone, not even the ME can definitively know if a stab wound was made by a scalpel or a broadsword.”

Maxwell huffed out a soft, half-humorless laugh. “You, my friend, have a very wide and very morbid base of knowledge.”

The irony of the words stuck into Capelli like a hundred razor-sharp pins, and time for a redirect, stat. “Yeah, but I’m fucking awesome at Jeopardy!”

Hale raised a brow, but couldn’t cover up the twitch of her lips that accompanied the gesture. “So what you’re saying is we’re not going to get far on a murder weapon unless there’s one gift-wrapped and waiting for us at the scene.”

She popped the locks on their department-issued unmarked Dodge Charger, her boots thumping softly over the pavement in front of the precinct, and Capelli shook his head as he fell into step beside her.

“No. Probably not.”

“Weapon aside, though, throat slashing isn’t exactly the method of choice for a gang murder. We might get lucky if another one pops in the database.”

Capelli thought for a second, rolling through mental file after mental file until… “Nope. At least not on any gang-related case intelligence has worked in the last eight years.”

At Hale’s look of shock, Maxwell simply shook his head. “What, did you forget we were riding with Encyclopedia Brown over here?”

Even though Capelli had a particular sore spot for nicknames, he had to crack at least a small smile at the mention of the one that had been administered by his teammates half a decade ago—even if his memory was technically more eidetic than photographic.

“Hey,” he said, sliding into the Charger’s passenger seat. “If the brain pan fits...”

“Use it,” both detectives chimed at the same time.

After giving Hale one last mighty stink eye, Maxwell origamied his way into the back seat of the car. “Which two firefighters made the find?”

Excellent question. Capelli thumbed down to the last text Sinclair had sent him. “Let’s see. Looks like Luke Slater and”—his chest squeezed in a weird, involuntary pang—“Shae McCullough.”

There was no rational reason why his pulse should accelerate at the thought of Shae McCullough. As part of the intelligence unit, Capelli crossed paths with the firefighters and paramedics at Seventeen here and there on cases, and both the cops at the Thirty-Third and the first responders on A-shift all killed more than a little of their spare time at the Crooked Angel bar and grill together, too. Subjectively, Capelli couldn’t deny that Shae did skirt the boundaries of gorgeous with that long, lean frame and that wavy, honey-brown ponytail worthy of its own damned shampoo commercial. But he’d spent enough time around her to know she defied logic every time she turned around, hopping spontaneously from one thing to the next with no regard for a process or a plan. Not being able to predict Shae’s patterns in order to figure her out drove him crazy enough to turn his otherwise steady composure into a dim fucking afterthought every time he clapped eyes on her, and that could mean only one thing.

No matter how tempted he was to wrap that ponytail around his hand and find out what she looked like bent over his bedsheets, he needed to keep his distance from Shae McCullough.

Clearing his throat even though the conversation had lulled, Capelli took another bite of his apple and tapped into the RPD’s database on the computer wired to the Charger’s dashboard. The tasks in front of him calmed the chaos that had rattled through his brain like a five o’clock freighter at the thought of Shae, and he methodically kicked off background checks and online searches for any information he could find on their two victims as he finished eating. To his surprise—and dismay—his ten minutes of digging turned up precious little in terms of anything useful. Even after they’d been waved past the uniformed officer standing sentry three houses down from the cluster of emergency vehicles blocking the end of the street, Capelli still had virtually no more to go on than when they’d left the Thirty-Third.

If the scene in front of them was anything to go by, he wasn’t going to get much else in person, either.

“Damn.” Following Capelli out of the car, Maxwell sent a frown over the scorched and torched mess that had been a small, more-than-slightly rundown house just like all the others on Crestridge Drive just a few hours earlier. “That smell will wake you up in the morning.”

“The chemicals used to cook meth definitely have a distinct smell when they burn,” Capelli agreed, and hell, even inhaling through his mouth did nothing to help calibrate his senses to the sharp, bitter-burnt scent riding the air around them. “Hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide, touline, acetone…it’s all pretty toxic stuff.”

“You storing away a how-to guide over there?” Hale asked as she slammed the Charger’s driver’s side door, and even though her tone painted the words as the joke they were, the suggestion that he was well-acquainted with the process still sent a jab of unease to Capelli’s gut.

“Recipes differ, of course.” He lifted one shoulder halfway before letting it casually drop. “The rest is just chemistry.” A subject he’d aced in middle school with his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back. Not that it was how he’d gained the knowledge he’d just offered up. “Anyway, the chemicals definitely have the potential to be pretty dangerous. I’m not surprised they ignited a fire, or that Bridges wants to be careful about the cleanup.”

Maxwell nodded, his gaze moving toward the red and white fire engine parked in front of the still-smoldering house. “Speaking of which…”

Capelli moved his eyes from the scene of the crime just a fraction too late to see Shae before she saw him first, and not only was her bright green stare brimming with all of its usual intensity, but her face was smudged with soot and traces of dark red streaks and spatters that could only be one thing.

His heart took a slap shot at his sternum without his brain’s consent, and fuck, so much for having any composure around her.

Again.

“Thanks for getting out here so quickly,” Captain Bridges said, approaching the three of them with Shae and a clearly shaken Luke Slater on either side. “This scene gave us a whole lot more than we bargained for.”

“So we heard,” Hale said, sympathy flickering over her face by way of a small smile.

Bridges nodded. “I’m sorry you can’t get into the house quite yet, but there are enough volatile chemicals and toxic fumes in there to fill half a warehouse. Lieutenant Hawkins and squad have their hands full with hazmat protocols.”

“Understood.” Hale’s eyes moved over the scene quickly, but with care. “We’d like to get as much information as we can in the meantime to see if we can start piecing together what happened.”

“My two paramedics are still at Remington Memorial, finishing up the paperwork on the smoke inhalation victim,” Bridges said. “Paramedics from Station Six transported the other victim for an official call on time of death.”

“We got the update on the bodies from dispatch on the way over,” Maxwell said, softening things by adding, “Hell of a call, like you said.”

“Yes. Well, of course you’re welcome to talk to firefighters McCullough and Slater here about the find. I’ll be sure to alert Sinclair when the house is safe for your crime scene techs to go through. Just let me know if there’s anything else we can do.”

“We definitely will. Thank you.” Hale shifted her gaze from Captain Bridges to Slater, and Christ, even though the rookie wasn’t a small guy by any stretch, he looked like he’d blow over in one half-decent gust of wind, his normally light brown skin both pale and sweat-sheened. “Hey, Slater, why don’t you and I head over to the engine to talk?” she asked. “I’d love to get out of this cold.”

He blinked at Hale once, then twice, before nodding. “O-okay. Sure.”

Shae waited until they’d moved out of earshot with Captain Bridges not far behind before she split a stare between him and Maxwell. “You guys always do the divide and conquer thing with stuff like this?”

It was a weird question, which made Capelli pause in an effort to figure out why she’d asked it. But Maxwell either didn’t notice or didn’t care that she’d swerved into unexpected territory.

“It’s SOP,” he agreed. “Your reports of the scene are the only thing we have to go on for potential leads right now. The details will stand up better in court if they can be corroborated in individual interviews.”

“Yeah, well, do me a favor and go easy on him, would you?” She tipped her chin toward the spot where Slater and Hale had climbed up into the back of the engine, and Capelli’s curiosity sparked, good and hard.

“Why?” The question was out before he could capture it, and Shae’s brows took a sky-high route over her forehead.

“Beeeeecause less than an hour ago, he stumbled across a murder victim who’d lost more than half his blood volume from a wound that turned out to be four tendons shy of decapitation?”

Heat crept up the back of Capelli’s neck at the obviousness in her tone, and the fact that he’d missed the visceral aspect she so clearly hadn’t. “All I meant was that he didn’t do anything wrong. Hale’s taking his statement, not interrogating him,” he said, but Shae’s brows—and her frown—didn’t budge.

“And all I meant was that while Slater’s tough, he’s still a rookie. This was his first loss in the field. He’s taking it about as well as you’d expect.”

Maxwell nodded, stepping toward her on the pavement. “Copy that. We’re all on the same team, McCullough. We’re not here to upset either of you. We just need to do everything by the book.”

“I know,” she said, her courage sliding into concession fast enough to make Capelli a little dizzy from the whiplash. “I just…it was pretty bad in there. I think we left ‘upset’ in the rearview forty-five minutes ago.”

Shae wrapped her arms around her rib cage, a visible shiver working a path over her frame. Not surprising, really, since she was standing in thirty-nine degree weather in nothing more than a sweat-damp RFD T-shirt and her bunker pants.

“Where’s your coat?” Capelli asked, taking note of the half-dozen other firefighters milling around the street in front of them, all of them bundled to their chins in full gear.

A wry smile tilted the corners of her mouth upward just slightly, although the gesture lacked any traces of true humor. “Did you miss the part about the victim’s blood volume, then?”

Oh hell. Capelli’s throat tightened. “I don’t miss details,” he told her, shrugging out of his jacket reflexively. “I was just considering the established facts, and since you didn’t specifically mention you’d been the one to pull Denton from the fire…”

Surprise skated over Shae’s face as her eyes dropped to the jacket he held out in offer. “Oh. No thanks. Calls like this tend to knock a girl’s body temp out of whack. I know it sounds crazy, but the cold actually feels nice.”

Capelli was tempted—not a little—to tell her that with as much body heat as she’d probably spent on the call, welcoming a chill didn’t sound crazy so much as bat shit insane. Physiology didn’t work that way, for Chrissake. But in the entire time he’d known her, Shae had never done the same thing twice, let alone done anything in a logical fashion, so he settled on, “I take it you were the one who pulled Denton from the fire, then.”

Although he hadn’t crafted the words as a question, Shae answered them anyway. “Yes. Slater made the find, but I made the extraction.”

Capelli’s brain buzzed with a whole new set of inquiries. Maxwell must’ve been on the same wavelength, because he said, “Why don’t you start from the beginning and tell us everything that happened.”

“Okay.” She launched into a play-by-play that covered most of what they already knew, from the presence of the reported meth lab in the house to getting an unconscious L-Man out to paramedics, and finally to Slater’s discovery of Denton on the other side of the house.

“Hang on.” Capelli replayed her words in his brain, but wait, they couldn’t be accurate. “You disobeyed a direct order to go back into the house for Slater once he found Denton’s body, even though you knew how bad the fire was?”

If the sudden stubbornness in Shae’s jaw was anything to go by, her report was entirely accurate. “My captain has already promised to read me the riot act, thanks.”

“It just seems like a pretty reckless decision to put your personal safety on the line in those specific conditions. Not to mention breaking rank, which is never a good idea.”

Shae’s chin snapped up, her hands moving to her hips as she took a step back on the faded asphalt to pin him with a stare. “You really see things in black and white, don’t you?”

“I see facts,” Capelli countered, inhaling slowly to offset the uncharacteristic thrum in his chest. Christ, this woman pushed every last one of his buttons. “You knew the fire was going to flash over. Your captain gave you a direct order to fall out. You went back into the house anyway.”

Obvious surprise lifted Maxwell’s brows. “I think what Capelli meant to say is—”

“Exactly what he did say,” Shae finished, although her stare never wavered from Capelli’s. “Yes, I knew shit was going sideways in the house, and yes, I disregarded a direct order to re-enter the scene anyway. But there’s another fact you’re forgetting, and it’s the most important one of all.”

Either she was mistaken or speaking figuratively, because he never forgot a fact. Hell, he never forgot anything, not even when he desperately wanted to, but now wasn’t exactly the time for examining semantics. “And what’s that?”

“When Slater and I crossed that threshold, I told him I had his six, which means when he needs me, I’m there. Period. I don’t just see facts, Capelli,” she said, her green eyes glittering with enough conviction to make his heart pump faster in his chest. “I see everything.”

And just when he thought she couldn’t throw anything more unpredictable in his direction, Shae swiveled on her boot heels and walked away.