Senator Nathan Marsden was dead and as naked as the day he was born.

I crouched down beside the king-sized bed, pulling on a pair of latex gloves as I took in the all-too-familiar scene before me. Not that I'm used to seeing dead national-level politicians every day. Contrary to the constant parade of thriller movies with dead senators and judges littering the streets, it doesn't happen that often in Washington DC. Street people, junkies, gang bangers, sad domestic cases . . . that's the usual victim I'm called to see in their worst moment and then charged to catch whatever shit bag did them in.

Very rarely was the victim a guy whose face was splashed all over the cover of TIME magazine.

I swore under my breath, already wondering whose karma I pissed on to catch such a high-profile case. I could look forward to everybody in DC with any connection to this case to be up my ass 24/7 until this one closed. Fuck.

The room was very quiet except for the sounds of technical crews doing their part to catch a killer. The air was rank with the odor of death and sex, the vibe in the atmosphere all wrong. Each scene felt off and finding out what caused it was usually the first step to solving the case.

For a dead guy he didn't look too bad. I'd definitely seen worse. His pale body, eyes wide open and covered in the haze of death, was sprawled in the middle of a mess of sheets. Legs splayed wide, his flaccid cock lying against his thigh. He was in shape, a healthy male in his mid-thirties who took care of himself. The bullet hole in his chest and the dark spread of blood under his body were out of place in the upscale surroundings of the hotel room. This was not a by-the-hour joint, catering to the rich and self-important who flocked to DC to broker deals, make money, or fuck somebody over. I wondered which vice lead to the bullet in the chest of the up-and-coming junior Senator from some square state in the middle of the country. I could predict some unhappy Bible-toting constituents who probably weren't going to be okay with why and how this went down.

“What's the estimated time of death?” I asked the M.E. kneeling on the opposite side of the three-billion thread count sheets. I didn't know this one, just one of the new faces in that office that appeared on a semi-regular basis. She was small, with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, her eyes tired and I wondered how long she'd stick around. The Office of the Medical Examiner was busy and it wasn't the place for everyone.

Just like the Homicide Division wasn't for every cop. No, you had to be my particular brand of crazy asshole to endure year after year of people killing each other and still love the job. And I fucking loved the job.

The M.E. answered without even looking at me, too engrossed in labeling vials and bags and shoving them in her evidence case to give a shit about making eye contact. I was okay with it. It wasn't her job to cater to the living. "Twelve hours or so. Give or take a couple of hours."

“So, midnight or one in the morning,” I muttered as I leaned down to get a better look at the body sprawled on the disheveled sheets. I didn't bother to ask what was the cause of death. The bullet hole in middle of his chest was a good indicator of how the Senator had bought it unless the tox screen came back with a surprise. “Must have used a silencer or something for people not to hear. Nobody reported a goddam thing much less a gunshot in the middle of the night.”

“And the perp was allowed into the room,” Peter, my partner, gestured towards the crime scene techs messing with the front door. “They say there's no evidence of forced entry."

I eased up off the floor, careful not to lean on the bed when my knees and achy joints protested the movement. At thirty-eight I wasn't old and I kept my body in great shape but partying at a bar last night until the wee hours and spending some quality time on my knees servicing the cock of a beautiful boy wasn't conducive to being at the top-of-my-game today. As usual, nothing got past Peter.

"You need help there?" His smirk quickly morphed into a full grin when I flipped him off. A big guy with an imposing frame, his bulk usually made criminals and cops think twice about tangling with him but his smile stripped him of all that edge. It was boyish, bright white teeth against the ebony of his skin and it completely ruined his tough-guy game. "You're getting too old to be running the streets at all hours."

"I was in bed early enough." I didn't elaborate that I hadn't done any actual sleeping in the bed of the man I'd picked up at a club. I didn't need to. We'd been partners long enough for him to jump to all the correct conclusions. I pointed at the body. "So was he from the looks of it."

Several used condoms were in the trash can, their wrappers scattered on the bedside table along with lube and a large, flesh-colored dildo. That fucker had to be nine inches long and breathtakingly wide and I mentally saluted the senator and his mystery sex partner. He hadn't been conducting constituent town halls in this two-thousand a night junior suite last night. Not unless he had new and personal ways of obtaining votes.

The M.E. perked up, sliding a used condom into an evidence bag. "He had sex. Lots of it according to our preliminary examination of the sheets." She paused as she wrote on a bag with a black Sharpie. "We'll determine if the semen in the rubbers is his but there's also evidence of anal penetration." She pointed her chin at the sex toy lying next to the telephone. "We'll test the dildo to see if that is what was used on him or his partner or both. Any DNA we can find we'll cross-check and get you the results."

I whistled but not in judgment. I couldn't begrudge any guy indulging in a little ass play if that's what he liked. Hell, I enjoyed sex with men and women although I'd confined my activities to the male variety since my divorce. A cheating wife had soured my appetite for female companionship or any whiff of commitment for a while. "I wonder what Mrs. Senator Marsden thinks about him meeting up for a little fun on the side."

"Maybe she was here with him," Peter said, lifting the edge of the coverlet. His eyes scanned the area, looking for anything that might be a clue to what had gone down here. He looked up at me and winked. "You know. Keeping the spark alive. A little role play to spice things up. Meet in the bar and pretend to be strangers before heading up to the room . . ."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "You speaking from experience? You and Katie . . . " I let my question hang in the air between us. They were good together, my partner at work and his partner at home. Solid and still hot for each other even after three kids. They were also the best of friends and it was an amazing thing to watch. I didn't even try to curb my jealousy.

"Fuck off," he chuckled as he reached for something on the floor just under where he was searching. He produced another used condom wrapper and passed it off to the M.E. and her never-ending supply of evidence bags. "Everybody knows that hotel sex is hot."

I grunted my agreement, my gaze scouring the scene before me looking for . . . I wasn't quite sure. Not yet. A clue was here and I just needed to figure out what it was. No killer was so good that they didn't leave something behind. The real test was whether the cop was good enough to find the mistake.

"Where is Mrs. Marsden now?" I looked at the uniform cop hovering on the edge of the scene.

He held a cell phone to his ear but placed a beefy paw over the mouthpiece to answer me. "We called all her available numbers but she's not answering. The housekeeper and her personal assistant haven't seen her since last night. We have a couple of officers at the residence and the senator's office now."

I looked at Peter and he raised an eyebrow at me. Eight years of partnership and we didn't need words to make the point: Mrs. Marsden was either victim number two or suspect number one.

She wouldn't be the first wife to off her cheating husband in the hotel room where he was sticking his dick in places it shouldn't be.

I walked around the bed, letting my gaze wander over the upscale furniture in the room. Everything about it screamed "you can't afford this" and I found myself tiptoeing around like a bull who'd just discovered his big ass in a china shop. There were the leavings of a late-night dinner on the table. Used and dirty plates, an empty bottle of wine and two glasses, one broken and scattered across the carpet.

A dark suit coat tossed over the back of a chair by the window caught my attention. I walked over, picking it up to look it over. Designer label. Senatorial navy blue. Probably cost more than I made in a month. On the low table next to the chair was a clear evidence bag, in it I could see a cell phone, keys, a pack of gum and a business card. I peered over, reading the name on the white and slightly crumpled piece of paper.

"Dr. Carla Androghetti. Doctor of Psychiatry." I looked at Peter. "What's the card of a head shrinker doing in the Senator's pocket?"

I pulled out my cellphone and entered her name into the search engine, clicking on the website when it popped up in the results. I thumbed around until I found a tab labeled "Biography" and I keyed it open. I scanned the information, noting her ivy league education bypassing the rest of the data to zero in on her face. Olive skin, big golden brown eyes and a mouth straight out of most men's wet dreams. I whistled low and flashed the screen in Peter's direction. His eyebrows shot up as he nodded his head in appreciation of the visual.

"She's fucking hot. The kind of woman I'd meet in a hotel and use half a dozen rubbers with," I said, pocketing my phone. "I wonder if she's the one who played 'hide the dildo" with the senator last night?"

"Not a clue," Peter shrugged, tugging off his latex gloves with a loud snap. "But it's as good a place to start as any."

"I'm driving," I said as we both headed to the door. "Driver picks the radio station. I'm not listening to your shit taste in music today."