“She has a goddam convicted murderer working in her office.”

Peter looked at me from across our desks in the bullpen of the precinct. The Homicide Division was on the second floor, a warren of cubicles, old office furniture and Iron Age computers. Phones rang all day while cops worked overtime and families of victims fought to keep our attention and their loved one’s case on the top of the ever-growing pile.

It was exhausting and thankless but it was the best goddam job in the world. The son and grandson of a cop, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. And it had saved my sanity in the year since my divorce. It was hard to wallow too long in my shit when a mother mourned the death of her teenage son.

“I presume you’re talking about your latest obsession,” Peter answered, looking back down at the report splayed across his desk. “Dr. Androghetti didn’t kill Senator Marsden.”

“I don’t think she did either but,” I waved the paper I was reading in his general direction. “She has a convicted murderer on her payroll. That guy,” I glanced by down at the name entered into the sheet, reading it off, “Michael Dean Ryker was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and did two years in the state penitentiary.”

Peter squinted at me, his lips curled in derision. “You don’t think he killed him do you?”

I hesitated, wishing it was that simple. Everyone wanted a high-profile case until you got one and realized just what a pain in the ass it was to have all the brass, including the fucking mayor of DC, up your ass without lube. A murderer wrapped up in a nice little bow would be amazing right now but it wasn’t this Ryker guy.

“No. He has an airtight alibi.” I grinned and waggled my eyebrows at my partner. “In fact, he was airtight at the time of the murder. Or the hot little twink he fucked with this other guy was airtight . . . I don’t know. . . he was in a threesome and they both vouched for him. He was too busy fucking somebody else to fuck the Senator.”

“Great,” Peter grumbled, his big paw of a hand wrapped around his coffee mug and he took sip. With a grimace, he set the cup down and shoved it away, crinkling papers and burying random post-its in his haste. “So, the only thing we know about Dr. Carla Androghetti is that she has no alibi, slept with both the Senator and his wife, and every time you talk about her, you get a hard on.”

I didn’t answer him. What was the point? He wasn’t wrong.

“What? No denial from you?”

“Would it matter?”

“Nope.” He settled back in his chair. The thing was too small for him and every time he moved it screamed for mercy. I was a big guy but Peter was enormous. A football player for the University of Michigan during college, I would have wet myself if he’d come at me during a game. “I know you want to fuck her. I’ve watched you screw your way through DC for the past year. I know what ‘Aiden in heat’ looks like. Just don’t do it until this case is over.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about it,” I observed, cutting to the salient point on the matter. “She sleeps with couples and the last time I looked, I didn’t have one of those.” I paused. “Because my wife cheated on me and then left me.”

And as if she somehow had a chip planted in my head, my phone lit up and the name of the woman who’d betrayed my trust flashed up on the screen. Her ringtone, a shrill witch’s cackle, grabbed Peter’s attention and his gaze landed on my phone and then my face as I declined the call and let it go to voicemail. A voicemail I would never listen to.

“She’s just going to keep calling if you don’t answer her,” he said, shaking his head as he looked back down at the paperwork spread out before him.

“Well, my divorce papers pretty much gave me permission to ignore all of her calls.”

He grumbled across the desk, mumbling about me and my stubborn stupidity. He didn’t want me to get back with Patrice. He’d had front row seats to that three-ring-circus and then watched me burn it down. But he did want me to put it behind me and I hadn’t. Not really. I didn’t love her, we were over, but I was still holding on to resentment that poisoned me a little each day.

The phone on our desk rang and we both looked at it and then each other.

“I answered it last time,” he said, ignoring the shrill ring and my glare. I picked it up, hoping it wasn’t a call from the Mayor’s office or a reporter.

“Cross,” I listened to the beat cop on the other end of the line, explaining what he’d found. I scribbled down the address and put down the receiver and stood, grabbing my jacket and my cellphone and checking my shoulder holster. Peter glanced up and I smiled. I’d take any break in this case we could get. “They found Davina Marsden and she’s alive but the woman with her isn’t.”