But then again, now that he was here, Vaughn was a good detective because he knew that gut instincts, while often right, weren’t everything, and he knew that just because he didn’t like someone like Izzy McNeil didn’t mean she was a perpetrator. There was just something off about this Jane Augustine case, and his questions kept circling back to McNeil, the time the two had spent before Jane’s death, the way she’d slipped right into her “friend’s” anchor chair not even twenty-four hours after her death. Then there was the fact that just six months ago, her fiancé took off with thirty million dollars’ worth of her boss’s property, and she’d claimed not to be involved then, as well. It was too coincidental. And he didn’t believe in coincidences.

“Hey, Vaughn!”

He stopped pacing and looked up the hall to see Erin Cutter, the forensics person on the Augustine case. He’d specifically asked for her because she was the best. She never acted on gut instinct or supposition, and the way things were going for Chicago detectives these days-with accusations flying around about forced confessions and arrests without probable cause-he needed Cutter’s hard-core factual approach to balance his own.

Back in the day, Vaughn used to be able to roll with his gut instincts in this job. Maybe pull in a witness, maybe scare the shit of him, maybe ice him for a while by letting him sit for a day or four in a windowless room. But now, ever since a few detectives had taken it too far, they’d fucked it up for the rest of them. And so Vaughn needed people like Cutter to make sure that he had the backup he required to roll with those gut instincts. Or to get him rolling in another direction.

Cutter came bustling down the hall at him. She was Northern Irish, with white skin and black hair, and she did the bustling thing really well. The skirt of the suit she wore, an olive-green one he’d seen at least fifty times, swished against her legs as she came toward him.

“You got the lab report?” he asked her.

She grinned. “You’ll have it this afternoon.”

“Christ, you’re the best.”

DNA lab reports on the average murder case took at least a week, often much longer, but when you had a high-profile case like Augustine’s, and a ballbuster like Cutter, you might be able to get it in a day or two.

She stopped when she reached him. “I hope you’ve got something to show for making me rush it.”

He gave her a wicked grin. “You’ve definitely got something to show.”

She punched him in the shoulder. They laughed. Both of them were married, and neither fooled around on the side, but this was the way they worked.

“This case is fucked up,” he said. “I can feel it. You did DNA sequencing for the bedroom fluids, right?”

“Right,” Cutter said. “Full results aren’t back yet, but when the ET took the samples, they were wet. Augustine had sex the day she was killed.”

“The day her husband was supposedly out of town,” Vaughn mused.

“You know what Nietzsche said about cheating?”

“God, I love a woman who quotes Nietzsche.”

She smacked him again, but he wasn’t kidding. He and his wife had gone stale years ago. He’d never been unfaithful, but he’d thought about it. A lot. And if he were to stray, it would be with someone like Cutter, someone both sexy and smart as hell.

“Let’s see, how does that quote go?” Cutter screwed up her face and looked at the ceiling as if reading the quotation there. “I remember now.” She looked back at him. “The quality of a marriage is proven by its ability to tolerate an occasional exception.”

“You think that’s true?” Cutter had just had her third kid six months ago. From what he could tell she was one of the lucky ones who enjoyed marriage and kids.

“I wouldn’t know. And I hope I never have to test the theory.”

Cutter turned and swished down the hallway, while Vaughn headed toward his desk, his thoughts soon returning to another woman. Izzy McNeil.

40

E very cell in my body went on high alert. Get up, get up! a voice yelled in my head.

But my terrified body wasn’t reacting as fast as it normally would. Everything seemed tilted, slanted. I couldn’t tell if it was the angle of the helmet or the blow to the head. My knees screamed. I felt blood trickling from them.

I sensed someone behind me, and as I looked down, trying to focus on the ground, telling myself to stand, I caught a glimpse of shoes behind me. Men’s athletic shoes. I tried to notice what kind they were. I heard Mayburn telling me to take note of any details. I got to my feet, but then I felt a massive shove from behind. My hands flew out, catching myself on the garage. I sensed other blows coming. I cowered, covering my head.

“Stop!” I yelled. “I called the cops! They’re already on their way.” I had no idea why I was saying this, but it was the only thing I could think of.

It must have worked because suddenly the only sound was the faint trickle of rain on my helmet. I stood and spun around, the lack of peripheral vision in the helmet making me feel as if I was stoned.

Hit him back, the voice said. Kick him.

But no one was there.

My hands shook so much I could hardly drive the scooter. I felt the air drying the blood on my knees. Finally, I was almost back to the Fig Leaf. As fast as I could manage with my quivering hands, I headed down the alley behind the store. Luckily, the rain had stopped.

Parking the scooter and pulling off my helmet, I tried very hard not to whimper. My brain felt discombobulated. Fear rang inside me like a loud gong, steady and loud.

My hands shook as I looked at my watch. I’d been gone almost twenty minutes.

I had wanted to call Mayburn but it was hard to talk on the cell phone and drive the scooter at the same time. I had wanted to call the cops, but now that I was a person of interest, it seemed fishy somehow for me to have found a dead body and then been smacked around in an alley all in the span of twenty-four hours.

When Zac said he told the cops I’d been with Jane, I’d felt irrationally guilty. I had done nothing wrong when it came to Jane. I had done nothing wrong tonight. And yet I knew as a lawyer that little jagged pieces didn’t just make up the puzzle of an investigation, they could make someone innocent look very, very suspicious.

Somehow, I would finish work, I decided, and then I would call Mayburn. And he would help me decide what to do.

As I put down the kickstand and took off my helmet, it struck me as odd that I hadn’t even thought to call Sam. A short time ago, he was the only one I called with any kind of crisis-large or small. And yet now, even after the comfort he had provided last night, he wasn’t my first gut response. He wasn’t even the second. I looked down at my knees. They were only minimally scraped. A few streaks of blood ran from them. I licked my fingers and tried to rub it off.

I glanced at the door to the Fig Leaf. The Styrofoam was still in there. Thank you, God. I pushed open the door, stepping gingerly inside.

“Where the hell did you go?” Josie stood in the center of the room, hand on her hip, angry eyes peering from behind her silver glasses.

“Um…I was going to run to Starbucks.” I glanced down at the helmet in my hands. “But I came back to see if you wanted anything.”

Her eyes narrowed further, then dragged down my body, stopping at my knees.

“And I fell,” I added. “Accidentally.”

She stalked toward me. “There is no leaving the store while you’re working.”

“Right. Won’t happen again.”

“Ever.”

“Of course.”

“And we don’t prop open this back door. That’s a security risk. Do you understand?”

“Absolutely. I’m sorry.”

She was close to me now, and I could detect the smell of talcum powder and something beneath it, an exotic scent. For the first time, I noticed that her light green eyes were flecked with spots of brown.