Lori L. Harris - Secret Alibi

She stood there weighing her options. She didn’t relish the idea of dealing with a drunk, naked man, but it wouldn’t be the first time. There was also the possibility that he had simply passed out. If he had, and if by some miracle the papers were signed, she could just grab them and leave. No confrontations.

Lexie pushed the door open. The first thing that struck her when she stepped inside was the silence.

Dan liked noise. He always had the television going, or left a CD on. He couldn’t handle being alone. It was the same reason he drank. The same reason he occasionally abused Valium.

“Dan?”

When he didn’t respond, the knot in her chest tightened. Something didn’t feel quite right….

“Dan? Where are you?”

As she crossed the kitchen, heading for the door leading into the dining room, she opened her jacket. The house was unusually warm, which wasn’t like him, either. He always kept the place cold enough for a polar bear.

She shoved open the swinging door. When she let it go, it closed behind her, the only light now coming from the lamp on the old English chest in the foyer.

“Dan?”

Her footsteps echoed on the oak flooring, and then were muffled by the foyer’s Persian carpet. A thin swath of light spilled out from where the door to his office stood ajar. She called out one last time when she was still several feet away.

Two scents registered simultaneously. Blood. Fresh blood. She remembered it from the few times she’d entered an operating room. And the underlying scent, the much more subtle one—cordite.

“No!” Her heart crashed inside her rib cage as her gut twisted in fear. Her palms slammed into the door, her forward momentum carrying her halfway across the room before the scene registered: Dan slumped at his desk, his head resting in a large pool of blood. Lexie kept going, something inside her refusing to believe—until she touched his hand.

Releasing cold fingers, she jerked backward, almost as if something had struck her a physical blow. Her hand came up to cover her mouth. Too late, she realized there was blood on it.

She stared at it, then at Dan. She tried to take a deep breath, but couldn’t. It was as if her brain, her body, had forgotten how, had been short-circuited by what was in front of her.

The first wave of nausea hit her, forcing her to stumble backward, toward the door. She clamped a hand over her mouth as if that could stop the vomit. She made it as far as the small bathroom beneath the stairs.

When the retching passed, she leaned against the sink, afraid her legs would give out. Dear God, this couldn’t be happening! Not to Dan. What would make him commit—?

When she lifted her gaze to the mirror, her thoughts suddenly derailed.

She hadn’t closed the door behind her. She was sure of it. But it was shut tight. And everything inside her told her there was someone on the other side.

Waiting for her.

Rain came down hard and steady as Deep Water’s chief of police, Jack Blade, was waved through the barricade by a slicker-clad patrolman.

Wadding up the wrapper from a greasy cheeseburger, Jack tossed it back in the sack, then rolled down the window to speak with the officer.

“Who’s all here, Hank?”

“Ellis, Martinez, Shepherd, Fitz. The D.A. did a quick walk-through about forty-five minutes ago.”

“What about our illustrious medical examiner? He make it by yet?”

“Been called.” Hank nodded toward the food bag. “Thought you were swearing off fast food, Chief.”

“Yeah.” Hitting the gas, Jack nosed the car forward before casting a jaundiced glare down at the bag.

Hank was right. He really had to start eating better. He also needed to begin carving out some kind of life for himself. He’d thought making the move to Deep Water would be enough, that with the change of scenery, he would also change. But he hadn’t. It was pretty much business as usual, his life revolving around police work, and not much else.

Except, of course, for that one night nearly two months ago when he’d met a woman. A very intelligent and beautiful woman.

He’d thought they’d made a real connection. He’d called several times after that, hoping to pursue something with her, but she had been pretty blunt the last time he’d contacted her.

Just his luck, the only woman he’d met who interested him wasn’t interested in return. And to make matters worse, he couldn’t seem to get her out of his head.

Reaching down, he switched on the defroster to clear the windshield. Though he’d relocated from Atlanta nearly two years ago, he still couldn’t get used to the damp cold of a Florida winter, where thirty-nine degrees cut through you like thirteen. And where three days of gray skies felt like an eternity.

There was no sign of any media yet, but he suspected it would be only a matter of time before they made an appearance. Reporters and bluebottle flies. Both fed on the dead, but it was the reporters who usually showed up first.

Like any midsize, modern city, Deep Water had its share of murders, but up until tonight, none of them had taken place in Thornton Park, an affluent area of large, historic homes with sweeping, deep-green lawns and brick streets.

Jack looked up as the house came into view. Most of the homes in the area were dark now, but light flooded from this one, and vehicles crowded the driveway as if some swank gala was under way. And in some ways, it was a party—a morbid one—attended by crime scene techs and police officers, and with the host already dead.

Jack swung in behind the department’s white crime-scene van—a recently purchased, fully equipped vehicle. It had taken him nearly a year to convince the city council that the vehicle wasn’t a luxury, but a necessity.

Jack grabbed gloves and shoe covers, dug a roll of mints out of the center console and flicked off two. He could still taste the cheeseburger. In another hour or so the sour taste in his mouth would be even worse.

A patrol officer, Billy Ellis, stood just outside the front door, hunched in a jacket that was too lightweight for the weather, stamping his feet against the cold. As Jack approached, Ellis scribbled down his name in the security log.

“You first officer on the scene?” Jack asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Still outside, Jack slipped on vinyl gloves—he was allergic to the more common latex variety. Glancing up as he was tugging on the second shoe cover, he noticed the kid’s lack of color and shell-shocked expression. “First homicide?”

Ellis nodded nervously. “Yes, sir.”

Jack suspected that no matter how many other homicides Billy Ellis worked in his career, tonight’s would always be the most vivid. At some point during the next week or so, the kid would probably tell himself that the next one would be easier. It wouldn’t be. In Jack’s experience, they never got easier—a man just got better at coping.

Another new recruit looked up as Jack stepped into the foyer. The officer, who stood in front of the chest against the opposite wall, was sifting through what appeared to be mail, and used his head to motion toward a set of double doors. “Body’s in there.”

“Who called it in?”

“The ex-wife. Fitz is in the kitchen with her now.”

After the week he’d had, Jack would have liked to bypass the room with the body—to spend time with the living instead of the dead. But no matter how much he wanted to, he wouldn’t. Because when it came right down to it, homicide investigations weren’t about the living. They were about the dead—about attaining justice for those who were beyond needing it.

Jack stepped inside what appeared to be a home office. Every lamp had been turned on and additional lights had been brought in to flood the space.