Julie Miller - Sudden Engagement

“You know this place has a subbasement?” asked Mac.

Brett trailed his hand along the cool concrete walls. The drowsy sunshine of early April would never penetrate this far. Layers of plaster dust and ancient dirt and moldy slime came away on his fingertips. He curled his fingers into his palm and crushed the sensation in his fist. This place was as dark and unwelcoming as it had been fifteen years ago when Mark Bishop had first brought him down here.

The best place to hide from my dad, he’d said with a laugh that hissed through his broken tooth and bloody lip. Right beneath the old man’s nose. Brett had suggested the hospital emergency room as a better place to go after that fight. Mark had been little more than a kid then, an honorary little brother. But with no money and no insurance, with nothing but a young man’s pride to sustain him, Mark had wanted to hide out down here. Brett had brought him ice, peroxide and some food for the night. Mark took strength from their friendship, and from the idea that his dad, Alvin Bishop, would never be smart enough or sober enough to find his way down to the basement.

If only he’d known.

“Brett?” Mac was staring at him in that quizzical way of his that questioned everything but revealed nothing.

He quickly pulled himself back to the present and processed Mac’s question. “Yeah. It’s on the old blueprints. This is one crazy lady,” he added. “I wish I had more time to check out all the nooks and crannies. Abandoned dumbwaiter shafts, stairwells boarded over for remodeling.”

Mac had stopped them at a trapdoor in the floor. His grim sigh put Brett on guard. “I don’t think this particular nook shows up on your blueprints.”

Wary, but equally intrigued, Brett climbed down the ladder after Mac. As his work boots hit the dirt floor, he inhaled sharply and winced. The air smelled stale. Cold and damp like a cave, with no circulating breeze to cleanse the heavy air.

The basement had been chilly. The subbasement raised goose bumps along his forearms. He adjusted his yellow hard hat on top of his head and gazed into the darkness made dim by Mac’s flashlight and a lone stationary lantern. He followed him over to the collapsed section of bricks built up around the iron infrastructure of the building. Mac stepped aside and shined his flashlight into the closet-size hole.

The smell of rust and rot hit him a split second before he looked inside. He pulled his head back and spun around, cutting across the room with the calculated prowl of a caged animal. He swore low and viciously.

Mac remained cool and detached. A prerequisite for the kind of job he did, Brett knew, but still… He stopped in the center of the room and pointed toward the manmade hellhole. “Doesn’t that make you sick? We grew up in this neighborhood. Stuff like that…”

Hell. He wasn’t the eloquent one. He had no words for the gruesome sight, for the personal violation he felt at seeing a corpse like that in his building, in his community, in the place his friend had considered a haven.

“Stuff like that makes me angry, too,” Mac conceded. But unlike Brett, he kept his emotions firmly in check. “I have to ask you to delay demolition of the building until we’re satisfied with the crime scene.”

Brett returned his hands to his hips and nodded. “Any idea who? Or why? Or even how long he’s been in there?”

“Obviously, we’re beyond the fingerprint stage, so I won’t have any ID for a while. I’m not even up to motive yet. And as far as time, the dampness down here accelerates decomposition. But, nobody’s lived in this building for five years or so, right?”

“Eight years.” Brett breathed in, needing fresh air. “Do you think he was alive?”

Mac’s uncharacteristic hesitation snagged his full attention. “Yeah. I do.”

Brett cursed the cruel inhumanity of the crime. He went to Mac and squeezed his shoulder, offering a degree of comfort he’d yet to find for himself. He’d been half joking about saving the world. He’d like to reclaim at least a part of it for his mother and father and younger siblings.

But maybe he was already too late.

“I’ll hold the crews as long as you need me to.” Taking charge came easily to him. And even though Mac was the expert here, he couldn’t help but offer, “Anything else you need from me?”

Mac shook his head. “I know where to find you.”

A reviving breath of fresh air soothed Brett’s frustrated sense of justice. He turned to the creak of footsteps on the ladder, seeking the source of the delicate, flowery scent that drifted past his nose. It wasn’t a specific perfume, but a clean fragrance, faintly scented like the purplish freesia plants his mother had cultivated to add color and freshness to the drab, overcrowded apartment where he’d grown up.

Mac moved into the light while Brett savored the memory. “Mac, have you figured out any details for us?” Brett snapped to attention at the familiar female voice sparkling with intelligence and clipped with professional patience. He remembered that voice. “What’s this unauthorized civilian doing here?”

He smiled, knowing he was the cause of her accusatory tone. Mac urged him forward, out of the shadows. “Let me introduce you to the lead investigator on the case. Detective…”

“Ginny Rafferty.”

Mac and the second man down the ladder looked at Brett, surprised by the recognition. But he had eyes only for the petite woman standing in the muted light of the lantern and flashlights.

Angelic wisps of white-gold hair, damp with rain, curled and clung to her jawline. Dark blue eyes, wide and clear as a cobalt pane in a stained-glass window, studied him without expression. She was a pint-size package of beautiful woman that didn’t even reach his shoulders.

He remembered her.

Proper and preachy and stubborn enough to get under his skin like an itch he couldn’t reach, Ginny Rafferty unsnapped the front of her jacket and fisted her hands on her slim hips, exposing the holster and badge clipped to her belt. Her proud, wary stance dared him to question her authority.

Oh yeah. He definitely remembered her.

His smile broadened a notch. “We’ve met.”

“Yes. We shared guard duty of your cousin Mitch’s wife before they were married. My boss called in all his favors to protect her from the man who assaulted her.” She let the front of her jacket slide back into place, but her tiny body retained its stern posture. “As I recall, you cheat at Scrabble.”

“Being a bad speller doesn’t make me a cheater.”

“No, but doing anything necessary to ensure a victory does make you annoying.”

She walked past him, directing the beam of her flashlight into the hidden corners of the room. Mac laughed at the clear brush-off. “Yep, big brother. She knows you, all right.”

She put on a pair of plastic gloves and knelt beside a dust-filled footprint. She measured it with her hand and made a notation in her notepad. “Anybody been down here today but the two of you?”

Mac, too, slipped into his professional mode. “The two men who found the body. The preliminary scan team. We’ve taken photos. Marked samples. It’s slow going, though. This place is falling down around us and won’t withstand a lot of traffic.”

Ginny stood and flashed her light onto Brett. “So why don’t we clear the crime scene before we disturb any more evidence.”

“Brett knows the building inside and out. He can tell us where it’s safe, and where it isn’t. Besides, he knows more history about this neighborhood than city hall. I thought he’d be a good source of information. And, he can tell us about the construction of this wall.”

Her blue eyes flashed with the same intensity as the powerful beam. “Nice defense, Mr. Taylor. I suppose you can stay.”