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  Aaron wrapped the hand loop of the leash around his hand to secure the grip before setting Stanley on the sidewalk. Good thing, because despite his size, the pup nearly pulled him off his feet as he dashed towards the abandoned building on the corner of the street, barking all the way.

  The hairs on the back of Aaron’s neck tingled like they did when closing in on a suspect.

  Funny thing. Despite all the new people and places—him and Brianna, the hospital, restaurant and morgue—Stanley had only barked like this twice. Now and at Paula’s place.

  Aaron picked up the pace, until he was trotting alongside the pup. Stanley didn’t stop at the main entrance but continued around through the side of the brick building to where a metal gate stood open and a path led to a doorless loading dock area.

  Pulling the pup to a stop, Aaron squatted down to pet him and calm his barking while he assessed the situation. The little guy trembled and whimpered, apparently still wanting to dart into the building. The streetlights shone on the artistic graffiti decorating the brick retaining wall behind him separating the drive and dock area from the street one level above. Less accomplished graffiti that looked like gang tags laced the building’s brick walls. Some old trees and scraggly weeds edged the driveway, but didn’t block the entrance. The smell of urine and feces irritated his nose, but he’d learned years ago working as a beat cop to blot those out.

  “Is this a good idea?” Brianna asked, right behind him, slightly out of breath. “We don’t really know who or what is in there.”

  “True, but Stanley here, is acting like we need to go inside.”

  “Need?” Skepticism edged her voice.

  He didn’t blame her, the moment he uttered the word it sounded weird to him, too. Holding his finger to his lips he signaled her to remain silent. She nodded. Blotting out the sound of passing cars, the low whistle of a passing train in the distance and finally the whisper of wind through the newly budding trees, he strained to hear inside the building.

  No movement. No talking. No whimpering. No coughing. No snoring.

  Faint scratching.

  Rats.

  Fuck. I hate rats.

  “Do you have a flashlight on your phone?” he asked, staring into Brianna’s big blue eyes. Damn, they looked just like they had that night he carried her out of that mansion, wide open with fear. He laid his free hand on hers. “You don’t have to go in with me. You can go back to the car and wait.”

  She blinked and resolve replaced the fear in her face. “What? I let you go inside here alone? Despite what you might think, I’m not that much of a coward,” she said and flipped on the flashlight on her phone. “Besides, I’m the one that got you involved in all this. I’m not letting you go in there without backup.”

  Aaron wisely kept the retort that backup usually meant armed, trained police officers, not a lone woman with a cellphone. Besides, keeping her with him, meant he could protect her from any dangers that might be prowling this area of town in the dark.

  He gave her a nod, then set Stanley back on the ground. “Keep close so we can see what’s around us and be careful where you step. I heard rats.”

  She stood so close he felt her shiver of creepiness at the mention of the rodents zip through her.

  “Great. Is it too late to rethink the wait in the car option?” she said as they headed into the building.

  Aaron chuckled, but said, “Stay right behind me, and flash the light in front of us, okay?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be so close to your backside, you’ll think I’m a thong sneaking into your butt crack.”

  He whipped his head around to find her inches from his shoulder, a wide-eyed innocent look on her face that he wasn’t buying for a moment. But sassy beat scared shitless in his book any day.

  They moved forward, letting Stanley lead the way. The pup had settled down and didn’t pull on his leash as hard, perhaps knowing the people with him needed his guidance into the dark abandoned building. Old, dried leaves from last fall or later crunched beneath their feet. In the shadows outside the flashlight’s beam of light old shopping carts, lumpy plastic trash bags and some cardboard boxes littered the walls. Nothing big moved, and only the scurrying of rodents broke up the stillness around them.

  “Find Art, Stanley,” Aaron encouraged the dog, who seemed to be leading them to a doorway in the far corner.

  “What’s in there?” Brianna asked as they neared the spot.

  “Don’t know. Flash the light inside.”

  She did and saw a flight of stairs leading to the next floor.

  “I guess we go up,” he said, scooping up Stanley and leading the way upstairs.

  “Do you think we’ll have to search the whole building?” Brianna asked right behind him. “It looked like there are four stories of windows from the outside.”

  Good observation on her part. He was learning that Brianna was not only smart but took the time to be aware of her surroundings and what was going on at all times. Had she been like that before she’d been abducted?

  “I don’t know, it’s gonna depend on what Stanley here tells us.”

  At the landing he set the terrier on the ground to see which way he wanted to go. Stanley pulled on the leash to head through the second-floor door and not further up the stairs.

  “Apparently, we’re going in here.”

  With Brianna just off his left shoulder, Aaron gave Stanley his lead and they entered the large, open room. Given the vastness of it, he’d guess it had originally been some sort of factory back in the early to mid-twentieth century—long stripped of any manufacturing equipment or furniture, the windows broken or missing, and gang graffiti tags marking the brick walls in various spots.

  Brianna flashed the light ahead of them illuminating a room at the far end of the floor with two large glass windows looking out into the room from two directions. “What do you think that room was?”

  “The manager or supervisor’s office?” he said, following Stanley in that direction. “Whatever it was, that’s where the little guy wants us to go.”

  As they approached, Stanley started to slow down, growling low and menacing, zigzagging his path as if something was wrong. Aaron followed the anxious pup inside the small room. The dog started barking and trying to break free of the leash. Brianna scanned the light across the floor and stopping at the body seated up against the far wall.

  Shit. Art.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered, the light shifting as she put both hands to her mouth.

  Aaron turned to find Brianna almost as pale as Art’s dead body. Last thing either of them wanted right now was her fainting in this place. “Here, take Stanley,” he said thrusting the dog into her arms then pulling out his own phone and hitting the flashlight app. “You two go out into the other room and I’ll go check on him.”

  As he moved closer, he shone the light around Art. Rodents who’d been nibbling on various spots of the corpse, paused as if frozen on film.

  “Stanley!” Brianna yelled just as the dog suddenly dashed past Aaron, scattering the rats away from his master’s lifeless body.

  “Did you check his pulse?” she asked right beside him.

  So much for her being scared, ready to faint or leaving the room.

  “Don’t need to. He’s not breathing and as pale as a statue.”

  Slowly, he scanned his flashlight from Art’s face down to his toes then back up again. The strange pallor of Art’s skin. The way he seemed to be just sitting at rest. His clothes. He’d been dressed in an Army dress uniform, pressed to perfection.

  The whole scene was off.

  “Do all dead bodies smell like…” Brianna asked leaning in closer. “Disinfectant?”

  And that’s what was bothering him. Art didn’t just sit down and die here. He’d been outfitted.

  Cleaned.

  Posed.

  Staged like a scene from a play or film.

  “Step back very carefully and don’t touch anything,” he said, taking
her by the arm, then pulling on Stanley’s chain to move him from the spot.

  “Why?” Brianna asked, but for once doing exactly as he’d instructed.

  “Because we’re standing in a crime scene,” he said, handing her the handle of the dog leash as he pushed buttons on his phone. “Keep the flashlight on him. I don’t want the rats scurrying a back in.” He paused as the phone was answered. “Hey Jaylon, I’m gonna need the M.E. and the crime scene people at the abandoned building on Carnegie between Fifty-fifth and Sixty-first. Second floor. I’ll tell you more when you get here.”

  “You think someone murdered Art, don’t you?” Brianna asked, squatting down to stroke Stanley in a soothing manner, her flashlight still shining in Art’s direction.

  “I do.”

  “Why?”

  “First there’s the position of his body,” Aaron said, shining his light to match hers. “No one dies sitting that straight. They slump forward or to the side.”

  “So, someone positioned him like that for us to find him?”

  “Possibly. Then there’s the disinfectant smell.”

  “Dead bodies don’t smell like that.”

  It was a statement, not a question. In her past, he knew men liked to think of her as dimwitted, an image she’d gone out of her way to reinforce, but from the minute he’d pulled her battered body from that mansion where the slave auction took place he hadn’t mistaken her for anything other than courageous, and smart, quite possibly a genius. More importantly, she was a critical thinker and that was something he appreciated. Especially now.

  “No, they are usually much more…earthy. And then there’s the uniform.” He moved his light to slowly highlight Art from his toes up to his face.

  “It’s clean and pressed to military perfection.” Brianna mirrored his own earlier assessment. “Someone killed him. Stripped and cleaned him. Redressed him and set him here. Why?”

  “In my experience most murders have one of three motives. Greed. Money or power. Taking something you want or feel you deserve or need from someone else,” Aaron said, holding up one finger. He added a second. “Passion. Could be love or hate.” Then he held up one more finger. “Revenge.”

  “Which do you think this is?”

  “This.” He paused, still studying the macabre scene before him, the tightness in his chest spreading like frost on a windowpane. “This is something altogether different.”

  * * *

  The way Aaron proclaimed Art’s death something other than ordinary, sent a chill through Brianna, as if something sinister had entered the room. She wrapped one arm around her middle in an effort to stay warm, keeping her flashlight on the area across the room. At her feet Stanley stood poised to strike and growled softly, as if warning the rats not to return.

  “What do you mean this murder is different?”

  “This looks planned and staged. As if someone wanted to show off what he’d done.”

  “And?” she asked, knowing he wasn’t quite telling her everything.

  “Like he’s done it before.”

  Fear swept over her and she couldn’t help scanning the room as if she thought the killer might be hiding in the shadows. She moved a little closer and lowered her voice. “You think this is a serial killing?”

  “Shit,” he muttered, rubbing one hand over his face then he turned to look straight into her eyes and gently squeezed her forearm. “I don’t know. As far as I know Art is the first person found like this. So, for now we’ll just call it suspicious. We don’t like to call anything a serial killing, even to each other until we have substantial proof.”

  Ah, she understood. He was telling her not to say it out loud. “Because if the press or some bystander hears that, the word might get out and people will panic.”

  He gave her a nod.

  A low wail came out of Stanley just as flashing blue lights strobed through the broken windows and onto the walls. Voices and footsteps sounded at the far end of the factory room.

  “Back here,” Aaron called.

  Stanley turned and barked at the people coming towards them.

  “Sit,” Aaron ordered, and the pup did just that and ceased his barking.

  “Damn, Jeffers, that’s one ugly little dog,” a mid-twenties man of about Aaron’s height of six-feet said as he stepped into the room. “Where’d you get him? Or does he belong to you, miss?” the man said, his eyes widening with interest as he looked Brianna up and down.

  She pressed her lips together and glared at him. “No, he does not,” she said in her iciest tone, completely ignoring the attempt to gain her name in his last question.

  “Stanley belongs to the deceased and is our only witness,” Aaron said, nodding in the direction of Art’s body. “And the lady is a friend of mine. Brianna Matthews. Brianna, this inappropriate asshole is my partner, Jaylon Halloway.”

  “Glad to meet you, Ms. Matthews. You must be very special,” The younger man grinned, but this time it was less suggestive. “Didn’t know old Aaron had any female friends.”

  Before Brianna could do more than nod at the young man, he shifted to watch a team of police carrying equipment into the area. “Bout time you got up here, Ramos,” he said to the petite brunette woman leading the group. “Thought I was going to have to come get you.”

  “I hung back in case there was a perp on the scene,” she said setting down a box and giving Jaylon a sardonic look. “Figured I’d let you take any bullets.”

  “I’d gladly take a bullet for you,” Jaylon grinned her way.

  Brianna fought the urge to roll her eyes his direction. Obviously, Jaylon flirted with every woman. Pretty typical of a young man just out of college. She suspected he wasn’t much older than Kirk F.

  “If I could only be that lucky,” the pretty technician shook her head, then looked down at Stanley, still seated at Aaron’s feet. “Is he going to be a problem when we go work on his owner? We’re going to need a lot of equipment to get lights going. Don’t want him getting hurt or contaminating the scene or biting someone—unless of course, it’s Halloway.” She smirked Jaylon’s way and he chuckled.

  “Don’t know how he’s going to react, Anita. So far, the only thing he’s been aggressive about is the rats,” Aaron said, lifted Stanley and tucked him in the crook of his arm like a running back with a football. “It’s why we’ve kept him in here. Didn’t want the vermin taking any more evidence than they already have.”

  Ramos lifted her hand palm up to Stanley, letting him sniff her. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you?” The pup picked that moment to nuzzle into her hand. With a soft snort, she scratched him behind the ears. “You’re a flirt, but it doesn’t matter, you’re going to have to leave the scene.”

  “I’ll take him,” Brianna offered. She shut down the flashlight on her phone and slipped it into the top of her purse, reaching for Stanley. “I’m just going to be in the way in here, anyways.”

  Aaron kept his hold on the dog for a moment, until Brianna met his intense gaze. He leaned in closer to whisper just for her to hear. “Stay just in the next room.”

  She got it. He needed to be here to do his job, but he didn’t want to worry about her outside by herself in this neighborhood late at night.

  “Stanley and I’ll find a spot to stay out of the way. I’ll let Kirk F know he can stop harassing the hospital ERs around town,” she said with a wink.

  That got her a half smile from Aaron as he released Stanley into her arms. He turned, reassured she’d be close by and took the blue gloves Anita Ramos was holding. The threesome moved towards Art’s body.

  Feeling dismissed, Brianna stroked one hand over the trembling pup in her arms and exited the small space, dodging more technicians carrying in three large lamps. Curious as to what really went on in a crime scene investigation—besides what she’d seen on television shows, fiction and reality—she moved to one of the outside windows that still let her look into the small office room where all the action was taking place. Luckily, the win
dowsills of this old building were built of solid stone slabs, about eighteen inches wide. Just big enough for her to wiggle herself up onto one and put Stanley in her lap while they waited.

  Blinding light came from inside the room and it took a moment for her eyesight to adjust to the scene before her. The techs all wore white suits, masks and blue gloves. One had a camera and was snapping pictures. Aaron and Jaylon stood a few feet back from Art’s body, talking to Ramos as she studied his still form.

  With Stanley snuggled in and sleeping in her lap, Brianna pulled out her phone and dialed Kirk F’s number. She’d had it in her contact list since he’d been her chauffer/guard/roommate three years earlier. It rang three times before he answered.

  “What’s up, boss lady?”

  She grinned. From day one she’d tried to get him to call her Brianna or even Bri. But he said, he couldn’t call her by her name, his Nana would have his head. When he’d called her ma’am, Brianna told her that was a name for old women, and she wasn’t old. So, they’d compromised on him calling her boss lady.

  “You can stop harassing the ER nurses now,” she said.

  “I wasn’t harassing them. None of them would give me any information about Art being a patient or not. Said something about HIPAA laws wouldn’t let them confirm or deny. But that didn’t stop one or two giving me their phone numbers,” he said, but she could hear the cocky pride in his voice. “You found him then?”

  “Actually, Stanley ended up leading us to him.” She scratched the dog’s head affectionately.

  “He okay?”

  Brianna inhaled deeply then exhaled. “No. I’m afraid Art is dead.”

  “Damn, that fucking…er, uhm, that sucks.” There was a long pause. “Uhm, you want me to tell your friend when I go pick up Nana?”

  “No, I’ll do that,” she said and could hear his sigh of relief. She didn’t like the idea of telling Paula any more than he did. “Your nana is planning to spend the night at the hospital. You’re to pick her up in the morning. By the way, she said to be careful with her car.”