Page 7 of Murder Notes

“I’d say welcome, but there’s nothing welcoming about today.” He motions to an open apartment door. “We appreciate the feds loaning you to us today. I’m Detective Smith.” He shakes my hand.

“Happy to help,” I say.

He grimaces. “I doubt you’ll say that after you see the scene.” He motions to the apartment next to us. “Suit up in there. You need to be in hazmat gear.”

This is a first. “Hazmat? Why?”

“You’ll know when you get there.” He turns and walks away.

I grimace and enter the apartment, to be greeted by a guy in jeans and a T-shirt with red hair who looks me up and down. “Who the hell are you?”

“Lilah Love,” I say. “I’m supposed to suit up.”

“Lilah Love,” he repeats. “Who wanted you to grow up and be a stripper?”

“That joke is about as original as a teenage boy thinking a green M&M makes him horny.”

“M&M’s make you horny?”

Great. He doesn’t know that common teen joke. I really hate when no one but me gets my jokes. “No. They make you happy. And fat if you eat too many. Just like how bad jokes make you stupid.”

His extremely thick brows twist into a furry glower. “I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.” He reaches to a rack just behind him, grabs a hazmat suit, and shoves it at me. “Put it on. Don’t worry. You can leave your clothes on.” He wiggles a brow. “Unless you don’t want to.”

I give him a deadpan stare. “You’re so funny,” I say, my tone intentionally flat.

“And horny, sweetheart,” he says, tossing rubber boots next to me. “Those really get me hot.”

Pretty sure I’m losing brain cells every moment I participate in this conversation, and desperate to save the ones I have left, I give him my back and step into the all-white suit. Once I’m covered up to my shoulders, I zip up and leave the hood and mask dangling. I then pull a pair of rubber boots over the tops of my black Converses, their color masking the dirt from numerous sandy crime scene visits. The choice of brand masks my normal penchant for Louis Vuitton in all forms, including sneakers. Feet covered, I ignore the redheaded asshole and walk outside, immediately heading toward the crowd.

Detective Smith greets me with a command. “Hood and mask on. And good luck.” He steps aside and clears a path that leads me to a tarp walling off an investigative area and another apartment. I start moving again, and there is the clawing sense of dread in my belly that is always there just before I see a body, those moments before death whispers my name. And it does. Every day and every night. Blood rushes in my ears. Adrenaline pours through me. I pause and pull my hood and mask into place. Another few steps, and I barely register the moment I pass through the opening in the tarp, or the moment when I see the plastic sheets on the floor covered in bloody footsteps that warn of what is waiting on me at the actual murder scene. Or even the cop by the door who mouths, “Good luck,” before motioning me forward.

I step into the room, liquid sloshing at my feet. Everything slows down then, and my tunnel vision forms. My feet are plopping into a pool of red, so much red. My gaze swims past my feet to search for the body that isn’t there, catching on another person in a suit that points upward. I look to the ceiling, and my throat goes dry. There is a body anchored there, and it’s not in one piece. The limbs are detached and reconnected in odd places: the legs where the arms should be. The hands where the feet should be. The arms where the legs should be.

My gaze jerks back down to the blood that has started to congeal around my boots, and suddenly the room is spinning and my stomach is knotted. I rush for the door and exit, walking as fast as the tarp allows, and then turning and leaning against the walled area behind it. My knees go weak and I sink low, pulling away the face mask I’m wearing and gasping for air, my lashes lowering.

“You okay?”

I blink and open my eyes to find a man squatting in front of me. “Fine,” I say. “I’m fine. I’m going back in.”

“Everyone who’s gone in has come out just like this,” he promises. “Take a minute to catch your breath.”

“I will. Thank you.”

“I’m Rich,” he says, giving me this Ken-doll smile that reaches his pretty-boy blue eyes. “I’m here if you need me.” He’s coddling me. I do not need to be coddled.

“Yeah, well, fuck you,” I say, pushing to my feet. “I don’t need to breathe, and I don’t need you.” I pull my mask back into place and charge for the door.

Everything goes blank then. Everything is just black space until I am suddenly in another memory. I’m in the Hamptons. I’m at a fancy restaurant with him. He’s staring at me with those damn brown eyes. He reaches up and touches my face, then my leg. I was young and foolish. He was older and not even close to foolish.

I shove aside the memory and I’m immediately on that beach, that hellish night again, and he is there. I am trembling all over, blood at my feet, all over my body. “Go inside,” he orders. “Take a shower.”

“No,” I say. “No, I—”

He grabs my arms. “Go the fuck inside. Do as I say.”

“No, damn it. No!”

“Miss Love. Miss Love!”