“Nah, it’s not work. I was just wondering if you could do me a favor since you live out in the middle of fucking nowhere.”
I grinned. My house wasn’t quite in the middle of nowhere, but it was far enough away from Beaulac—and most civilization—that I had a heaping portion of privacy. And since I summoned demons in my basement, privacy was pretty damn important to me. “What do you need?”
“I need you to swing by Brian Roth’s place and wake him the fuck up. His shift started at six this morning. He still isn’t in yet, and he has a meeting with a witness at eight.”
I continued past my driveway. Brian lived in a gated subdivision just a few miles from where I lived, on a sprawling piece of land that was almost as wonderful as the ten acres I owned. “He’s not answering his cell?”
“Would I be calling you if he was?” he said with asperity. “But the witness is a friend of the captain’s, and if Brian doesn’t show I’m gonna have to write him up.” I could hear the reluctance in his voice.
Brian and I had started in police work at about the same time and had even been teammates when we were road cops. Then we’d both been promoted to detective within months of each other, though he’d gone to Narcotics while I’d been put into Property Crimes. I glanced at my watch. Almost seven-thirty now. Brian would be pushing it to get to work in time to meet the witness. It took me nearly half an hour to make it in from my house.
“I’m almost there. I’ll bang on his door and then call you back.”
“Appreciate it.”
The gates to his subdivision were closed, but they swung open obligingly after I punched the police access code into the little keypad. A few minutes later I pulled into the driveway to his house—two-story with white brick exterior, faux columns by the front door, a double garage, and decent landscaping. It was the kind of house that would be impossible to afford on a cop’s salary, but his dad was a judge and his stepmother was a lawyer, and they’d supposedly purchased the house for him as a wedding present. I’d heard rumors that he tried to refuse it and had reluctantly accepted it only after his dad showed the house to Brian’s new wife. It didn’t surprise me that he might have refused it. Brian was a decent guy who worked hard, and I didn’t see him as the type to be comfortable accepting such a large gift, even from family.
A red Ford F-150 was parked in the driveway next to a gold Ford Taurus with public plates—Brian’s department-issued vehicle. That told me that he was most likely at home, since I knew the pickup was his personal vehicle. But a shiver went through me as I approached the house, and I paused, trying to capture the fleeting sense of unease that had drifted by me. My gaze fell on the door and my eyes narrowed. It was pulled mostly shut, but the latch hadn’t caught and it was ajar approximately half an inch. I quickly retreated to my car and grabbed my gun and holster out of the glove box, then returned to the door, clipping the holster onto my belt and holding my gun at the ready position. I couldn’t see any sign of forced entry. Maybe he just didn’t pull the door all the way shut? I wanted to believe that, but the continued sense of unease nagged at me.
I nudged the door farther open with my foot, staying behind the jamb. “Brian?” I called. “It’s Kara Gillian.”
Silence. Not even the brush of movement on carpet. If he was in there, he was being awfully quiet. I gave the door a soft kick to push it open all the way, then took a quick peek in.
It took me several seconds to register what I was seeing. At first my mind insisted that he’d fallen asleep on the floor in front of the TV. Then it finally processed the thick pool of blood surrounding him. “Oh, shit,” I breathed, even as grief and horror knotted my throat. I wanted to rush in to see if he was still alive, but I forced myself to use proper caution. There was no way to know what had happened, and I sure as hell didn’t want to end up like Brian. I edged in cautiously, scanning and covering the area with my Glock as I fumbled my phone out of its holder with the other hand and dialed 911.
“This is Detective Gillian; I have an officer down. Brian Roth. I’m at his residence.” I rattled off the address. I barely heard the dispatcher’s acknowledgment as I got close enough to see that there was no way Brian was still alive. Not with the skull pieces and brain matter spattered across the floor and wall. “Fuck. Be advised that—fuck. It’s a 29.” A signal 29 was a death. It was easier to say, in more ways than one.
“Are you code 4?” She was asking if the scene was safe.
“Unknown. I’ll need backup units to clear the house.” I continued to scan the living room, doing my best not to disturb any possible evidence. A piece of paper in the middle of the coffee table drew my attention, and I glanced down at it. Then I read it again when I realized what it was, dismay and dread twisting at my gut.