An Eye for Danger by Christine M. Fairchild Page A

lung. Finally, his lungs settled and he continued. "We call him Ray at the station. On account of his pop, Captain Ray McCarthy. You don't believe me, look him up. Old man's a shadow over junior. No, Stone's no ray of sunshine, not in that precinct. Not when you mention dad." He rolled his head toward me. "Go ahead, call The Prick. Or he'll come sniffing around. That's worse. But keep it short or he'll drill you. If he suspects, we're done for."
    At least Sam's take on Stone rang true, considering the detective's parting words: "Thank you for your statement. And please, don't leave town, Miss Larson." He'd spoken to me not like a victim but a suspect. I resented being played like that.
    When I looked up from my thoughts, Sam smiled at me. "Look, I trust you, Jules. Don't really gotta choice. You do. You want out, you tell me now. Seem like a nice lady. I feel bad already." He took up my wrist, lightly this time. "I mean it, Jules. What I did in the park," he said, shaking his head. "You didn't deserve that. That was wrong. I could lose my badge."
    Resting my hip against the sink, I picked the frayed cuticle on my thumb. Giving me an out would've felt like a miracle this morning, but now it felt like a character flaw, like I couldn't complete an assignment. Like I wasn't worthy of the mission.
    I dropped my thumb. "You said we're done for. I don't see why I'm in trouble."
    "Remember my buddy? You think he's satisfied now I'm MIA? He's got hooks everywhere. Any leak could lead him here. And The Prick ain't got your back, believe me. Stone's got one priority: Stone."
    "I don't understand how my calling the detective alerts the bad guy."
    "Can't answer that." He pinched the bridge between his eyes as I stepped closer. "Move on, Jules."
    Frustrated, I gathered his rancid clothes to toss them, wishing I could throw him out, too.
    "Nope," he said. "Can't wash those. Need 'em ripe, like I've been hiding. Live among rats, you gotta smell like one. Bad guys don't like clean. Smells like cop to them."
    I shuddered. Four ibuprofens and two cocktails—he must be high to consider ever wearing these clothes again. "They smell like a campfire. Cops don't torch buildings. Not even undercover cops. At least not on TV." I smirked, assuming he'd throw another 'nope' my way.
    To my surprise he just stared at me, long and quiet, his eyes a well of information he'd never share. Finally, he spoke. "How safe you wanna be? Know more, risk more."
    I swallowed the knot plugging my throat. The old journalist Jules wanted to consume every gruesome detail. But the new landscape photographer Jules clung to her peaceful life with Max, a life without corpses or cops, without men snooping through her life or home. Or investigating her history. That version of me had risked enough for one day.
    The timbre of Sam's voice halted my feet when I turned for the door. "I didn't kill him, Jules. That's what you really needed to know."
    ***
    The last of the pink suds circled the drain, the last of the blood washed from Max's paws. At 60 pounds, my mutt just fit my double-wide kitchen sink for a bath under the hand sprayer. I lifted out his wiggling body and gave him the same rough-dry with a towel as I'd given Sam before sending him scampering across the linoleum. He stopped and shook violently, spraying me with water, which made me laugh out loud. Max always found a way to make me smile. A hailstorm of bullets could hit, but one head tilt from Max with those crooked ears and my heart was full of rainbows again.
    Unfortunately, the sweaty, smoky stench of Sam's escapades still stuck to my skin, while the police station cocktail of human degradation—the tramps and street thugs and muggers and homeless drunks—cleaved to my coveralls and hair. Then there was the blood. Under caked mud that made my skin feel tight, a dead man clung to my skin. Tony's twisted arm reaching out for me was yet another image among hundreds of corpses I fought daily to stop replaying in my