Silenced by Allison Brennan

many people. I’ll be there when I get there. Shit, Greg, didn’t you—” The radio cut off.
    Though the body had been removed, flies buzzed in and out of the doorway, attracted to the smell of dried blood and the lingering scent of decomposing flesh. At noon, the temperature topped ninety-nine degrees with humidity to match, just like yesterday’s crime scene. It was on days like this that Lucy missed her hometown of San Diego.
    Lucy and Noah stepped away from the door to let two CSU technicians exit with large evidence bags already sealed and labeled, though Lucy couldn’t make out the wording.
    “We shouldn’t even be here.” Noah stood straight, hands behind his back, legs slightly apart, looking more like former military than she’d seen him. He watched everything through narrowed eyes, his irritation increasing with the temperature.
    When the call came in from DC asking for an assist, Slater assigned Noah. They’d been behind closed doors for ten minutes before Noah walked out, the apparent loser in the argument. He’d hardly spoken on the drive over.
    “I thought Josh was fine about you taking the Wendy James murder.”
    “We’re still on it. We’re here, ” he jerked his head toward room 119, “because of budget cuts and lack of manpower, both for DC and us. There was no one else Slater could send this morning, unless he called in one of the resident agencies.”
    All they’d been told was the homicide had special circumstances. A serial murderer, maybe, or perhaps the victim was a federal official, or there was another federal crime component to the case.
    Noah continued, “I wanted to be at Stein’s meeting with the U.S. attorney this morning. He wouldn’t postpone it.”
    “It’s his way of reminding you he’s in charge.”
    A dozen cops filled the parking lot, keeping nosy bystanders behind the crime scene tape. Human curiosity to stop and observe death, pain, and suffering had always saddened and angered Lucy. Did any of them care enough to help someone in trouble? Or was their compassion limited to being horrified only after tragedy?
    The creepy sensation of being watched made Lucy shiver, even in this heat. Second-floor guests peered over the railing above her, many shirtless, some smoking, all watching the investigation with unveiled animosity. Watching her. One young punk made a crude gesture when she accidentally caught his eye. She averted her eyes, cheeks flaming, embarrassed and disgusted.
    “This crime scene is a mess,” Noah muttered.
    A sharp, feminine voice snapped, “Sorry to be such an incompetent local.”
    They turned to face the lead detective who’d been on the other end of Taback’s radio. Detective Reid had dark skin with equally dark hair cut close to the scalp. Only the wrinkles around her eyes suggested she was closer to fifty than forty.
    She jerked off blue latex gloves and dumped them in a plastic bag, which she handed to another cop. Lucy noticed a long, jagged scar that started midway up her left tricep and disappeared under her sweat-dampened short-sleeved white blouse. Lucy wondered at the circumstances of the nasty injury. Had she gotten it on the job?
    “Detective Genie Reid, senior detective. And you’re the feds.”
    “Special Agent Noah Armstrong, analyst Lucy Kincaid. And the crime scene is a mess.”
    “Don’t I know fucking know it. Shit!” She pulled out a coin purse from her pocket. “Whenever I get a case like this, I owe my grandson big.”
    She took two quarters from one side of the coin purse and put them on the other, bulkier, side.
    “Your grandson?” Lucy asked, curious.
    “I promised Isaiah—he’s nine—that I’d stop swearing. On the honor system, I give him a quarter every time I say anything worse than ‘damn.’” She looked down at her coin purse. “I started with five dollars in quarters today. He’s already earned three-seventy-five and it’s not even noon.”
    Lucy grinned. “You’ll be paying his way through