Contact. Evelyn Vaughn

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      “This is Krystal Tanner,” she reported. “I found her like this at about ten-fifteen. Someone was climbing out through the ceiling. I went after him, but he had a pretty good head start, and— What?”

      Chopin had shaken his head, his tired eyes widening.

      “You went after him?” he demanded.

      “Yes.”

      He looked her up and down. She sensed the way he saw her as surely as she could read his perusal of the scene. She was a blond-haired, ponytailed coed with full lips, unusual green-gold eyes and tanned arms and legs, bared by the miniskirt and crop top. The outfit had seemed a better choice before her crawl through the filthy roof space.

      “Alone?”

      Her chin came up under the challenge of his gaze. “Yeah.”

      Chopin leaned closer, faux conspiratorial. “And why would you do an idiotic thing like that?”

      Well, duh. “Because the alternative would have been not to go after him?”

      He grinned as he straightened, fishing a notebook out of his shirt pocket. “Krystal Tanner,” he muttered, making a note. “Ten-fifteen. You’re not on the force, so how is it I know you?”

      She was surprised he’d remember her, even vaguely. Then again, powers of observation went back to his cop-ness. “I’m an assistant evidence technician for the city. Faith Corbett.”

      She fisted her right hand, hoping he wouldn’t want to shake. The man was intense enough without risking direct contact.

      “Yeah, that’s it.” He nodded and, to her relief, kept his own hand busy taking notes. “You’re one of Boulanger’s day shift, working the desk, right? Sometimes you make pickups and drop-offs at the station. So Corbett, how is it you know the deceased?”

      Poor Krystal. One minute she’d been dancing, drinking, celebrating life. Then she’d headed for the ladies’ room and… God. The deceased.

      “She’s my roommate.”

      Chopin stopped writing and angled his wide gaze back to her, brows furrowed. “Oh. I’m…uh…”

      Why was it some men had trouble expressing even the most conventional courtesy, lest it betray some emotion? Faith saved him the effort. “Thanks.”

      “So, Bernie, you went charging after this killer and…?”

      Had he just called her Bernie? Unwilling to be distracted, Faith repeated the story as quickly as she could without looking too suspicious, increasingly aware of him studying her as he listened and took notes. She felt as if he could see every hair on her arms, every piece of grit embedded in her tummy, every scrape on her knees. It wasn’t sexual—there was a corpse at their feet, after all. Well…not any more sexual than any man staring at a woman’s bare tummy, anyway. But such intense scrutiny made her uncomfortable.

      Like he could maybe see just how weird she was.

      “You didn’t get a good look at him?” Chopin demanded, when she finished. At least he hadn’t interrupted her.

      “Just the bottom of his feet.”

      “And you didn’t ask anybody if they saw him leave the storeroom?” His mouth had gone back to threatening. His questions were starting to feel like little shoves of energy.

      “No, everyone was distracted by finding Krystal.”

      “And how was your relationship with the vic?”

      Faith’s mouth fell open. “Why are you questioning me as if…oh.” But she knew the answer to that, too. “The first person on the scene’s always the first suspect, right?”

      “Yeah.” Chopin didn’t even bother to apologize for his suspicions. But he did include her in another mocking grin. “Nothing personal, hon. It’s one of those hard truths, like ‘everybody lies.’ Statistics would put the odds on either you or her boyfriend-slash-husband.”

      “She didn’t have a boyfriend or a husband.”

      “Could I see your hands, please?” Shove.

      Faith spread her bare palms for him. Only when she felt his interest spike—a minute change of his temperature, a sharp inhale through his teeth—did she notice the pink lines where she’d pulled herself up through the ceiling, the bleeding cut from that exposed nail. “Oh…” she whispered.

      For a moment she felt dizzy with the very real possibility that she might be charged with this crime. So much for keeping a low profile!

      “Don’t sweat it. If you’d done the deed, you’d have lines on the sides of your hands, too. Here—” to her relief, he indicated where he meant with his pen, not his finger “—and here. Besides, she’s fashion-model tall—pushing six feet? I’m no M.E., but I’m betting the ligature marks on her neck would be a lot lower if you did her. Unless you somehow made her kneel first, which, how could you without imminent threat, and I don’t see anyplace you could’ve hidden a gun. Or much of a knife. Nice shirt, there.”

      “You’re smarter than you look,” said Faith, fully aware it was her own way of shoving back.

      “’Cause of my fashion sense, or ’cause I’m not hauling you down to the station yet?” Detective Chopin looked less exhausted as he eyed her. “Usually I’m the brawn of the outfit. Right, Butch?”

      Strike three.

      “Now, Roy,” demanded Chopin’s partner from the doorway. Here stood the sweet, trustworthy man whose arrival Faith had feared even beyond the slap-in-the-face energy of the younger Roy. “What are you doing harassing this here helpful citizen? Sugar over vinegar, son. Sugar over vinegar. How do you do, Miss? I am Detective Sergeant Butch Jefferson. I am most terribly sorry to have to meet you under such clearly distressing circumstances, and I apologize for my partner’s appalling lack of manners.”

      “He’s the Good Cop,” muttered Chopin amiably, still taking notes. Which made him what?

      Butch, who had more than twenty years on his thirty-ish partner, extended both a genuine smile, which made his dark eyes crinkle at the corners, and his worn brown hand. There was no way Faith could refuse to take the latter. Not without rousing suspicion and requiring more conversation, which—around Butch Jefferson, anyway—she wanted even less than touching.

      With a determined smile, she allowed Butch to envelop her hand in his.

      It wasn’t anywhere near as unsettling as touching his partner would have been. Butch’s personal energy was slow and easy, like the Mississippi in the summertime. The flashes of possible information that accompanied his touch—widowed, volunteered with Big Brothers, loved beer and boiled crawfish—he released it all so freely, it didn’t carry the unsettling jolt of so many other people.

      “Faith Corbett,” she said—the first time she’d ever given this particular cop her real name. Please don’t recognize me.

      “From evidence,” added Bad Cop, who proceeded to take over most of the talking.

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