She stopped in the doorway, her gaze involuntarily drawn past the crime-scene technicians to the corner beside the bed. She caught a glimpse of his white leather sneakers, and the first wave of nausea churned in her stomach.
She must have gasped, because Sergeant Gunning turned to face her.
“Oh, damn. Claudia. What are you doing here?”
“I heard…on the radio…” Her sergeant’s exclamation alerted the others of her presence. They parted. And then Claudia saw him.
She took one unsteady step forward. Sergeant Gunning’s hand settled on her shoulder for a brief moment, as if intending to hold her back. But he didn’t.
“Frank.” His name didn’t echo only in her thoughts. Claudia heard her own voice, thin and wavering, fill the sudden silence. Her breath shortened, and her heart raced as she took in the scene.
Nothing, not ten years in uniform and another two in Homicide, could have prepared Claudia for seeing her own partner sprawled across the carpeted floor.
Even as she stood over his body, she expected him to move. It couldn’t be Frank’s lifeless body lying there, dressed in blue jeans and a T-shirt…the Baltimore Ravens T-shirt she’d bought him just last month. But it was. Claudia choked back a sob and struggled against another rush of queasiness. She tried to focus, process this like any other crime scene.
Detach. Put your emotions aside. Think like a detective, Frank would have advised her.
Claudia scanned the room. There was no indication of a struggle. The bed was made with Frank’s suit laid on it for work. His pager and cell phone were on the dresser, and his shoulder holster hung over the back of the chair next to it. Empty. The 9mm police-issue Glock was in Frank’s hand instead.
“No signs of forced entry,” Claudia heard Gunning say behind her. “The boys had to use the ram to get in when no one answered. Neighbors reported the gunfire. Claudia? You gonna be all right?”
Her knees threatened to buckle as a numbness crept over her. She lowered herself to kneel next to Frank.
“No one was seen entering or leaving the apartment,” Sergeant Gunning went on. “Couple people heard the shot less than an hour ago and called it in. We’re going to conduct a thorough canvass, but…it doesn’t look like…”
Sarge’s voice faded from her awareness. As did the rest of the room and the people around her. She couldn’t detach. It wasn’t possible. This wasn’t just another victim.
This was Frank. Her partner of two years, her best friend…
The edges of her vision blurred until there was only Frank. Her hands shook when she reached for him. Part of her knew she shouldn’t touch him, but no one in that room would dare to stop her.
The sob Claudia had fought so hard to contain escaped at last. His hand was still warm as though there was life. She caressed it, turning it over and sweeping her fingers across his broad palm, feeling its softness. Strong hands, yet lovingly gentle, she thought, remembering how they had felt on her body, how they’d touched her and held her in a way no other man ever had.
She lifted his hand to her face and pressed it against her cheek. There was the faint trace of aftershave—the same smell she’d woken to this morning, lingering on her sheets from the day before…before their argument.
I’m sorry, Frank. I’m sorry I didn’t listen. Sorry I didn’t believe you. I should have been here.
She squeezed his hand, half-expecting a response. His hair was mussed, and she had to force herself not to brush her fingers through it. It was getting long again, she thought. He needed a cut.
She was about to touch his face when someone grasped her shoulders.
“I’m sorry, Claudia. You can’t.”
She started to resist the person pulling her away, until she looked up. She recognized Lori Tobin from the crime lab.
“We’re not finished,” she told Claudia with an apologetic expression. “I’m really sorry.” Her whisper was sincere, and Claudia only vaguely noticed the woman’s sympathetic touch as she guided her to one side. For Claudia, there was only Frank.
She wanted to cry. No, she wanted to scream. She wanted to touch him, to hold him, to feel him with her once again—alive.
The fist around her chest clenched tighter, and Claudia swallowed hard against the bitterness that crept up her throat. She straightened her shoulders. She had to pull herself together. Frank would want that, she thought. He’d want her to be strong. To be professional, and to keep up appearances.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” she managed to say, fighting the tremble in her voice.
“There’s nothing to make us think otherwise,” Gunning argued. “The door was locked from the inside. There’s no sign of a struggle.”
“This is not what it looks like,” she repeated, trying to convince herself against what was so painfully obvious.
“We’ve got a single shot, with a contact wound to his right temple.” Gunning placed one broad hand on her shoulder, but it did nothing to calm her whirling emotions as suspicion prickled along her neck. “I’m sorry, Claudia. I know you don’t want to believe Frank could have done this. No one does.”
“He didn’t kill himself, Sarge.”
“Claudia—”
“I know Frank.”
“His own gun’s in his hand, Claudia. Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?” She stepped away from him. “Frank did not kill himself. There’s something not right here. Something…I don’t know what, but this just doesn’t feel right.”
She shook her head and then madly scanned the room once more. This wasn’t right. When her gaze found Frank’s body again, there was the hot sting of tears. She clenched her jaw to dam them.
“He wouldn’t do this. It’s not his way. I know him, Sarge. I know Frank.” Better than any of them did. Better than any of them even realized. He was more than just her partner. More than her best friend. Frank was her lover, the one person she cherished more than life. And now…
What am I supposed to do, Frank? Tell me what I’m supposed to do? This time, when Claudia tried to lower herself to Frank, needing to feel his warmth once more before it was gone from his body forever, Sergeant Gunning held her back. And this time, nothing could stop the tears.
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS HER LAST SHIFT of a week on midnights. Claudia glanced up from the file on her desk and out the windows of the sixth-floor Homicide offices. At five o’clock the city hall dome was taking on the first rosy reflections of the morning sun. Her optimism grew. The squad might just make it through the night without a call. One more hour and the next shift would be in to relieve them. Then she could go home to a long-awaited and well-deserved bath, and finally to bed.
Claudia stretched. She’d been up twenty hours straight, and every muscle was stiff with fatigue. From the main office around the corner where the rest of her squad had spent the night in front of the TV, she heard the early-morning news. Again she prayed for the phone not to ring.
If memory served her, she actually had the weekend off. And she planned to make it two glorious sleep-filled days. Turning back to her desk, Claudia confirmed her schedule on the wall calendar. Had she not looked, she probably wouldn’t have taken note of the day. October 16, the anniversary of their first kiss.
It hardly seemed an entire year ago. She