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“Cause you kinda look like one of Freddy’s victims, you know, the one who tries to run away but can’t make it over the fence in time, ends up getting clawed to death.”

“C’mon, man! Get me offa this damn fence! I’m dyin’ here!”

“I don’t think you want me to do that.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“Because if I do it wrong, you might bleed out. You’d be better off waiting for the paramedics.” He tugged on Dwayne’s ankle and Dwayne screamed. “See what I mean? The slightest wrong movement and who knows what that would do to you.”

Dwayne groaned. “Oh, man! My leg is killin’ me! How soon the paramedics gonna be here?”

“Well, I gotta call them first.”

Dwayne’s eyes popped. “Then, call ’em! What the fuck you waitin’ for?”

“I thought we might have a little chat first.”

“’Bout what?”

“About where you’ve been since, say, I don’t know, around six o’clock last night. And when was the last time you saw Kyrie Chapman or Jameer Henderson.”

Dwayne grimaced, crunching his eyes tight, his breath coming hard. “I ain’t tellin’ you nuthin’, muthafucker, till you get me offa this goddamn fence!”

Rossi shook his head. “And here I thought you and I were tight. You disappoint me, Dwayne.”

“Get the fuck away from my boy or I’m gonna blow your mutherfuckin’ head off!” Odyessy yelled.

She was standing on the back stoop aiming a gun at Rossi, shaking so badly she had to hold the gun with both hands. She was a good thirty feet away, far enough that there was little chance she could hit him. But the odds changed when she stepped off the stoop and walked toward him until the barrel of the gun was a foot from his chest.

“I tol’ you to get the fuck away from my boy.”

“Shoot him, Mama!” Dwayne yelled. “Shoot him ’fore I bleed to death!”

“You don’t want him to die,” Rossi said. “Let me use my belt as a tourniquet and stop his leg from bleeding. Then you can shoot me.”

Odyessy glanced back and forth from her son to Rossi, her mind struggling with the calculus, finally nodding.

“Go on, then.”

Rossi loosened his belt, slipped it out of his pants, not taking his eyes off Odyessy. He held the belt up for her to see.

“Okay?” he asked her.

“I said go on, didn’t I?”

Rossi turned his back to Odyessy, threaded the end of the belt through the buckle, and yanked on Dwayne’s pant leg. Dwayne screamed again and Odyessy cried out.

“Oh, my baby!”

Rossi spun around, swinging the belt buckle, catching Odyessy in the cheek as he grabbed the gun from her hand. She crumpled to the ground and he cuffed her.

“Hey!” Dwayne yelled. “Put that damn tourniquet on me ’fore I die!”

“You told your mother to shoot me and now you want me to save your life?”

“Hey, man. I wasn’t serious. You know that. No way my mama gonna shoot you. It’s the pain, man. Makin’ me fuckin’ crazy. Come on, man! You can’t let me die!”

Rossi looped his belt around Dwayne’s wounded thigh, cinching it tight, the blood flow slowing to a trickle.

“You’re not going to die. Not today, but I’m not making any promises about tomorrow.”

He opened his phone and called for an ambulance, a squad car, a CSI team, and a search warrant. Closing his phone, he gave Dwayne another pat on the rump.

“Hang tight,” he said.

Chapter Twelve

Lena Kirk led the CSI team. Willowy and dark haired, with cafe au lait skin, she had a beauty that crime scene gore couldn’t dull and Rossi couldn’t forget. She was intense, thorough, and immune to his perpetual efforts to elevate their relationship from dead bodies to each other’s bodies, something she explained to him after their last case when he asked her for the tenth time if she wanted to grab some dinner.

“The problem,” she said, “is that I get two vibes from you-do and don’t.”

“What’s the do?” he asked.

“Like I have to tell you.”

“Okay, what’s the don’t?”

“There are three things I want to know about a man right up front,” she said, ticking them off her fingers. “How’s your hygiene, what’s your credit score, and are you crazy.”

“I shower every day and my credit score is over eight hundred.”

“You left out crazy, and you’ve got a little too much of that for me,” Lena said.

“How can you say that?”

She cocked her head to one side, raising an eyebrow. “You’re forgetting that I’ve worked a lot of your crime scenes, including the ones when you were the shooter.”

“C’mon,” he teased. “A little crazy can be a good thing. We could be a good thing.”

She shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t do crazy.”

And that was the last time he hit on her until she was called out to Odyessy Shelburne’s house. Kneeling in front of the fireplace, she probed the smoldering ashes with a long-handled grabber, plucking out bits of fabric, tamping down any threads still burning before dropping them into a metal container.

“Tell me what I’m looking for,” she said to Rossi, who was watching over her shoulder.

“Clothes that Dwayne Reed was wearing.”

“Isn’t he the guy who walked on the Wilfred Donaire murder?”

“That’s him.”

“You still working that case?”

“It’s still open, if that’s what you mean. I haven’t found anyone I like for it better than Dwayne.”

“Why are you interested in his clothes?”

“Because I’m hoping you’ll find blood from one of the five people he killed last night.”

“That family over on Garfield? I was hoping to get called out on that one. Got stuck with this instead.”

“Yeah, Jameer Henderson, his wife, and two kids.”

“That’s four. Who’s the fifth?”

“Drug dealer named Kyrie Chapman who was shot to death last night. Don’t know yet if he was before or after the family.”

“Reed the guy who caught his leg on the fence?

“That’s him.”

“And you think he’s the killer?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Did he confess?”

“Not yet.”

“You can prove he did it?”

Rossi knelt next to her. “Not yet, but if you find what’s left of his clothes in the fireplace and there’s DNA from any of the victims on it, that would make my day. How about it?”

Lena put a final piece of fabric in the can and turned toward him, their faces inches apart, Rossi giving her his I-know-you-want-me eyes.

“You feel that heat?” he said. “Is that you or the fire?”

She winced. “It isn’t you. That’s for sure,” she said as they both stood. “Here’s the deal. I won’t find anything in the ashes, but it’s possible I might find something on these fabric remnants if they didn’t burn too much. The more ashes that were piled on top of them, the better the chances.”

“Why?”

“Because the ashes insulate the fabric from the heat. I won’t know for certain until I run some tests.”

“How long will that take?”

She shrugged. “We’re pretty backed up. Couple of weeks.”

“I’ve got five victims. Make it faster.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He gave her a broad smile. “That’s my girl!”

“I’ll do it for them, not for you, and I’m not your girl.”

“Yet.”

“Ever.”

“No chance?”

“You don’t give up, do you, Detective?”

“Part of my charm.”

“More like the beginning and end of your charm.”

They stood like that for a moment, neither one talking, until Tommy Bradshaw strode into the room, interrupting their standoff.

“What do you have for me?” he asked.

Rossi pointed to the can Lena was holding. “If Dwayne did the Hendersons, his clothes had to have gotten bloody. He may have burned them in the fireplace. Lena found some fabric in the ashes.”

“I’ll check it for DNA from the victims,” Lena added.

“And check for Dwayne’s DNA. We still have to prove the fabric came from his clothes. Coordinate with the CSI teams from the Henderson and Chapman crime scenes,” Bradshaw said. “Let’s find out if they’re connected.”