Unmanned Read Free Page B

RIVERA’S TONE was dark and hard-edged. My own sounded kind of squiggly.
    “He’s dead, isn’t he?” I was standing in the middle of my kitchen, dazed and queasy and not entirely certain how I had gotten there. Rivera had arrived before I’d reached the body, had pulled me to my feet. A few minutes later, a cruiser had squealed to a halt next to my garage, lights wheeling crazily.
    “Yes,” he said.
    My hands were shaking, my legs noodley, but I turned toward the door, wondering if I could manage the knob.
    “Sit down,” he repeated, but I had to see for myself, to do what I could, to try to make sense of a world gone mad…again. The floor felt uneven beneath my feet.
    “Sit down!” he ordered, and, yanking a chair from nowhere, pushed me into it. The room tilted. I teetered with it. “Put your head between your legs.”
    “I’m fine.” I can usually lie with more panache, but guys don’t generally drop dead in my front yard. Though it’s happened in my office. My stomach crunched at the memory.
    From outside, I heard the static of a two-way radio. Words followed, but I couldn’t make them out—just the tone, solemn and succinct and matter-of-fact.
    Rivera kept his hand on my shoulder, holding me down or holding me up. Hard to say for sure.
    “What’s his name?” he asked, but I was lost in my own morass of self-pity and disorientation.
    “He never hurt anyone,” I said, and felt a warm droplet drift down my cheek.
    “How well did you know him?”
    I blinked, glanced up at him, smearing away the tear with the back of my hand. “Harlequin?”
    His scowl sharpened for an instant. A tic danced in his dark-stubbled jaw. “Jesus.” The scar beside his mouth twitched. “I’m talking about the dead g—the deceased.”
    I blanched, remembering Will Swanson’s eyes, wide and sightless above a growing pool of blood. It had been surprisingly dark, black almost, forming a paisley shape before being soaked into my starved lawn like milk on dry toast. My stomach heaved.
    “Head between your legs,” Rivera ordered again, and this time I complied, scrunching my fingers in my skirt and breathing deep. “Christ!” He sounded impatient and angry. Shuffled his feet. His shoes were brown leather, scuffed at the toes, just visible beneath his blue jeans, and somehow the sight of them started my tears up in earnest. Harlequin had loved shoes.
    I drew in a shaky breath, let my tears drip onto the floor, cleared my throat, and straightened carefully. “Where is he?”
    Rivera was silent for a moment as if trying to follow my line of thought, then, “Stay here,” he said, and turned away.
    “I want to come—” I said, and tried to rise, but he turned back toward me.
    “Stay!” he said, and jabbed a finger at me with more venom than he’d ever used on Harley. “Or I swear to God I’ll let them haul you downtown.”
    “He was
my
dog,” I said. Maybe I was trying for defiance, but my voice warbled and my chin felt strangely disconnected.
    He swore again, but softer this time. “Please…” The word sounded funny coming from him. Like he’d never said it before and was trying to figure out how to formulate the sounds. “…just stay put for once in your goddamn life.”
    I considered arguing, but there was something funky going on in his eyes. It almost looked like worry, so I kept silent, trying to work that out. And apparently he took that as agreement, because he was gone in a moment.
    Near the cupboards, Harlequin’s dishes sat on a plastic mat. Three nuggets of food were scattered across it. I felt my eyes well over again. My throat felt tight. It was stupid. I knew it was. A man was dead, and all I could think about was that lop-eared—
    The door opened. Rivera stepped inside, face chiseled into a frown, brows low over deadly dark eyes. I hiccuped between my chattering teeth, and then he thrust the door open and Harlequin stood on the threshold, eyelids drooping, skinny tail clamped between