“You’re the workaholic, not me.” Dane just looked at her.
Ryan let the comment roll off her shoulders. Yes, she did work closer to sixty or eighty hours a week than she should, but that was just how detective work went sometimes. Besides, it kept her from stopping by Liv’s coffee shop. Her ex-girlfriend, who was back in town after a decade.
Even the thought of her name made Ryan’s stomach flip.
They headed for Ryan’s cruiser, and she got in the driver’s seat. Dane was next to her, but he seemed distracted. She buckled herself in, turning the car on and pulling out of the lot. After almost thirty years in Amaranth, she knew where everyone lived.
Dane had entered the force before her, and while he was technically her supervisor, they worked well together and had an easy camaraderie. He allowed her to handle her cases by herself, and she provided support on his when he needed them. They were the only two detectives on the Amaranth force, so they often worked cases on their own when needed. “What do we know about the case?” Ryan prompted.
“What? Oh.” Dane shook his head at himself. He wasn’t that old, mid- thirties, with one kid and another on the way. His wife, Ruby, was a sweet woman who worked at the local school. Ryan was fond of both of them. You knew everyone, in towns as small as Amaranth.
“Civilian saw the deceased hanging from a rope, called police. The witness is on site to talk to us when we get there, in case there’s anything the patrol officer didn’t ask.”
“Good.” Ryan was relieved. “Do we know who it is?”
Dane paused. “Nope.”
Ryan side-eyed him, but let it go. He had been acting strange, but it wasn’t exactly illegal. “You okay?”
Dane let out a yawn and rubbed his face. Suddenly he looked exhausted. “Ruby isn’t sleeping well. She’s six months along now.”
“Ah.” An unhappy pregnant wife would certainly explain the change. She nodded in sympathy, although her attention was on the road. “How’s Bella?” Their three-year-old kept them almost as busy.
“Good,” Dane said with a nod.
Ryan let the topic drop. The silence between them was comfortable, after all. Ryan had been with the Amaranth police department since she had started in the force. She had never left town, was born and bred there. Not that she had ever properly settled down. She lived in the small house she had grown up in by herself. Not even a pet. With her schedule, she never knew if she could get home in time to look after them. It’d been that way since she’d lost Liv.
She promptly shoved Liv out of her mind. Nope. She totally didn’t think of her often. Denial was a river in Egypt, and all that.
The case. She dragged her mind back to the present as she parked the cruiser just outside of the bright yellow tape that screamed ‘police’. Patrol officers already buzzed around the scene, and she could see one of them guarding the door to the house. There were a few onlookers, one of them equipped with a news van.
That was surprising. Amaranth rarely made the news. “Is there something unusual about the case?” Ryan asked, her voice quiet.
“Apparently.” Dane’s eyes were taking in the watchers, but Ryan distracted herself by slipping underneath the police tape and walking towards the closest patrol officer.
“Detective Olsen,” Ryan said, showing him her badge.
The patrol officer, a young man named Mike, seemed caught off guard, his eyes a bit too wide.
Ryan looked at him expectantly.
“Um, a lady called and reported seeing someone hanging in the living room.” He checked his notes. “We entered, found someone hanging. Paramedics declared the woman dead on arrival, so we roped off the scene and one of the officers called you in.”
That still didn’t necessarily explain what the news crew was doing there, but Ryan could figure that out later.
“Come on,” Dane said as he headed to the door. Ryan followed. First the crime scene, then talking to witnesses.
Ryan followed him inside the door and then stopped, as if shock had rooted her to the spot.
Dane stood next to her, his eyes wide.
The woman was hanging from a door via a rope tied around her neck. It must have been tied to something inside the room behind the door, for her feet were dangling less than a foot above the ground.
Ryan swallowed thickly. The image would be burned in her mind for a long time.
“Once the paramedics pronounced her DOA, they left her the way she was.” Dane’s voice was soft. He pointed to her limbs. “Rigor mortis is almost complete.”
“So, she’s been dead quite some time, then.” Ryan frowned. Rigor mortis didn’t normally start setting in until four to eight hours after death, and didn’t usually take the whole body until around thirteen or fourteen hours after death.
They stood there for a few moments, Ryan only hearing the clicking of the photographer and the noise of the other forensic analysts as they worked around them. Then she finally caught sight of it. “What?”
“That’s the other thing,” Dane said ruefully. He gestured to the entire room.
Ryan had been so focused on the body that she had missed the obvious. There was a deck of cards, possibly more than one, strewn around the room, as if someone had thrown the deck up in the air and decided to see where it fell. “What the…?”
“I have no idea.” Dane shook his head. “Techs are photographing it all.”
There was a knock on the door, drawing Ryan’s attention. It was Elliot, their medical examiner, or ME. A tall, dark-haired woman, she was no-nonsense as she strode into the house. Despite the fact she looked all terrifying, she was actually pretty nice.
Mostly. As long as you didn’t mess with her crime scenes, or her bodies.
“All yours,” Dane said. Ryan nodded in agreement. There were still sketches to take and measurements, but the photos seemed to be done.
Elliot nodded and turned to her work without saying anything
