“So, Eve. Now that you’re over at the 5th, you get to meet the author.” Her father said it with not a little sarcasm in his voice, and she knew exactly to whom he was referring.
Rembrandt Stone.
Famed Inspector, not only for being one of the youngest in the force, but he’d published a tell-all about his rookie year and somehow it landed on the best-seller list.
“I have a copy of The Last Year on my desk,” she said. “It’s actually good.”
“Oh, please don’t tell me you’re a fan.”
She lifted a shoulder, then glanced at Samson, who smirked, onto her game.
“Maybe I’ll ask him for an autograph.”
“Are you kidding me? The guy keeps a diary of his first year of training, tells a few precinct secrets and you’re a fan?” He met her eyes. “There’s more to Rembrandt than we know. You can’t trust him—he plays by his own rules.”
She took a sip of coffee. “He’s cute, too.”
Samson choked, coughing and put a napkin to his mouth.
Her father folded his arms over his chest. “When have you ever met Stone?”
“He played in the precinct-against-precinct softball game last summer.”
And while she liked seeing her father riled, yes, Rembrandt had stood out. How could he not, with his sleeves ripped off his T-shirt, his red baseball hat shading his dark eyes. He played shortstop with the fury of a Twins starter, batted two home runs and generally took the game as seriously as a heart-attack, leading the homicide department to a ten-three win.
She’d watched from the stands, her Crime Lab team having lost the previous game to the 3rd Precinct. But it gave her the time to analyze the guy, to decide if she believed the word on the street.
That, despite his memoir, he was an enigma, a mystery. A tough nut to crack. He dated a few women, no one long term and he was a bit of a charmer. But he hung mostly with his partner, a handsome Black American man named Andrew. Both men spent time working out, too, and she could appreciate that, even from a distance.
Quite the duo, Andrew Burke and Rembrandt Stone.
They’d cracked a few beers after the game, sitting on a picnic table, greeting their fans, but Eve hadn’t ventured too close.
Because she agreed with her father. Despite his memoir, she saw a recklessness behind Detective Stone’s eyes, and the last thing she needed was to get wrapped up in something that could derail her career.
Besides, she didn’t like troublemakers. Or the games men and women played. If a man couldn’t drop the pretense, then she didn’t have time or inclination to try and figure him out.
That was the problem with growing up with brothers. She was a straight-shooter, in life and in romance.
But she did like to mess with her dad.
“I watched him hit the ball, and run the bases, and…oh yeah, he’s fine.”
She couldn’t help but smile as her father stared at her with a sort of horror.
“Okay, Eve, leave him alone.” This from her mother, who was also smiling.
Eve lifted a shoulder. “Don’t worry, Dad. I’m probably not even going to meet Inspector Stone. Unless we work a case together, and if so, it’ll be all business.”
He exhaled a visible huff of relief. “Just…don’t get too close. Inspector Stone has a dark side, okay?”
She let his words bounce off her. “Speaking of my new job, I gotta run, Mom.” Eve scooted her chair back and stood up. “Sam—go with the blue. But I want my water on, and no more Chuck at 6 a.m., got it?”
Samson nodded, reaching for the bacon. “You’re the boss.”
She grabbed a piece of bacon from the plate before Samson, then headed to the door. Climbed into her Ford Escort, a zippy, paid-for, ride. Overhead, the sky arched blue and bright, the sun early and spilling across the lake, turning it golden.
She wound her way out of the neighborhoods and toward the city. Turned on the radio. KDWB, and she sang along to Elton John’s Something About the Way You Look Tonight.
She tapped her hand on the steering wheel and nearly didn’t hear her phone buzz on the seat next to her.
She reached over for her Nokia and pressed it on. “Yeah?”
“It’s me, and you need to get down to Franklin Avenue, right now.”
Silas.
“Why? Did you find a dead body? Don’t get started without me.”
“There’s maybe five bodies, Eve. A coffee shop blew up. We need you. It’s a mess.”
Shoot—and that’s what she got for being irreverent of the dead. “I’m on my way.”
She was hanging up when she saw smoke pluming across the downtown skyline. She dropped the phone onto the seat and got off 394 at Dunwoody, over to Lyndale, then south to Franklin.
Firetrucks jammed the streets, the air thick with spray, the odor of smoke, rubber and metal melting under the heat of the flames. She parked at a shopping center a block away, reached for her ID, hung it over her neck, grabbed her new Canon EOS-3, and got out, quick walking through the crowd.
Her heart dropped as she got closer. Where had stood a Daily Grind, one of the many coffee shops popping up around Minneapolis, now remained only a burned shell, the windows blown out into the street, the trees in the sidewalk ripped to shreds, bicycles and cars scorched, mangled.
And bodies. She counted five with body sheets draped over them, strewn in the street, not all of them intact. EMTs attended to a few victims, and an ambulance closed their doors, the sirens giving a burp before it started through the crowd. Three firetrucks sprayed their hoses on the now doused, charred skeleton of the building, but it would be an hour or more before they could get inside to assess the damage.
For now, they had to get the people back, keep anyone from touching the casualties in the street, cordon off the area to protect the evidence, and secure the site.
She found Silas standing
