“Now if that’s all, I’d like to get back to what I was doing,” Halo drawled.

“Getting a human woman plastered so she’ll sleep with you?”

Halo snorted. “I don’t have to get her drunk. She’d sleep with me regardless. And anyway, sleeping isn’t going to come into the picture until much later.”

“You need better taste in women,” Rafe said, looking over at the staggering blonde who was presently leaning up against another man. She was taking swigs straight from the tequila bottle now, limes and salt clearly unnecessary.

“Better women have the sense to stay away from me,” Halo said with a shrug. “I’m happy with mediocre women. It gets me what I need.”

“Be careful, Halo,” Rafe warned.

“Are you my mother? I can take care of myself.” Halo got to his feet. “Later, Mom.”

He walked over to his blonde, leaving Rafe behind. Rafe watched as the blonde drunkenly threw herself into Halo’s arms. Halo snatched the bottle from her hand and poured some of the tequila straight down his gullet.

Rafe took the dismissal for what it was and got to his feet. He was fine with that. The sooner he got out of that piss-smelling bar the happier he would be. He didn’t know how Halo could stand it.

He turned and exited the bar, breathing deep of the fresh, cold night air the minute he was out on the sidewalk.

Chapter 1

“Hey, Holden! We caught one!”

Renee Holden jerked her head up at the sound of her partner’s voice shouting out across the bull pen. She stood up and clipped her cellphone to her belt on the side opposite her badge. As was her habit, she withdrew her sidearm and checked the safety and the slide. Then she tucked it securely away in the holster clipped to her belt, behind her badge on the right side.

“Where?” she asked her partner, James Franconi, as he came to his desk and grabbed his jacket.

“Park Avenue if you can believe it. Probably some rich guy’s wife bumping off her old man for the insurance.”

“What have I told you about walking into an investigation with preconceived notions in your head? Your prejudices blind you.”

“Hey. I’m not prejudiced. I’m just seasoned. I know what’s what out there. C’mon, Nee, you know it too. We see the same kinds of people doing the same kinds of crimes over and over again.”

“That may be, but I’m not jumping to any conclusions before I even get to the crime scene and neither should you. We’re detectives. So let’s go detect.”

“Aye, aye, sir!” Jimmy said, giving her a smart salute. The salute was sharp and clean, echoing the fact that James had been a commando in the years before becoming a police officer. Now, he still wore his hair cropped to military shortness and kept his body fit and sculpted. It made for a healthy and reasonably disciplined partner. Of course, he still had his flaws. One of which they’d just been discussing.

“Wiseass,” Renee said, scooping her coat off the back of her chair. She shrugged into it, but didn’t button it up in spite of the cold she knew was out there. She didn’t like not having free access to her weapon. She would rather shiver a little than cover up her gun.

She did put on gloves and a thick scarf though, trying to compensate for the gap down the center part of her coat.

“Is the dead guy inside or outside?” she asked Jimmy.

“Dunno. Guess we’ll find out when we get there.”

“Guess so. I’m driving.”

“Oh c’mon! I want to get there reasonably alive!”

“You’ll get there alive, I promise.”

“Yeah, but you’ll James Bond me.”

“James Bond?”

“Shaken, not stirred.”

Renee laughed. “I’ll drive safe.”

“Sure you will.”

She got them to the crime scene in one piece, ignoring Jimmy’s grumbles about how he’d be safer in the back of a taxi driven by a half-blind cabbie. They got out of the car and saw the scene was outside and taped off to keep the looky-loos out of the way. Renee and Jimmy got past the yellow tape and walked around to the alley between the buildings where the body of a man lay half-slumped against the brick wall of the building on the right-hand side of the alley. The man was in his mid-forties by the look of him and was wearing an expensive cashmere coat. So far Jimmy was half right. He was a rich man.

She took off her winter gloves, trading them for latex ones. She squatted down in front of the body, getting eye to eye with him. His eyes were open, as was his mouth. It was as if his face had been frozen into a look of horror. Renee considered herself to be immune to most of the horrors of her job, but the expression gave her a chill. She shrugged it off in order to focus on the scene.

“Not a robbery,” she said, picking up the man’s hand gingerly and taking note of the gold and diamond rings on his two last fingers. He also wore an expensive watch on his wrist.

“Wallet’s still here,” Jimmy said, pulling it out of the man’s pocket. “Arnie Cooper. Lives in this building right here.”

“Feet away from the safety of home,” Renee said. “I don’t see any obvious wounds, no strangulation bruises.”

“How do we know he didn’t just die of a heart attack?” Jimmy asked.

“We don’t. But looking at the expression on his face…I’m going to wait and see what the coroner has to say. My gut tells me this is a homicide. Let’s comb the area for evidence.” She looked up and around. “Pull the video on nearby street cameras. I want to know why Mr. Cooper came into this alley instead of heading right into his building. Maybe someone lured him out here. I’m not ruling anything out until I see what video we have and what the coroner has to say. Jimmy, you and I will start questioning witnesses.”

“Start with who found him,” one of the beat cops said as he nodded to a woman with a toy poodle on a leash. She was standing next to another cop who was engaging her in conversation. She wore a very expensive pair of shoes and the diamonds on her fingers glittered in the morning sunlight as she moved her hands in dramatic gestures.

“I’ll talk to her,” Renee said. “You canvass the rest of the gawkers. Make sure the CSU guys get pictures of the crowd. Our perp may be watching.”