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I tightened my arm around him and held on until both of us fell asleep.

25

Taavi let me sleep in,which meant I got woken up by Smith’s call a little after nine.

“Hart,” I grumbled.

“Sounds like you had about as good a night as I did,” came the gravelly response, although, to be honest, he always sounded like that. But it was still nice to know that I wasn’t the only one losing sleep to the specter of Gregory Crane’s decomposing body.

“Yeah. Fuck. Sorry.”

“I just wanted to let you know that we’ve got an official ruling of homicide, and Reynolds is suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.”

The relief came then, and I was glad I was still in bed, because it hit with a wave of dizziness.

“Did you tell Elliot?”

“I left a voicemail because he didn’t answer his phone. Probably has his ringer off, if he wanted to sleep in. Not that I blame him.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Probably.” But even as I said it, something about that wasn’t sitting right.

“I’ll let you know if we need anything more as this unfolds.”

“Okay.” But now I was distracted, uncertain, and worried.

Smith hung up, and I was already calling Elliot’s phone as I sat up.

It rang twice, then straight to voicemail.

Elliotnevershut his phone off.

Yeah, he’d gone out in fur to dig around in the mud, but he didn’t shut his phoneoffwhen he did that. He left it on and plugged in.

I got up, grabbed jeans, socks, a t-shirt, and a sweatshirt, and was already halfway down the stairs when Taavi came around the corner. His bright expression immediately darkened when he saw my face.

“Val, what’s wrong?”

“Elliot’s not answering his phone.”

“So?”

“So, he was waiting for Smith to call him.”

“Maybe he did, and then Elliot shut his phone off or he went back outside.”

“No, because Smith just told me that he had to leave a voicemail. Elliotalwaysleaves his phone on unless he’s on a fucking plane.”

“Are we going over there?”

“Mom!” I yelled.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“Elliot’s not answering his phone. I’m gonna go check on him.”

“Did you eat something, Val?”

“I’ll eat there. Or when I get back.” My stomach made a gurgling noise that was half the result of not having eaten and half anxiety. “Or both.”