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CHAPTER FIVE

E ve Mulligan did not want to live in a war zone one more minute. The chaos of remodeling—the current casualty being the plumbing—just might drive her to murder.

Or at least bodily harm, directed at her younger brother.

“Sams! Turn the flippin’ water back on!”

Eve fumbled for the towel, her hand snaking outside the flimsy curtain of her claw-foot tub, suds running into her eyes. She found the towel, grabbed it and shoved it into her face, cleaning out the soap, then turned to fiddle with the faucets. Yes, full on, but not a drip of water from the overhead spigot. “Samson Mulligan, turn on my water !”

She nearly fell out of the tub, grabbed her robe and tied her hair up before flinging the door open. Sunlight streamed through the stained-glass transom, casting light down into the upstairs bedroom of her story-and-a-half bungalow. The sound of a saw rumbled up from the kitchen. The dust and the odor of plumber’s glue, not to mention freshly stained wood, could turn her woozy.

Her feet ground into the sawdust despite her recent sweep of the stairs, and she barreled down, one hand holding her towel and barged into the kitchen to find—oh no. Not her brother Samson bent over his workbench but an unknown plumber, crack and all, leaning over a piece of plastic piping.

A stranger.

In her house.

At 6-freaking-o’clock in the morning.

Her father would have a coronary. And right about now, he might agree with her decision to get a conceal and carry. After all, just because she worked CSI didn’t mean she wasn’t a cop .

The plumber stood up, eyes wide as he took her in—fluffy bathrobe, her hair dripping water down her neck. And not a hot plumber, either, although that might not have changed her indignation. This guy looked about fifty and nursed a beer paunch.

“What are you doing here?”

“Your brother sent me. Told me to get working on your kitchen plumbing…”

Nice. Now she would have to murder her brother. And she wouldn’t escape because they’d easily pin motive on her.

She turned, ignored the debris of her unfinished living room, and took the stairs two at a time. Twenty minutes later, she pulled into her parents’ driveway. Samson’s construction truck took up most of the space.

She took a breath. Tried to remember he was helping. Giving her a cut rate.

And inviting strange men into her home at ungodly hours.

Eve got out and headed toward the door, glancing at her watch. Not late yet, but she was cutting it close for her first day on the job in her new precinct. But a girl couldn’t let life bully her—especially if it came in the form of her kid brother-slash-kitchen remodeler.

However, one step inside would rope her into breakfast, including a bright-lights-third degree interrogation about the new job. And promises to attend the annual Fourth of July barbecue.

Maybe she didn’t—aw, she also had the tile issue…

The crunch of tires in the drive told her she’d hesitated too long for escape.

She turned and lifted her hand to her father, just climbing out of his truck. At least he hadn’t driven the cruiser home—not anymore. The fact that he’d parked his patrol car in their suburban driveway her entire high school career had pretty much terrified and run-off every male who’d shown even the slightest interest in her. Even now, she might have to move across the country to get a date without her father doing a background check.

Frankly, even across the country, her father knew the right strings to pull. Deputy Police Inspector Danny Mulligan, twenty plus years on the job, head of the department of Violent Crimes Investigation for the city of Minneapolis knew everybody . Decorated, accommodated—he’d even made the papers more than a few times.

It made it difficult for a girl to slide out from under his massive shadow. His legacy had followed her right into her recent job opportunity, working for one of her father’s best friends.

Chief John Booker, commander of the 5th Precinct.

And with everything inside her, she didn’t want to let Booker—or her father—down.

“How’s my Evie Bear,” her father said, holding his arms open. At six foot, her father wasn’t physically big, but he had a presence, a confidence that filled up the room. His auburn hair thinned on top, but at fifty-eight he was still lean, broad-shouldered and in shape. Nobody messed with Danny Mulligan.

“Dad, I’m twenty-six, I have a master’s degree and I own my own home. It’s just plain Eve.”

“Not to me.” He hopped up on the steps and pulled her into an embrace. “But I’ll keep it Eve on the job.”

“Dad—” She leaned away.

He grinned, his pale hazel-green eyes shiny with pride. “I was talking to Booker—he said you were one of his favorite crime scene rats. Can’t wait to have you work for him”

“I’m a full Crime Scene Investigator now, not a rat. I’m leaving the bagging of evidence to Silas.”

Her father opened the door, shooing her inside. “When are you going to date that young man? He’s got a clean record—I’ve done my homework.”

She shook her head. “He’s just a friend, Dad. It would be like dating my brother.”

“Evie!” Her mother came from the kitchen, wearing an apron, a pair of jeans, her dark red hair tumbling out from a headband. “I was hoping you’d stop by!” She kissed her daughter, then headed for Dad, who pulled her close. “Thank God, you’re home.”

Her father kissed her forehead. “Always, Bets.”

Eve stepped away, into the kitchen. A year ago, her mother had declared war on the wall between the kitchen and their family room in the 1920s farmhouse—one of the original homesteads on Lake Minnetonka—and taken a sledge to the wall. To which her father and younger brother, Samson, finished demolishing, then took out the entire kitchen for a remodel.

Now, Eve grabbed a mug from the cupboard, poured herself a cup of coffee, black, then turned and stole a muffin from the plate on the long island that overlooked the family room and dining area. She paused, gazing through the massive wall of windows to the rippling blue of Lake Minnetonka. A beautiful morning, uncluttered by clouds. Not a hint of trouble on the horizon.

If her mother hadn’t been a Hubbard by birth, they wouldn’t have had a hope of this view, the legacy property valued into the multi-digit millions. But Eve had only figured that out recently, during her house hunt.

She’d scored a bungalow fixer-upper in St. Louis Park with a view of the back alleyway.

But soon to have a new kitchen, starting with the tile and hopefully, running water. “Bro!” Eve directed her words toward Samson, sitting at the table nursing a cup of coffee. He wore a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, a baseball cap on backwards, his golden brown hair poking out the back, clearly on his way to work.

“Could you please explain to me why I found a strange man in my kitchen this morning?”

Samson raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what you did last night?—”

“Samson!” This from her mother. “That’s not appropriate.”

Samson grinned and Eve wanted to throw her muffin at him. “A plumber, okay? He shut off the water. I was in the shower.”

He made a face, wrinkled his nose. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize Chuck would be there that soon.”

“Well he was, and frankly he’s lucky I didn’t shoot him.”

“Shoot who?” her father said, coming into the room. He’d locked up his gun, toed off his shoes, and now reached for a cup of coffee.

The blood drained, just a little, from Sam’s face.

“Nothing, Dad,” Eve said, but walked over to the table. “However, I also found this at the scene of the crime.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a sample of the tiny square sea-blue glass tiles she’d found last night in boxes on her counter. “I thought we’d talked about installing subway tile.”

Samson, the inconsiderate jerk, had inherited the blue eyes of her mother, the build of their father, and enough charm that came from being the middle child to make him dangerous to her girlfriends, despite being five years younger than her. His smile contained a sort of homing beacon for trouble—hence his inability to stay in college. But he could swing a hammer, lay tile and frankly, he might have found his calling as a re-modeler.

If he could explain the tile.

“It looks better with your white cupboards, sis. All that dark wood on the island and the floor, you want something that pops, and I’m sorry, the subway tile sucks.”

Huh. “When did you turn into Martha Stewart?”

Her mom set a bowl of scrambled eggs on the table. “Sit down, honey, you’re just in time for breakfast.”

About then, Asher shuffled in, a headset around his neck. He set his CD player on the table and slid out the chair, his curly reddish-brown hair in a mop. He wore a pair of jeans, a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt, and looked ever so thrilled to be getting up at the crack of dawn for breakfast.

Eve had no sympathy for him. Asher should be used to her mother’s traditions by now. Whenever their father was assigned night shift, for however long, they all trundled down for breakfast together, her mother’s attempt at a regular family meal.

Of normalcy.

But nothing was ever truly normal when your dad was a cop. Every time he left the house, the unspoken ghost of fear slithered in and hovered in every conversation until he returned.

Eve would never forget the one time he didn’t. The call that came, the frantic drive to the hospital. Her mother’s declaration, after they’d discovered the gunshot wouldn’t kill him, that none of her children could be cops.

They’d obeyed, mostly. Lucas, a lawyer, and Jake went into the Navy. Sam turned to carpentry and Asher, well it looked like he’d never get a real job, the way he played on the computer constantly. But Eve hadn’t listened.

She was the one who couldn’t completely escape the family instincts, and after landing a degree in biology, went into crime scene investigation, a supposed-to-be temporary job that had tunneled under her skin and found her bones.

She loved it. The dissection of a crime scene, the thorough analysis, putting the pieces together. It led her into her master’s in Forensic Science.

Landed her the job for Booker.

Thankfully, Booker also hired her partner, crime scene technician Silas O’Roarke. Blond and with a quick smile, he was the guy who’d always showed up at 2 a.m. with a study pizza. They’d been friends since their college days at the University when he dropped down next to her in their 3000-level forensic anthropology class and handed her a donut. Because she looked like she needed it.

She knew Silas had picked it up at the back of the class, the first day’s offerings from the professor, but the thoughtfulness…Silas was like that. As loyal as a Labrador.

And, he noticed her.

Which, when surrounded by a larger-than-life father, and handsome, football-playing brothers, seemed significant.

She slid onto the bench next to Asher. Her mother put a plate in front of her, and Eve reached for a scoopful of eggs.

“Not until we pray,” her mother said, and of course, that was part of the tradition, too. Her treaty with God that everyone would return safely, one more day.

Asher turned off his music and for a moment, they were quiet. Together. Remembering Lucas in Chicago, and Jake—well, wherever he was.

The instant the prayer was over, Asher leapt for the bacon, and Eve filled her plate with eggs as her mother poured juice.

She noticed her father playing with his eggs, lost somewhere, probably on the job. He didn’t usually bring it home, but a darkness stirred in his eyes.

“Rough night, Dad?” Eve asked, one eye on the time, shoveling her food in.

“We had another working girl show up dead. There’s a predator out there. But I’ll get him.” He reached for his coffee and ran his thumb down the edge of his cup. “I just can’t seem to get there fast enough. I gotta be quicker.” It was a mumble more than a statement.

“No cases at the table, Danny,” her mother said.

“Sorry, Bets.” But he pushed his plate away. Eve got that—she’d often returned from her shift, her gut raw from what she’d seen.

“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 next to a group of other CSIs. He was ungarbed, just wearing his jacket, staring at the chaos. He wore a CSI cap over his blonde hair.

“Hey.”

Silas glanced at her, his mouth grim, a defeat in his pale green eyes. “Hey.” He turned back to the scene. “This is rough.”

A fireman carried out a child, no more than two, his body horribly burned, his light brown hair almost untouched. The man set him on the street on a body bag, pulled off his helmet and pressed the back of his hand to his mouth.

She flinched, hating the sight of a grown man crying.

Blowing out a breath, she lifted her camera and started shooting. Just to get some crowd scenes. Who knew but if it was arson, the perp could be lingering in the crowd. She kept shooting, turning?—

“Hey!”

She’d bumped soundly into the man behind her. Dark hair, deep, pensive blue eyes, he wore a suit and had shaved, his dark hair wavy, a lock of it falling away, as if tempting her to reach out and curl it around her finger.

The force of his presence loosened Eve’s grip on her camera and it slipped from her hands.

He caught it, his reflexes lighting fast, an almost miraculous save.

“Oh—I’m sorry!”

He handed her camera back to her. She checked it—all intact. “Thanks, wow. This is a?—”

“Five thousand dollar camera. I know.”

Huh. “Yeah.”

He was staring at her, his mouth a little open, blue eyes latched on, his expression almost white, as if he’d seen an apparition. “It’s you .”

She raised an eyebrow. Oh. She wasn’t sure what he’d heard, but, “Yeah. I’m here to work the scene. Eve Mulligan, CSI.”

He took her outstretched hand, and swallowed, as if a little undone, and if she thought Rembrandt Stone could land on a calendar from fifty feet away, meeting him up close, with those blue eyes on her as if he might be drinking her in?—

It sent a hot ripple right through her. No wonder they called him a lady killer. An eye-rolling nickname, but she felt her own breathing start to seize up, so there was that.

“Sorry. Uh, I’m Rem.” He held out his hand. “I…wow. I forgot this part.”

She frowned at him. “What part?—?”

“Last—no, I mean. I had coffee before.”

“Before what?” Then— oh no. “Were you in the coffee shop ?”

“No—I mean. Yes. But not that one.” He blew out a breath, his gaze landing behind her, on the carnage. “No. I was at a place called the Cuppa. It’s?—”

“I love that place. In Uptown? It’s just a few blocks from my new house.” Oh, and now she was babbling. Sheesh.

“I know.” His eyes widened. “I mean, I know it’s in Uptown.”

Huh.

His hand cupped his neck. “This was supposed to play out differently.”

She was starting to get a strange vibe. “Like… how ?”

His eyes widened again and he shook his head. “Nothing.”

“We have witnesses.” The voice came from Inspector Andrew Burke, as he walked up to them. He shot her a smile. “Eve Mulligan. I heard you’d moved over to our precinct.” He held out his hand.

She shook his hand, found it warm and solid. It seemed to calm her racing heart.

“Glad you’re here,” Burke said, and his gaze lifted past her, to the horror, his mouth a tight line. “C’mon. I found a woman who missed the bomb by two minutes. She’s a little shaky, but she might have something that gives us a start.”

Stone didn’t move. Just stared at Eve, and the look on his face sent an eerie tingle through her. “I forgot how beautiful you were— are .”

Eve just blinked at him. What?

And now he had Silas’s attention because he’d turned.

“Oh brother,” Burke said, and pulled him away.

But before he walked away, Stone stopped, looked up at the coffee shop, then back at Eve. “This time we’ll catch him.”

His words raised gooseflesh on her arms.

“What was that all about?” Silas said.

She watched him as he disappeared through the crowd with Inspector Burke. “I don’t know. But that was weird.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve heard stories about that guy. Trust me on this—the last thing you need is to get tangled up with him. You never know when you might end up in a book.”

Stone had emerged near the sidewalk, and kneeled down next to the distraught woman. He put his hand on her shoulder, his expression softening.

Maybe. But she had the distinct impression that there was more to Rembrandt Stone. And she wouldn’t mind figuring it out.