“She’s up first. I investigate her. Clear her. Then clear her of this shit,” Deck stated.

“You work that with me,” Chace returned.

“Suit yourself. But dinner with Emme tonight is just her and me.”

Chace studied him.

Deck took it then looked to Douglas. “You got a file for me?”

“It’ll be delivered to your house by three thirty,” Douglas replied.

“Contracts will be emailed to you by then. My crew will be in tomorrow at eight to be deputized,” Deck replied.

“You gonna be with them?” Douglas asked.

“Wouldn’t miss that shit for the world,” Deck answered, cut his eyes through the people in the room, noting Henry Gibbons looked amused, Mick Shaughnessy looked annoyed, Carole Weatherspoon looked reflective and Chace still looked worried.

Then he walked out of office, out of the station and to his truck.

Chapter Two

Kaleidoscope

Deck stood at his dining room table, chin tipped down, eyes scanning the carnage in the photo on top of the mess of papers that was spread out across his table that had once been three thick but organized police files.

A kid. Boy. Seventeen years of age. Hair too long. Clothes ill-fitting by design. Top of his head blown off since he put the barrel of a gun under his chin and pulled the trigger.

He’d been bonded out two hours before. They were pushing to try him as an adult. They were doing this because, in the six months the burglaries had been occurring with increasing frequency across the county, he’d been the first one they caught.

Not the first one who was seen. There were two others, both boys, described as young, but since the burglaries occurred in the dead of night, the vehicles used stolen and later dumped and no fingerprints, no IDs had been made. But both the others seen were noted as no older than eighteen.

They were hoping the one they caught would run scared and talk. He’d lawyered up, his family bonded him out, but the cops made it clear that things would go smoother on him, he turned rat.

Two hours later, he’d got his dad’s gun and, instead of talking, took his own life.

Bad shit.

Dark shit.

Pitch.

And no way Dane McFarland would make a kid run that scared he’d blow the top of his head off instead of talking. And no way the likes of Dane McFarland could make a kid follow him to the dark side.

He shoved papers and pictures aside and found a messy stack he’d made. He flipped through them, examining them closely even if it made his throat prickle.

Emme. The new, beautiful, stylish Emme with McFarland.

He couldn’t get used to seeing her like that, even as long as he studied those photos. If the dimple wasn’t there, he wouldn’t believe it was her. And if there weren’t shots of her without sunglasses so he could see her eyes. Eyes he always thought of as exotic. Perfect almonds coming to points at the sides that tipped up, back then her most attractive feature (outside the dimple) by far. Now it was debatable.

Jeff was right. She and McFarland spent a lot of time together. And McFarland wanted it known she was his. He did this by touching her all the f**king time. Hand to her hip, her waist, the small of her back. Arm around her shoulders. Her in both his arms, his mouth locked to hers. PDA and lots of it.

If Deck didn’t know her and he had that dimple in his bed, those light brown eyes he could make dance, he’d likely do the same.

But he didn’t like it with McFarland. It wasn’t just possessive. It wasn’t at all protective. It was a statement and it was borderline creepy.

He couldn’t see Emme putting up with that.

And he didn’t like that she was.

He had to get her shot of this guy.

What he could see was what Chace said. Whatever made her make the change, grow her hair, get her style together, take off weight, could mean she was finally moving beyond what happened to her and looking to enter the game, find a man. And maybe after not having one for as long as he’d known her, before (if what Elsbeth said was true) and likely for a while after, it could make her think she struck gold with a tall, good-looking, built guy who showed her a f**kload of attention. This might make her put up with a load of shit that might send up red flags she’d ignore just to get that attention, the kind she’d never had.

His eyes drifted to his mantel and the long, polished, handsomely carved wooden box sitting there.

Seeing that box, he again couldn’t see Emme doing that.

Further, McFarland had tried that possessive bullshit with her in front of Deck and she ended it in a second.

He was whipped. She was not the one having the wool pulled. He had her and he was still gagging for more.

This made Deck’s throat prickle further due to the fact that, he didn’t know Emme, he saw what he saw, he’d be switching pictures on that whiteboard. McFarland bottom right corner, Emme, top center.

But, his eyes aimed to that box, he knew her.

That shit couldn’t be.

He looked back down, shoving the pictures aside and scanning the reports.

He got why they pinpointed McFarland as boss. He had a sister who was a high school chemistry teacher in Carnal. He had a brother who was a high school history teacher in Gnaw Bone. The dead kid’s history teacher. Black lines from McFarland to both of them. The sister had a red line between her and her boyfriend, a known dealer who worked the Carnal/Gnaw Bone/Chantelle triangle. Another red line from that dealer to McFarland since they’d been best friends since high school.

But Emme was clear on paper. Copious recognizance showed she spent the night with McFarland but mostly he spent the night with her. Her father bought the local lumberyard a couple of years after the last owner got put away for murder. Emme ran it for him.

She also bought a place called the Canard Mansion.

Deck had looked it up on the Internet and it was a summer home built for Denver-dwelling silver boom millionaires in 1899. It was purchased from them by different kinds of millionaires in the 1920s. Throughout the ’20s, it saw a variety of rip-roarin’ good times but fell on hard times, as did the rest of the nation, when its owners were cleaned out by the Depression. A number of subsequent owners did their best with the twenty-room house but eventually it fell out of glory to become a bed-and-breakfast and stayed that way through the ’70s and ’80s. The owner lost his wife, grew reclusive, lived in that big pile the next two decades and died without a will. His family fought over it for half a decade before Emme bought it for a song.

It was likely a wreck.

He figured this from his Internet research and the fact that reports stated, when Emme wasn’t working, getting her hair done, going to Denver to visit family and friends or f**king McFarland, she was working on her house.

On her own.

She didn’t have time to work in or lead a burglary crew.

McFarland, however, frequently disappeared, shaking a tail in a way that the task force was relatively certain he knew he had one. Which meant he had a reason to have one and shake it.

Emme didn’t. If she noticed a tail, she didn’t try to shake it. She lived open.

His eyes went back to the box on his mantel just as his phone rang.

He pulled it out, saw the display and took the call.

“Yo, man,” he said to Chace.

“I’m guessin’ you aren’t gonna delay in seein’ to Emme,” Chace noted accurately.

“Her and me dinner, after, we stake out her house. McFarland takes off late to do whatever it is he does, you tail him and try not to lose him. I go in and search her house.”

“Jesus, Deck, you can’t break into her house and search it. Not at all but not when she’s f**kin’ there,” Chace clipped.

“I’ll wait ’til she’s asleep,” Deck told him.

“You won’t go in at all. I’ve tried to tail McFarland. He’s lost me twice. You’re new to the team and not a known officer of the law. In the dark he might not make your vehicle. You’re on the tail. I stake out the house.”

“I’m searchin’ her house, Chace, and I’m not waitin’ for a warrant.”

“You’re not goin’ in at all.”

“She’s clear of this shit and soon. I clear her house, we won’t need a warrant.”

“Jesus, Deck, listen to me, man. You are not goin’ in at all.”

“She’s clear,” Deck growled, losing patience.

Chace was silent.

Then he stated, “I looked into her.”

Deck wasn’t surprised and he knew what Chace found.

“That wasn’t buried,” he told Chace.

“So you know,” Chace replied.

“Elsbeth told me.”

Chace again fell silent for a long moment before he remarked, “This is not bringin’ up good shit for you.”

“Elsbeth is gone. Emme is not. Best part of all that was Emme. Took me a while to realize it. Now I got my shot to get her back. But yeah, I knew about her history. And yeah, part of gettin’ her clear of McFarland and fast is that she doesn’t need more shit in her life. Not after that.”

“You figure that’s why she was the way she was?” Chace asked.