Cause to Hide

“Like what?” Ramirez said.

She could tell that he was getting a little uncomfortable. They’d been transparent with one another before, but never quite to this extent. This was much harder than she had expected.

“Look…I know I’ve basically ruined things between us,” Avery said. “You showed extreme patience and understanding as I worked through my crap. And I know I kept luring you in a little at a time only to push you away.”

“That would be accurate, yes,” Ramirez said with a bit of humor.

“I can’t apologize enough for that,” Avery said. “And if you could find it in your heart to look past my hesitancy and my fears…I’d really like to have another chance.”

“A chance for what?” Ramirez said.

He’s going to make me come out and say it, she said. And I kind of deserve this treatment.

The evening was unraveling into dusk and there were only a scant few people out along the sidewalks and trails that wound around the river. It was a picturesque scene, like something out of one of those movies she usually hated to watch.

“A chance for us,” Avery said.

Ramirez stopped walking but kept her hand in his. He looked to her with his dark brown eyes and held her gaze. “It can’t be a chance,” he said. “It has to be a real thing. A surefire thing. I can’t keep having you push and push, always keeping me guessing.”

“I know.”

“So if you can let me know what you mean by us, then I’ll consider it.”

She couldn’t tell if he was being serious or just trying to give her a hard time. She broke their eye contact and gave his hands a squeeze.

“Damn,” she said. “You’re going to make this hard on me, aren’t you?”

“Well, I think I – ”

She interrupted him by pulling him to her and kissing him. In the past, their kisses had been brief, awkward, and filled with her usual hesitancy. But now she lost herself to it. She drew him as close as their bodies would allow and kissed him with the most passion she’d put into any sort of physical contact since the last happy year of marriage with Jack.

Ramirez didn’t bother trying to fight it. She knew he had been wanting this for a while now and she could feel the eagerness running through him.

They kissed like love-struck teenagers by the side of the Charles River. It was a soft yet heated kiss that thrummed with the sexual frustration that had been blooming between them for several months.

When their tongues met, Avery felt a surge of energy pass through her – energy that she knew she wanted to use up in a very certain way.

She broke the kiss and leaned her forehead into his. They looked to one another for several seconds in that posture, enjoying the silence and the weight of what they had just done. A line had been crossed. And in the tense silence, they both sensed that there were still many more to cross.

“You’re sure about this?” Ramirez asked.

“I am. And I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it.”

He drew her close and hugged her. She felt something like relief in his body, like a huge weight had been lifted from him.

“I’d like to give it a try,” Ramirez said.

He broke the hug and kissed her again, softly, on the side of the mouth.

“I think we need to celebrate the occasion. You want to get dinner?”

She sighed and gave a shaky smile. She had already broken through an emotional barrier by confessing her feelings to him. What harm could it do to continue being blatantly honest with him now?

“I do think we need to celebrate,” she said. “But right now, at this very moment, I’m not too interested in dinner.”

“So what do you want to do?” he asked.

His obliviousness was beyond charming. She leaned in and whispered into his ear, enjoying the feel of him against her and the smell of his skin.

“Let’s go to your place.”

He pulled away and looked at her with the same seriousness as before, but now there was something else there, too. It was something she had seen in his eyes from time to time – something that looked very much like excitement and was born out of a physical need.

“Yeah?” he said uncertainly.

“Yeah,” she said.

As they hurried across the grass, toward the parking lot where they had both parked their cars, they were giggling like children. It was fitting, as Avery could not recall the last time she had felt so liberated, excited, and free.

***

The passion they had experienced while along the river was still there as Ramirez unlocked his apartment door. There was a part of Avery that wanted to jump him right there and then, before he even had time to shut the door behind him. They’d lightly pawed at one another the whole ride to his place and now that they were there, Avery felt like they were on the precipice of something monumental.

When Ramirez closed the door and locked it, Avery was surprised when he didn’t come to her right away. Instead, he walked through the living room and into his modest kitchen, where he poured himself a glass of water.

“Water?” he asked.

“No thanks,” she said.

He drank from his glass and looked out the kitchen window. Night had fallen and the city lights sparkled through the glass.

Avery joined him in the kitchen and playfully took the glass of water from him. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

“I don’t want to say,” he said.

“Do you…well, have you changed your mind about me?” she asked. “Did all the waiting make you stop wanting me?”

“God no,” he said. He put his arms around her waist and she could see him trying to form the right words.

“We can wait,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t take her up on it.

“No,” he said, a little urgently. “It’s just…shit, I don’t know.”

This was a surprise to Avery. With all of his masterful flirtation and seductive talk over the last few months, she was sure he would have been a little aggressive when and if the time ever came. But right now, he seemed unsure of himself – almost nervous.

She leaned in and kissed the corner of his jaw. He sighed and leaned in against her.

“What is it?” she asked, her lips brushing his skin as she spoke.

“It’s just that this is real now, you know? This isn’t just some one-night stand. This is for real. I care about you a lot, Avery. I really do. And I don’t want to rush things.”

“We’ve been dancing around this for the last four months,” she said. “I don’t think that’s rushing.”

“Good point,” he said. He kissed her on the cheek, then on the little bit of shoulder her T-shirt was showing. His lips then found her neck and when he kissed her there, she thought she might collapse to the floor right on the spot, pulling him down with her.

“Ramirez?” she said, still playfully refusing to use his first name.

“Yeah?” he asked, his face still brushing against her neck and applying kisses.

“Take me to the bedroom.”

He pulled her close, hoisted her up, and allowed her to wrap her legs around his waist. They started kissing then and he obeyed her. He slowly carried her to the bedroom and by the time he shut the bedroom door, Avery was so lost in the moment that she never even heard it close.

All she was aware of was his hands, his mouth, his well-toned body pressing against hers as he laid her down on the bed.

He broke their kiss long enough to ask: “Are you sure about this?”

And if she needed one more reason to want him, that was it. He genuinely cared about her and did not want to ruin what they had.

She nodded and pulled him down onto her.

And then for a while, she was not a frustrated Homicide detective or a struggling mother, or a daughter who had watched her mother die at her father’s hands. She was just Avery Black then…a woman like any other woman, enjoying the pleasures life had to offer.

She’d almost forgotten what that was like.

And once she started to get acquainted with them, she vowed to herself that she would never allow herself to forget them again.

CHAPTER THREE

Avery opened her eyes and looked at the unfamiliar ceiling over her head. The muted light of dawn came in through the bedroom window, spilling across her mostly naked body. It also painted Ramirez’s naked back beside her. She turned over slightly and smiled sleepily. He was still asleep, his face turned away from her.

They’d made love twice the night before, taking two hours between each session to make a quick dinner and discuss how sleeping together could complicate their working relationship if they weren’t careful. It had been close to midnight when they had finally drifted off side by side. Avery had been drowsy and could not remember when she’d fallen asleep but she did remember his arm around her waist.

She wanted that again…that feeling of being wanted and being secure. She thought about running her fingertips along the base of his spine (as well as a few other places, perhaps) just to wake him up so he could hold her.

But she did not get the chance. The text alarm of her phone went off. So did Ramirez’s. They pinged together, an occasion that could only mean one thing: it was work-related.

Ramirez sat up quickly. When he did, the sheet slid off of him and revealed everything. Avery snuck a peek, unable to resist herself. He grabbed his phone from the bedside table and looked at it with bleary eyes. While he did this, Avery retrieved her own phone from the pile of clothes on the floor.

The text was from Dylan Connelly, the A1 Homicide Supervisor. In Connelly’s typical fashion, the message was direct and to the point:

Body discovered. Burned badly. Maybe trauma to head.

Get your ass to abandoned construction lot on Kirkley St NOW.

“Well, that’s nice to wake up to first thing in the morning,” she grumbled.

Ramirez climbed off the bed, still completely naked, and hunkered down on the floor with her. He pulled her close to him and said, “Yeah, this is nice to wake up to first thing in the morning.”

She leaned into him, a little alarmed at how insanely content she was in that moment. She grumbled again and got to her feet.

“Shit,” she said. “We’re going to be late to the scene. I need to get my car and get back home for a change of clothes.”

“We’ll be okay,” Ramirez said as he started getting dressed. “I’ll text back in few minutes, while we’re on the way to your car. You space yours out. Maybe the text sound didn’t wake you. Maybe it took me calling you to wake you up.”

“That sounds deceptive,” she said, sliding her shirt on.

“That’s clever is what it is,” he said.

They smiled at each other as they finished getting dressed. They then went into the bathroom, where Avery did her best to make sense of her hair while Ramirez brushed his teeth. They hurried to the kitchen and Avery threw together two bowls of cereal.

“As you can see,” she said, “I’m quite the cook.”

He hugged her from behind and seemed to breathe her in. “Are we going to be okay?” he asked. “We can make this work, right?”

“I think so,” she said. “Let’s go out there and give it a try.”

They wolfed down their cereal, spending most of the time looking at one another, trying to gauge the other’s reaction to what had happened last night. From what Avery could tell, he was just as happy as she was.

They headed out the front door but before Ramirez closed it behind them, he stopped. “Wait, back inside for a minute.”

Confused, she stepped back inside.

“Inside,” he said, “we’re off the clock. Not really officially partners, right?”

“Right,” Avery said.

“So I can do this one more time,” he said.

He leaned in and kissed her. It was a dizzying kiss, one with enough force to cause her knees to sag a bit. She playfully pushed him away. “Like I said before,” she said, “don’t start. Not unless you intend to finish.”

“Rain check,” he said. He then led her outside and closed the door behind them this time. “Okay, on the clock now. Lead the way, Detective Black.”

***

They went with Ramirez’s plan. She did not return Connelly’s text for another sixteen minutes. By that time, she was nearly back to her apartment and still quite giddy over the way last night had played out. She managed to get dressed, grab coffee, and hit the street again in less than ten minutes. The result, of course, was arriving at the scene on Kirkley Street roughly half an hour later than Connelly would have preferred.

There were several officers already milling around. They were all familiar faces, faces that she had come to know and respect since becoming a Homicide detective. The looks on their faces this morning clued her in to the fact that this was going to be a very long and bitter morning.

One of the people she saw in attendance was Mike O’Malley. She found it alarming that the captain would be out here so soon. As the head over most of Boston PD, he was rarely seen in the hustle and bustle of everyday crime scenes, no matter how vile they might be. O’Malley was currently speaking to two other officers, one of which was Finley. Avery had grown to respect Finley as an officer even though he tended to be a little too aloof for her liking.

She spotted Ramirez right away; he was chatting with Connelly on the far side of the abandoned lot.

As she made her way over to Ramirez and Connelly, she took in the scene as best she could. She’d been through this part of town several times but had never paid it any real attention. It was one of the many financial blights on this end of town, an area where enthusiastic developers had sunk tons of money into property only to see the property lose its value and potential buyers quickly run away. Once the housing efforts had shut down, the area had gone back to ruin. And it seemed to fit well with the surroundings.

Twin smokestacks could be seen in the distance, rising up like blemished giants. They both sent broken plumes of smoke into the air, giving the morning an overcast sort of feel – but only in this part of town. On the other side of the abandoned lot, Avery could see the edges of what could have been a promising little creek that would have run along behind the properties of upper-middle-class houses. Now, it was taken over by an overgrowth of weeds and brambles. Plastic bags, snack wrappers, and other litter were stuck in the dead weeds. The shallow banks were muddy and neglected, adding a whole new stagnant level to the sludge of it all.

Overall, this area had become a part of town that just about anyone would gladly skip over. Avery knew the feeling; taking it all in as she closed in on Ramirez and Connelly, the area instantly made her feel burdened.

An area like this can’t be a coincidence, she thought. If someone killed here or even just dumped a body here, it has to have some significance…either to the murder itself or to the killer.

Immediately to the left of Finley and Ramirez, an officer had just finished putting up thin red stakes to border off a rectangular section of the lot. As Avery’s eyes fell on what rested inside that rectangle, Connelly’s voice boomed at her from just a few feet away.

“Damn, Black…what took you so long?”

“Sorry,” she said. “I slept right through the text buzz. Ramirez called me and woke me up.”

“Well, you aren’t late because you were busy doing your hair or makeup, that’s for damned sure,” Connelly remarked.

“She doesn’t need makeup,” Ramirez said. “That shit’s for girls.”

“Thanks, guys,” Avery said.

“Whatever,” Connelly said. “So what do you think of this?” he asked, nodding down to the rectangle drawn out by the red stakes.

Inside of the marked-off area, she saw what she assumed were human remains. Most of what she saw was a skeletal structure but it seemed to gleam. There was no age to it. It was unmistakably a skeleton that had very recently been robbed of its flesh. All around it was what appeared to be ash or some sort of grime. Here and there, she saw what may have been muscle and tissue clinging to the skeleton, particularly around the legs and the ribs.

“What the hell happened?” she asked.

“Well, what a great question for our best detective to start with,” Connelly said. “But here’s what we know so far. About an hour and fifteen minutes ago, a woman out for her morning run put in a call about what she described as something that looked like a weird Satanic ritual. It led us to this.”

Avery hunkered down by the red markers and peered into the area. An hour and ten minutes ago. That meant that if the black stuff around the skeleton was ash, this skeleton had been covered in skin at least an hour and a half ago. But that didn’t seem likely. It would take some sick determination and planning to kill someone and then miraculously burn them down to nothing but bone in such a short amount of time. In fact, she thought it would be next to impossible.

“Anyone have evidence gloves?” she asked.

“One second,” Ramirez said.

As he ran to Finley and the other officers who had stepped back to allow Avery some room, she also noticed a smell in the area. It was faint but noticeable – a chemical smell that was almost like bleach to her nose.

“Anyone else smell that?” she asked.

“Some sort of chemical, right?” Connelly asked. “We figure a chemical-induced burn is the only way you can fry a body like this one so quickly.”

“I’m not thinking the burn was done here,” she said.

“How can you be so sure?” Connelly asked.

I’m not, she thought. But the only thing that makes sense to me at first guess seems pretty damned absurd.

“Avery – ” Connelly said.

“One second,” she said. “I’m thinking.”

“Jesus…”

She ignored him, looking at the ash and the skeleton with an investigative eye. No…the body couldn’t have been burned here. There are no scorch marks around the body. A burning person would flail and run about wildly. Nothing here is burned at all. The only sign of a fire of any kind are these ashes. So why would a killer burn the body and then bring it back here? Maybe this is where he took the victim…

The possibilities were endless. One of the possibilities, Avery thought, was that perhaps the skeleton was the property of a medical lab somewhere and this was just some stupid sick prank. But given the location and the brazenness of the act, she doubted this was the case.

Ramirez returned with a pair of latex evidence gloves. Avery slipped them on and reached down to the ash. She gripped just a small bit of it between her pointer finger and thumb. She rubbed her fingers together and brought it to her face. She sniffed at it and looked at it closely. It looked like standard ash but possessed traces of the chemical smell.

“We need to have this ash analyzed,” Avery said. “If there was a chemical involved, there’s a good chance that there are still trace amounts in the ashes.”

“There’s a forensics team on the way as we speak,” Connelly said.

Slowly, Avery got to her feet and removed the latex gloves. O’Malley and Finley came over and Avery wasn’t surprised to see Finley keep his distance from the skeleton and ashes. He looked at them as if the skeleton might jump out at him at any moment.

“I’m working with the city to get footage from every security camera within a six-block radius,” O’Malley said. “Because there aren’t many of them in this part of town, it shouldn’t take too long.”

“It might not be a bad idea to also get the numbers of any companies that sell highly flammable chemicals,” Avery pointed out.

“That could be millions of places,” Connelly said.

“No, she’s right,” O’Malley said. “This burn wasn’t done with just a household cleaner or spray. This was a concentrated chemical, I’d say. Finley, can you start working on that?”

“Yes, sir,” Finley said, clearly glad to have a reason to leave the scene.

“Black and Ramirez…this is your case now,” O’Malley said. “Work with Connelly to get a team on this ASAP.”

“Got it,” Ramirez said.

“And Black, let’s make sure we’re prompt for the rest of this thing. You showing up late this morning set us back fifteen minutes.”

Avery nodded, not allowing herself to get baited into an argument. She knew that most of the men above her were still looking for any small thing to bust her on. And she was fine with that. Given her sordid history, she almost expected it.

As she started to step away from the red markers, she noticed something else several yards to the right. She’d seen it when she first approached the skeletal remains but had disregarded it as simple litter. But now as she walked closer to the detritus, she saw what looked to be the broken shards of something. It looked almost like glass, possibly something that had been fired in a kiln at some point. She walked over to it, getting a better view of the murky and stagnant creek along the back of the lot.

“Did anyone take note of this?” she asked.

Connelly looked over, barely interested.

“Just litter,” he said.

Avery shook her head.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

She slipped the latex gloves back on and picked up a piece of it. Upon closer inspection, she saw that whatever the object had been, it had been made of glass, not a ceramic material. There didn’t seem to be any dust or weathered wear and tear on the fragments. There were seven larger chunks, about the size of her palm, and then countless little slivers of it all over the ground. Aside from having been shattered, whatever had been broken looked to be fairly new.

“Whatever this is, it hasn’t been here for very long,” she said. “Make sure forensics checks this for prints.”

“I’ll sic forensics on it,” Connelly said in a tone that indicated he did not appreciate taking orders. “Now, you two…make sure you get to the A1 within the next half an hour. I’ll make some calls and have a team waiting for you in the conference room. This scene is less than two hours old; I’d like to nail this asshole before he gets too much of a head start.”

Avery took one final look at the skeleton. Without the cover of flesh, it looked like it was smiling. To Avery, it was almost as if the killer were smiling at her, biting back a taunting laugh. And it wasn’t just the sight of a newly stripped skeleton that made her feel a sense of foreboding and doom. It was the location, the almost perfectly sculpted mounds of ash around the bones, the purposefully unhidden remains, and the chemical smell.

It all seemed to point to something precise. It pointed to vast intention and planning. And as far as Avery was concerned, that could only mean one thing: whoever did this would certainly do it again.

CHAPTER FOUR

Forty minutes later, Avery stepped into the central conference room in the A1 headquarters. It was already filled with an assortment of officers and experts, totaling twelve in all, and she knew most of them, though not as well as Ramirez or Finley. She supposed that was her own fault. After Ramirez had been assigned to her as a partner, she had not gone out of her way to make friends. It seemed like a silly thing to do as a Homicide detective.

As they all took their seats around the table (except for Avery, who always preferred to stand), one of the officers she did not know started passing out printed copies of the scant information they had so far – pictures of the crime scene and a sheet of bullet points of what they knew about the scene. Avery scanned one and found it succinct.

She noted that as everyone started to take their seats, Ramirez sat in front of her. She looked down at him and realized that she had instinctively stepped closer to him. She also found that she wanted to rest her hand on his shoulder, just to touch him. She backed away, noticing that Finley was looking oddly at her.

Shit, she thought. Is it that obvious?

She went back to busying herself with rereading the notes. As she did so, O’Malley and Connelly entered the room. O’Malley closed the door and went to the front of the room. Before he started speaking, the murmurs and conversation within the room died down. Avery watched him with great appreciation and respect. He was the sort of man who could take charge of a room by simply clearing his throat or letting it be known that he was about to speak.

“Thanks for scrambling together so quickly,” O’Malley said. “You have in your hands everything we know about this case so far with one exception. I had city workers pull everything they could from traffic light cameras in the area. Two of the four cameras show a woman walking her dog. And that’s all we got.”