Chapter One

Friday morning. I snapped awake. My chest jerked upward, and my head went with it, like somebody had put a million volts through me.

I could feel my heart pounding against my ribs, and it took a moment or two of deep breaths for me to slow it. I scrambled through my immediate memories, trying to figure out what woke me. Was it the alarm clock? Did I set it to ring too early?

No. It was on the night table, ticking away the seconds. The hands indicated that it was just after 7:15 a.m., and wasn't scheduled to go to work until 9.

So was it a knock on my door? A phone ring? Maybe ... but probably not. People who knew me or needed my services didn't tend to reach out that early.

My eyes pulled focus and I scanned my tiny bedroom from floor to ceiling and corner to corner. Nothing to see. I had an inclination to put my head back down on the pillow, but I knew it was a pointless move. I wasn't getting back to sleep now.

I rolled off the creaky double bed that I'd settled against a windowless wall and headed to the barely-three-quarter bathroom in the back of my apartment for something that could be called a shower, but only by the most charitable folks. As I stripped out of the shirt and slacks I'd slept in, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The late nights following tomcatting husbands or gold-digging wives or some variation on the theme were catching up to me. I yawned, and noticed that the steam from the shower stall did a fair job obscuring my exhausted eyes.

But not that fair. "You look like a damn fugitive from an undertaker's workshop, George O'Malley," I muttered. A yawn rolled through me as I turned toward the hissing water and stepped through the curtain.

The hot water – what there was of it – did a decent job clearing the clouds from my brain. I finished dressing for the day, feeling a rumble of hunger in my belly. A vision of crisp bacon and sunny-side-up eggs on a clean white plate drifted past, making the rumble more insistent.

To tell the truth, I was in no rush to open up my office this morning; nothing of any urgency was waiting for me there. I glanced at the closed door of the closet that I'd converted to a makeshift darkroom. The pictures I'd taken of Mr. Don Keller (or "Seattle's DeSoto King," as he liked to call himself) and the woman who was certainly not Mrs. Keller – even though she'd been listed as such on the Seaview Motel registry – romping on that mattress last night were going to be just as helpful to his wife's attorney (and profitable to me) tomorrow as they would be today.

So I decided that I had the day off. I looked in the mirror again, and told the guy looking back at me to watch the fort. He said it right back to me, the wiseass.

"You want butter or jam for your toast?" the tired-eyed waitress at Eddie's Diner asked, in that flat, bored tone she and ninety-five percent of her counterparts always seemed to have.

"Jam. Strawberry, if you've got it," I replied.

"Yeah, okay," she said absently, scribbling on her order pad as she sauntered away from my perch at the counter.

I grabbed the coffee mug she had just topped off for me and took a sip as I watched her leg it through the kitchen's swinging doors. The coffee – strong and black and hot – hit my sweet spot, and for the blink of an eye, all was right with the world.

That sensation ended the instant I noticed the two plainclothes detectives plunking down at the stools flanking me. One was Lieutenant Derek Shepard, a rising star in the Seattle department, and my former mentor and partner on the force. He wasn't the one who was talking to me, though.

"Detective George O'Malley," the one on my right said with an unfriendly grin in his voice. I recognized it as Owen Hunt's, and my mood soured a little more. "I'm sorry. Ex-Detective." He overemphasized the "ex" part, like he enjoyed the sound of it. "How's the dirty picture racket these days?"

"Pretty damn good, actually," I replied, keeping my voice cheery. "People complain about divorce rates going up, but all I hear is a symphony of ringing cash registers."

"You're a creep," Hunt said. "A low-life, bottom-feeding creep."

Pots and kettles, I thought. "Hey, Detective Hunt, how's Marcie?"

His grin was gone but quick. "What?" he hissed.

"Marcie," I said. "That sweet little brown-eyed cookie you nibble on when you get even just a wee bit tired of playing the doting husband to Linda." I took another sip of coffee and looked at him over the rim of the cup. "Or should I say one of your cookies? I mean, Marcie knows she's not the only dessert you sample, right?" I asked, with a little wink.

Hunt grabbed my lapel and spun me to face him and his reddening cheeks. My coffee sloshed over the edge of the cup and splashed on the floor, somehow missing us both. "That's enough outta you, you piece of – "

"That's enough outta both of you," said the man behind me who clamped a hand on my shoulder and pulled me back from his partner's grasp. "This is a nice place with a nice atmosphere. No need to make it messy."

"Thanks, Lieutenant Shepard," I said, my eyes still on Hunt's. "You always did have a calming influence. So what do you and Detective Sweet Tooth want, other than to ruin my breakfast?"

Shepard turned me to face him. "You heard about the shootings behind the cleaners at 12th and Oak last night?"

"No," I said. "That's on the edge of Frank Vinatieri's territory, right?"

"Yeah," Shepard said. He nodded at Hunt, who pulled a rolled newspaper out of his jacket and slapped it on the counter. I turned my head just in time to watch his hands unfurl the black and white image of splayed, bullet-riddled bodies on a dank backstreet. "THREE DEAD, ONE WOUNDED IN ALLEY SHOOT-OUT," the banner headline shouted.

"Word I'm hearing is that Frankie Vee's goons have been given marching orders to secure his territory, block-by-block, if necessary," Shepard continued. "Then seal it up water-tight."

"Or as water-tight as you can get in Seattle," I said. "So why talk to me? This is police business."

"God damn right," Hunt said with a hard frown.

"One of the dead men had your business card on him," Shepard said, pointing to the body in the left corner of the picture. "Ernest Maxwell. He had a California driver's license on him too, said he was out of San Francisco. Know that name?"

I quickly ransacked my brain, looking for it in as many nooks and crannies as I had. To admit, I wouldn't have said much if I did know the guy, but truth be told, the name Ernest Maxwell wasn't ringing any one of my bells, not even faintly. "I hand out my share of business cards, sure, but only to clients or sources, and only around Seattle proper," I said with a shrug. "And, since you probably already know, I'll cop to having done some snoop work in San Francisco, but it's been a year or two, at least."

Shepard sized me up. "So you're saying you've got nothing for me."

I looked him square in the eye. "Look, Derek, if there's one person I can't get away with lying to, it's you. And if I had any clue who this guy was, we wouldn't have gotten this far into the conversation anyway. Sorry, but I'm no good to you on this one," I said, just as my waitress was returning with my breakfast plate.

"Told ya, Shep," Hunt chuckled humorlessly. "Shiftless ex-detective sleazeballs like O'Malley here aren't worth wasting time spitting on, much less talking to, am I wrong?" He snatched a piece of toast off my plate and crunched into it, sneering at me all the while.

The urge to wipe that smug look off Hunt's face was becoming unbearable, but knowing that he was itching for the opportunity to slap the bracelets on me, I elected to avoid giving him that satisfaction. The corners of my mouth tugged upward as I spun away from the counter and pointed myself toward the door, grabbing the paper as I went.

Then, for some reason, as I sprang from the stool, the suddenness of my movement caught Hunt off-guard. His left loafer skidded through the spilled coffee on the tile and sent him face first into my bacon and eggs. He growled in frustration, pushed himself back to his feet and into a fighting pose, steam practically blasting from his ears. Shepard immediately stepped in front of his partner and growled something in a low voice to him. Hunt's nostrils flared and he glared at me, but his fists unballed, and his hands dropped to his sides.

"Take off, O'Malley," Shepard said. "Now."

"Thanks for buying – and eating – my breakfast, fellas. Don't forget to leave a nice tip for the waitress," I said, heading for the door. As I left, I took one last look at them – Hunt literally with egg all over his face, and Shepard's eyes pleading for me to leave. "And here I was thinking Hunt was more of a dessert guy," I added with a grin.

Could've sworn I heard Shepard laugh out loud at that.