The Stranger You Seek - By Amanda Kyle Williams Page 0,84

with their arms folded across their chests. A cruiser pulled up and then another unmarked Crown Vic. A silver Lincoln was parked on the street.

Rauser used his radio. “Two-thirty-three, Dispatch. I’m ten-ninety-seven,” he said. “I’ll get you home as soon as I see what we got here, Street. Wait, okay? I don’t want you walking.”

I could have walked home in less than ten minutes, but I said, “I’ll wait.”

Rauser’s car was like a furnace. I got out, leaned against the door. It wasn’t much help. A whiff of a breeze rustled a leaf from a pecan tree, then died. I watched Rauser approach the two women, speak to them a moment. Then he talked to the uniformed officer and two detectives. They all walked toward the silver Lincoln. Rauser unsnapped the holster that was almost always at his ribs and opened a door. For a split second, I thought I saw him react physically to whatever was in that car. It was almost imperceptible, a slight stiffening, something with his shoulders. Whatever it was, I saw it, and I didn’t like it.

Rauser pulled away from the car and walked to the back, looked at the tag. He was on his phone. The crime scene unit showed up, then a station wagon from the medical examiner’s office. Frank Loutz, Fulton County’s ME, got out.

I watched Rauser take a few steps away and wipe his forehead. He had never fully adjusted to Atlanta’s long, smoldering summers. Another crime scene van pulled up, followed by Jo Phillips in a gold Ford Taurus. Oh great, Jo the flirty spatter analyst. Rauser didn’t seem to notice. He turned and looked at me, then turned away, frowning.

The ME approached him and they spoke, then Rauser walked toward me.

“It’s Dobbs,” he said.

“What?”

“He’s dead.”

Fifty yards away, two of the uniforms started sealing off the area around the silver Lincoln with yellow crime scene tape. In the distance, car horns and brakes told me the afternoon rush hour was picking up. The officers worked quickly to secure the scene. They needed to establish boundaries that would keep out the cameras and onlookers who would swoop down on it as soon as word got out.

“Liver temp indicates he’s been here ten, twelve hours, and there’s rigor in the limbs,” Rauser told me. “That’s a couple hours before we picked Charlie up this morning. There’s multiple stab wounds.”

Evidence techs and detectives were still pulling up, getting out of their cars. I remembered the way I’d treated Dobbs the last time I saw him, leaving him asleep at my office. I thought about the brownies. God. Had that broken down his defenses enough to make him vulnerable to an attack? I slid down the Crown Vic and sat on the curb, feeling suddenly gutted.

Rauser’s hand was on my shoulder. He wanted to drive me home.

I looked up at him. “I want to see Jacob.”

He looked annoyed. “So now it’s Jacob? Because usually it’s just Dobbs. Why do you have to romance everything? He was a sonofabitch, Street. And just in case you’re taking the blame, Dobbs wasn’t stumbling into walls and shit because he had a little THC in his system. He slept it off. I’m sure he woke up on your sofa his clearheaded bastardly self.”

“Well, that’s a shitty thing to say, Rauser, given what’s happened.” I scrambled to my feet. “I need to see the scene.”

I didn’t wait for Rauser. I stalked toward the Lincoln—the disposal site. A casket on wheels.

Rauser caught up and handed me a pair of surgical gloves. “Okay, sure. Have at it. And if the press and the chief see you down there at my crime scene and the fallout interferes with my job, no big deal, right? As long as you get what you need.”

“Screw you.”

“Fuck the investigation.” He was walking fast next to me. “Fuck my job. Fuck me. Keye needs closure. It’s always about you, Keye, isn’t it? Or maybe you just want to supervise. Is that it? You can do it better than everyone else, right?”

I stopped. “Goddamnit, Rauser. You’re the one that asked for my help.”

“Yeah, so tell me that wasn’t a mistake, because right now I’m asking you to fucking stop.”

I slapped the gloves he’d given me into his palm. “Fine. I’ll walk home.”

I didn’t answer the phone for hours. I heard Rauser’s ringtone a couple of times, but I ignored it. I wasn’t mad at him anymore. I was just furious at how right he’d been. About everything. It