Free Fish Out of Water by Amy Lane

flesh.
    The shooting stopped, the car rattled into the distance, and Jackson stayed on the ground taking inventory, counting bruises, bumps, his swelling knee, the fire along his cheek that meant he’d been grazed, his own breath harshed by panic. Fine. Fine. You’re fine. No hits.
    Oh fuck.
    Connie.
    Jackson looked at what remained of Connie Coulson, a shredded pile of flesh and bone bleeding into the dust.
    The stupid gambler who couldn’t shoot his dying dog and who had called in sick because the only way to get out of the hole he’d dug himself was to go to ground.
    Poor kid. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-five.
    With an oath, Jackson pulled his phone out and called 911. He asked for the fire department and a paramedic.
    They’d get there first.
    He thought briefly about running out to his car and taking off, but even if he wouldn’t have been fingered for the crime, he knew without looking that his car had been parked right in front of the fucking house.
    Oh holy shitballs. When he was done cleaning what was left of the shit and the fan, he was going to need a ride home.

A Most Unusual Habitat
     
     
    THE LAW offices were a few blocks away from the county jail. After leaving Kaden in the infirmary, a guard by his bedside, Ellery had braved the baking heat to walk back, mostly so he could talk to the thin thirtyish woman who had looked so much more comfortable sitting alone in front of her keyboard than she did talking to Ellery.
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Cramer, but it’s not as easy to render as they show it on television.”
    Ellery took a deep breath and very, very carefully adjusted his tie. “I understand that,” he said, although he really didn’t on an emotional level. People said that all the time, that what took months in real life was often shown to take an afternoon or half an episode on television. Intellectually, he got it. In the television shows, he was supposed to be busy and cutthroat at work and then play golf on the weekends and get scads of ass on the side—but no, not happening.
    Instead he was an asshole at work because he had to be, and on his great nights, he got an hour and a half on the elliptical machine while studying motions. On not-so-great nights, he fell asleep over his coffee—while writing motions.
    “I’m not asking for this person’s life story and third-grade photo or anything. I would settle for some sort of identification or proof that he or she—”
    “She,” Crystal said with confidence. With brief keystrokes, she pulled up a photo in the process of rendering. “See?”
    Ellery squinted at the reflection of the would-be photographer in the shiny stainless steel edge of the counter. He was reluctantly impressed—she’d said it wasn’t finished; she hadn’t said it was so far along.
    “Christ, it’s still not that clear,” he muttered.
    “Yeah. You can tell it’s not a crime-scene photo—those are much higher definition and taken from several angles. This one is just head-on. But you can see her, right? Jeans, high heels—”
    “Turquoise glitter polish,” Ellery noted. “Yeah. Girl.” The feet were tiny, the toes almost absurdly plump and sausage shaped, pale as eggs. “Little girl, little girl… what were you doing in that scary place?”
    “Why didn’t anybody see her?” Crystal asked, and Ellery glanced at her, frowning. She was actually a pretty woman—dirty-blonde hair, straight, pulled from a heart-shaped face in a careless ponytail. And she’d already justified Jackson’s faith in her tenfold.
    “That is a good question,” Ellery mumbled. “And why isn’t she mentioned in the police reports….”
    “Yeah—I mean, they used her picture. Shouldn’t they know about her?”
    Ellery resisted the urge to bang his head against Crystal’s giant computer. “You know, usually when you see a guy with a gun near his hand, the guy did it. I mean, it may have been self-defense, it may have been drug rage—but he usually did it.