Free Land of Shadows by Rachel Howzell Hall

People’s Art—fake Picassos sold at Ikea or real art found at those convention center shows, the ones where everybody’s uncle had a booth and every painting looked Motel 6 ready. Alas, Greg’s ego had hoarded all the wall space. Eleven years ago, when we had first met, I had found his creative confidence hella sexy. Eleven years ago.
    â€œYou should introduce me to your husband,” Colin declared.
    â€œWhy?”
    He shrugged and blushed and studied the charcoal sketch of a sexy she-elf. “I’m a cop—I could give him tips for making those games of his more realistic.”
    I stared at him—not only was I a cop, I was also married to the man. If he confabbed with anybody , it would be (and had been) me.
    â€œI wanna do that consulting thing, you know?” Colin continued. “A lot of these games are all hat and no cattle, know what I mean? I wanna be the detective that Hollywood turns to. Makin’ shit they come up with more real.”
    I sighed, then pointed to my left. “There’s the bathroom. Towels are in the cabinet. If you need me, I’ll be upstairs.”
    â€œSo is that a no, you won’t introduce me?”
    â€œIt’s a ‘there’s the bathroom and towels are in the cabinet.’”
    â€œLater then?”
    As I turned to leave, Colin said, “Hey, Lou?” He was doing that squinty-eye-lip-bite thing that was supposed to get me all loose-limbed and fuck-friendly.
    And with my shoes off like that, it was kind of working. “Yeah?”
    â€œThanks for not sending me over the hill.”
    I waited for more, but that was it. “Sure. No problem.”
    I left Colin to do his business and drifted to the kitchen to check voice mail: Mom ( Do I need to send out a search party for you? ), Syeeda ( Guess what I’m working on? ), and an automatic reminder from Arrowhead to leave my empty water bottles on the porch. No message from Greg, and it was now dinnertime in Japan. He couldn’t have called before heading out for teppanyaki ? What the hell was he doing?
    You mean, who the hell is he doing?
    Stop.
    Where is he, then?
    Working. In a meeting. Hasn’t had the chance to call, is all.
    Loafers in hand, I marched up the stairs to the sun deck and grabbed the can of Lysol that lived there. I sprayed three bursts of “clean linen” on the soles and the insteps, and then set the shoes on an Adirondack chair. Good footwear was the best tool I had, and I treated my shoes like a farm treated its best combine. Being a detective meant constantly walking, sometimes running, a lot of times stepping in blood that had the consistency of almost-there chocolate pudding.
    Back to my room I went.
    I slipped off my suit jacket, pants, and shirt for the second time in nine hours, then grabbed the bottle of Febreze from the nightstand. I gave my clothes a half-assed spritz, but changed my mind and shoved all of it into the bag of clothes that needed to be burned.
    The bed was just as I had left it on Wednesday morning—tucked and neat. The cream carpet was free of charcoal pencils, little scraps of plastic wrapping, and Hawaiian Roll bread crumbs. More proof that Greg really wasn’t home. I eyed Heart of the Volcano , my latest trashy romance novel waiting for me on the nightstand. But I had no time for fire priestesses and sexy gargoyles.
    I padded to the walk-in closet. Since I didn’t expect to encounter death again until the Darson case had ended or had been shoved to the back burner (like my other two cases) by a more exciting murder, I chose a linen, faux–St. John pantsuit and a yellow silk blouse. I glanced at the top shelf, at the document box stowed beneath a winter blanket.
    I hung my outfit on the doorknob and pulled the box from its place. Held my breath as I slipped off the top.
    Even though I had collected every report and statement that had been generated, Tori’s case file was still as thick