Free Made for Sin by Stacia Kane Page A

it?”
    “Well, yeah, I guess so,” Majowski said. “But we might as well have a look.”
    “I’d rather have a look at a drink,” Ardeth said. “Somewhere else.”
    Funny, Speare had been thinking the exact same thing. There might be a lot more to learn from examining the body—there undoubtedly was more to learn from examining the body—but he couldn’t do any examining without potentially screwing things up for the police and the ME. They probably wouldn’t be the ones solving the case, no, but he didn’t want them coming to talk to him because he’d left a hair or a fingerprint or some DNA where it shouldn’t have been. Dealing with the cops was not his favorite thing.
    But then, none of what he’d done so far would come close to being on a list of his favorite things, and he was still stuck doing them, so what was one more not-favorite activity?
    Majowski checked his watch. “You guys probably should go somewhere else, actually. I really need to get this called in and get the crime-scene guys out here.”
    Time for yet another not-favorite thing, Speare thought as they said goodbye: analyzing the possible motives of someone who liked to play with body parts and demons.

Chapter 4
    Ardeth’s silence was especially deep in the car, the kind of silence that made it seem like the silent person was on another planet in their minds. Whether it was because she’d just been looking at a dead body—a dead and
mutilated
body—in general, or if it was because it was the dead and mutilated body of someone she knew, he wasn’t sure, and he didn’t want to ask. That would be weird. And he didn’t care.
    Much. He didn’t care much. Not too much, certainly. Why should he? He wasn’t supposed to care about her—he couldn’t care about her. That would only lead to problems, and he didn’t need more of those.
    Besides, it wasn’t like she cared about him. She thought he was a sleazeball, and she barely tolerated him.
    Well, she’d bandaged his arm, and hadn’t been judgmental or nasty about the stolen Coke, and had shared some interesting thoughts about the murder they’d just learned about, but aside from that she barely tolerated him. And she’d only done those nice things because she wasn’t a horrible person, and she stole for a living so why would she judge him for that?
    Those nice things had still been nice, though. And that body they’d just seen had upset her. “Hey, are you o—?”
    “I’m fine.”
    She wasn’t, though. He knew it. The beast knew it. One thing that bastard could do was sniff out misery; it was like an unhappiness radar, constantly pinging in the background, slavering at the thought that someone was in pain. Including him. Which meant it was always slavering.
    He ignored it. “It’s not easy seeing somebody like that, when you knew them alive.”
    “I didn’t know him. I just met him a few times. It’s not a big deal, okay? He wasn’t my friend, and he’s not the first dead body I’ve ever seen, and I’m not some delicate little flower, so you can put away your big-strong-tough-guy bullshit.”
    “It’s not bullshit.” Had he touched on something sensitive? She didn’t seem the type, but then he remembered her comments earlier at the bar, about having no one to back her up and having to look after herself.
    She probably wouldn’t appreciate him bringing that up, though, and he didn’t want to get into a big conversation about it, either. It wasn’t like they were forming some kind of relationship or something. They were working together—sort of—on this one case, and that was that.
    So he’d go in another direction. “I really am that big and tough.”
    He’d hoped she would laugh. He didn’t anticipate how hearing that laugh would make him feel like he’d done something special, or how some of the tension in his shoulders and back would disappear.
    “So I hear,” she said, and her voice sounded easier, happier, too. “Maybe later you’ll tell me