A cup of piping hot coffee came out of nowhere. Matt took a short first sip, then another, until he looked up at the cop’s chiseled face and something changed. Maybe it was what he still saw in his eyes, the spark and worry reflecting back at him. Maybe it was something else. Either way, Matt could feel himself breaking the surface hard. He could feel the push of reality, no longer scrambled, in all its starkness.

Something horrible had happened tonight.

Something worse than that.

Matt searched for his voice, the words coming out low and rough. “Tell me what happened? How long have I been out?”

Cabrera leaned closer, resting his hand on his shoulder. “You blacked out, man. You were standing over there by the SUV. You were looking at something on the cell phone. Then all of a sudden you went down like you took one on the chin.”

“Where’s the phone?”

“It broke when it hit the ground. SID says they can recover whatever was on it, but they’ll have to do it in the lab.”

Dinner off. Call me.

Matt shook his head at the memory. “Is the body still here?”

Cabrera gave him a look and nodded. “They’re bagging it up right now.”

“Give me a hand. I need to see it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, Denny. I’m sure.”

Matt reached out for Cabrera’s arm, holding on until he found his balance. After a few moments they made their way over to the SUV and watched as the investigator from the coroner’s office gave the nod. Then the corpse was hoisted out of the vehicle and into a blue body bag set atop another stretcher. Matt could hear shards of broken glass raining onto the pavement as the body was moved. He could smell the blood, the meat. When someone tried to zip up the bag, he grabbed their hand and pushed it away.

He needed to take a look at the murder victim. A long last look, no matter how deep it cut.

Cabrera switched on his flashlight, shining it on the corpse. “It’s like this, Matt. We haven’t been able to reach the manager at that GM dealership in Glendale. But the victim’s a male and, according to Gainer here, about the right age. The driver’s-side window was down, like he was talking to somebody. His wallet’s missing, and we haven’t found a watch or any jewelry. Glendale PD has agreed to pick up his girlfriend and bring her down to the coroner’s office for a possible ID.”

Matt glanced at the investigator from the coroner’s office and nodded. He had met Ed Gainer a year ago when a drug deal ended in a shoot-out on Main Street in Venice.