He grabbed Tina’s wrist and clinically took her pulse.

“I can make it,” Tina pleaded, even as she knew she must be growing pale, her dripping blood a steady drumbeat on the upside-down roof of the car. She hadn’t felt anything in her womb for such a long time….

“Pulse is weak. I’m… I’m going to diagnose as critical.”

Isley flinched, knowing what that meant. Tina panicked, clutching at Felton’s arm. He withdrew from the car as if burned.

“Let the record show that at, uh 9:51 p.m…. The patient, the victim, was humanely euthanized.”

Tina reached desperately for him, unable to accept that everything she’d survived so far would come to this. “NO! Please, I’m pregnant, for God’s sake! You can’t… Let’s wait for the truck, I can—” 

Felton pointed a gun at her. Tina threw her arms up protectively, shielding her head. “Oh, God, no….”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and squeezed the trigger three times in rapid succession. The first shot went through Tina’s elbow and into the seat but the second two bullets passed through her brain. 

Tina went slack, arms dangling from her seat. Her fingers nearly brushed the purse she’d been trying to reach. But not quite.

Isley looked stunned, as if he didn’t think his partner would actually go through with it.

“Jesus Christ! You killed her!”

“No shit.” Felton drew back, holstered his sidearm. He was shaken but relieved to have gotten that over with. “Better change that call to a meatwagon.”

Felton looked at Tina’s lifeless face and whispered, “I’m sorry.”








CHAPTER TWO


WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT


THE STREETS OF Seattle seemed to soak up an endless amount of rain. Whatever the heavens threw at those asphalt thoroughfares and concrete parking lots, they just drank it up. There was one thing the city hadn’t lost since the virus hit town: good drainage.

Winter Masakawa considered telling his partner this, but it was time to order espresso.

“Gimme a white chocolate mocha, the biggest size you got,” he said, leaning from the passenger seat to address the guy in the “Espresso Yourself” drive-thru window. In doing so, Winter was acutely aware of his proximity to the woman behind the wheel of their police Interceptor. 

She smelled faintly of lilac soap and shampoo, her breath just tickling his neck when he leaned over her lap. The heat of her body was also subtly detectible, or at least it seemed so to Winter. 

But, of course, he was in love with her.

“Decaf nonfat latte, medium,” Nicolette Waters ordered. Her slightly rough, businesslike voice was about an octave lower than the average girl’s. He loved listening to her talk because she spoke precisely but without calculation, and in pleasantly resonant tones. Based on a couple of epic karaoke nights he knew for a fact her singing voice was above average, even if she couldn’t carry a tune to save her life.

“Been too quiet lately,” Winter remarked. “I’m getting fat.”

“You were always fat.”

“Ha ha. Anyway, like I was saying… This guy was a park ranger, so he was always away from his family for weeks at a time. Well, something happened to him up in the Canadian Rockies — who knows, point is he buys it. One night, I wanna say about six weeks later — guess who finds his way back to his own front door? Like a lost dog.”

“No way.”

“This is absolutely true. Guy must have crossed 50 miles of rough terrain on foot, but something led him home.”

“I call bullshit. Let’s have the punchline.”

Winter smiled, enjoying the way the spark of interest lit up her eyes. Nic’s peepers were a deep walnut brown, nothing special maybe, but the kind of eyes that really seemed to change to suit the emotions at play behind them. Expressive. That was the word.

Which was not to discount the fact that, again, Winter Masakawa was in love with his partner.

“No punchline.