“Who was that?”

I looked over at Sanders and shrugged. “No clue. Okay, every lead we’ve gotten has been a dead end. Let’s review the footage from the store again, look at all the people who entered after him and left before or right after he did. Let’s get all the cars we can see from the outer cameras, and make sure they all match people who were accounted for in the store.” I loosened my tie and ran a hand through my hair. “I need more coffee first, want some?”

Sanders looked over at me like I was stupid. “We’ve been at this for almost thirty hours. What do you think?”

“That you need to get your own damn coffee if you’re going to be a bastard, gramps. I got called in same time you did, I’m just as tired as you are, and I’m just as lost about this case as you are. Don’t be a dick to me because we’re not getting anywhere,” I snapped and walked over to the coffee station.

Sanders and I were complete opposites, but when we worked together, we were damn good. To have a case that left us completely clueless was frustrating for both of us. We needed to go home and get some f**king sleep before we tore into each other.

The victim had been shot three times as he’d exited a store in a nice part of the city. He lived alone, and nothing had been stolen or happened to his house before or after the shooting; he still had his wallet with all his money and credit cards on him, and he had no ties to gangs or drug trafficking. No witnesses saw him get shot, but the way it was done was like someone was getting revenge, or sending a sign. And where he’d been standing was out of range of the outside cameras. All his immediate and extended family lived in the Midwest and couldn’t believe what had happened when we’d called. According to them, and everyone he worked with, he was the nicest guy and kept to himself. I’d been sure we’d find something when we tore apart his apartment, but there’d been nothing. We’d just finished going over his phone records when my phone rang. Other than work and family . . . there was nothing. Murder was what I faced with my job; more often that not, it was gang or drug related. But these cases where the victims were completely innocent were something that just tore you apart. The need to solve them intensified, so you could give the family some kind of peace.

After getting both Sanders’s coffee and mine, I walked back over to our desks and handed him his. “Come on, let’s go review the footage again.”

Two and a half hours later, Sanders and I were more frustrated than we’d been before. There was nothing, and in the large gap between outdoor cameras, there were multiple lanes the shooter’s car could have gone down, but none had gone through both cameras at the right timing. We were getting ready to do a press briefing with news outlets about what had happened, asking for help and any information, before we called it a night, when my phone rang again.

I practically lunged for my desk, hoping for some kind of information. But it was a call much like the one I’d received after we’d finished going over the phone records. Different voice—this one actually had a number—and, unfortunately, he tried to keep the conversation going as he kept calling me Daddy. When I ran the number through the system, it came back as a pay phone, and I was left even more confused . . . and seriously f**king disturbed. But I was so drained, discouraged from the case, and pissed off for the victim and his family that I couldn’t muster the energy to want to figure out what was going on with the phone calls.

When I got home, taped to my door was an envelope with the words “Bro, have you seen this? They’re everywhere!” scrawled across it. I pulled out the brightly colored paper as I looked up and down the hall for anyone who might have left the note, unfolded it, and did a double take when I saw my picture blown up on it. Across the top in large, bold writing was SWM LOOKING FOR SBM WHO WILL CALL ME DADDY. IF INTERESTED, CALL ME! SMOOCHES.

Honest to God, below my picture was my cell number.

Too far. Too far. Too f**king far. I wasn’t breathing, and the hall was spinning around me. My hand shot out in front of me to grip the frame of my door as I took deep breaths in and out until I felt like I could stay standing again.

When I hadn’t been at work, or when I’d taken breaks to clear my head from the case, I’d been miserable thinking about how Maci and I still hadn’t talked. I hated thinking about her marrying that self-entitled douche, and yet, I still couldn’t make myself do anything about it, because I knew I should leave her alone. Cassidy had ruined me for half a year, and even she hadn’t consumed me like Maci was.

I don’t know why everything suddenly changed between us, and I don’t know why I’d never noticed her. It’d been a week since she’d brought me out of the Cassidy-haze. And it didn’t matter that it’d only been a week, or that half that time had been us pissed at each other. Those seven days had somehow felt like years of torture as I kept myself from her. But then she goes and pulls this shit? I flipped through my keys until I found hers and stormed into her apartment, already yelling before I even found her back in her bedroom.

“You’re messing with my career! Maci, don’t you get that? I’m a detective, people on the streets know me, there are a lot of law enforcement who will see that picture and know it’s me!”

She sat up and a soft smile crossed her face briefly before she could hide it and give me a puzzled look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t have time for your bullshit!” I slapped the flyer down on her bed near her feet and alternated pointing between it and her. “Where did you put all of these? You need to go take them down! You really think this is funny?”