Love Lies Bleeding by Remmy Duchene (carter reed txt) 📕

file he'd been fussing over. Someone shouted his nickname across the room. His partner, Daniel Fergis, was running toward him, waving a white piece of paper in the air.

"Whoa! Hold your horses. What's going on?" Leo asked.

"Kim, I don't know how to say this to you."

"Come on. It's me you're talking to. And besides, you look like someone kicked your cat. Tell me."

Daniel hesitated for a moment, rubbed a hand over his face before meeting Leo's gaze. There was a kind of sadness in his eyes that almost broke Leo's heart. He gripped Daniel's shoulders and shook.

"Judge Williams is dead."

"What'd you mean, he's dead?"

"I'll explain as we go."

Daniel grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and Leo reached for his gun and badge from his desk and did the same with his jacket. They bolted out the door and toward their car. It seemed strange to Leo Jazmon Williams was dead. The man was always so much larger than life—such a strong champion for justice. Still, he remained quiet.

The siren blared and the car surged through the traffic from the center of New York City. He stared out the window, watching the objects outside blaze by the car in a flurry of confused swoosh.

"You've been quiet," Daniel pointed out.

"I just don't know what to say right now."

"I knew this would hit you more than it would the rest of us. You knew the guy. I grabbed the case because of it, but you have to focus on the case and not your relationship."

Leo turned from the view to look at his partner. Daniel's brown hair lay against his head perfectly, his muscular jawline stood rigidly as though he was grinding his teeth. "You saying I'll let my personal feelings taint the case?" Leo questioned.

"I'm saying you're human."

Leo turned his attention back to the view outside the car. They swerved in and out of traffic until they pulled up before the large condos. From the outside it looked like an old relic. But once they walked through the front doors, it had the air of a modern upscale building. They took the elevator up the stairs and he found the room by the two uniforms stationed outside. He pushed his coat out of the way to show them the badge attached to his belt then ducked under the yellow tape across the doorway. He checked to see Daniel had followed him in.

"Detective!"

Leo waved at Isha, their medical examiner, and hurried over.

"Okay, Isha, fill me in."

"Are you sure you should be here?" Isha Reyes questioned, hands on her hips and concern filling her brown eyes.

Leo swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. "Of course I should be here. We have a homicide, right?"

Isha glanced at Daniel as though looking for permission but shrugged.

"We have a dead judge," she explained. "I could explain it to you but you should see for yourself."

Leo walked ahead of her in the direction she motioned and entered the room slowly. Instantly the stench of death assaulted his senses. The room was clean, almost too clean—except for the streaks of blood on the wall. Just beside the dresser were the words Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before.

"What the hell does that even mean?" Daniel questioned from beside him.

"I think it's a quote Edgar Allan Poe's, "The Raven"."

"The what now?"

"It's a poem. I didn't understand it the first fifty times I read the damn thing." Leo replied before he hunched down beside Isha. "I could be wrong. Who knows?"

The judge was decapitated with the head sitting directly between the legs. "Tell me how does someone cut someone's head off and there isn't more blood?"

"I don't know. Maybe he did it in the bathtub?"

Daniel exited the room then quickly returned. "No. The bathroom is immaculate. There's a bit of blood in the hall but that still doesn't make up for it all. The guys are making sure they swab everything, especially the drains, to make sure we don't miss anything. Maybe the killer got blood on him or even sustained a cut in the process—he or she may have washed before leaving."

Leo questioned the officers about the rest of the house then returned to his position beside Isha, Leo, and the judge's body. He came to one startling conclusion. "Shit. This is not the primary crime scene then.

"He's been dead for less than five hours," Danish said retrieving her thermometer. I can't tell you anything more until I get him back to my table. But I'll put a rush on it."

"I'd appreciate that," Leo thanked her.

"There's something else I thought you would like to see," Isha said simply. "I sent a sample to the lab to get an official record of it but… well… follow me."

Leo followed obediently to the sunroom where sitting on a plate was a part of a plant. "I don't know what that is." Leo bent to eye the piece of plant.

"I know what it is but I just can't put my finger on it. I know growing up as a child my neighbor had a whole field of it behind her house after her husband walked out on her. Maybe it means something to your case."

"Have the forensic guys take a picture of it? It'd be good to have the image."

She nodded.

He excused himself and walked through the house himself, giving it a once over and scribbling down notes in his little notepad. When he was finished, he made his way back to the officers at the door.

"Who found the body?"

"His son." Isha's voice sounded sad. "The man's outside throwing up his stomach."

Shit. I forgot about Anderson.

Leo nodded before turning to address an officer. "Take me to him."

Silently, he followed the uniform out the building to a low wall where a rather large, African American male sat, back hunched and fingers laced tightly in his lap. He looked as though he was dressed for a night out but other than that, there was nothing else happy about him. Leo