A clean suicide scene, a grieving boyfriend, and a look that promises Tara Mendoza is the next one on the floor.
The Silver Lining is Lead
The humidity in the apartment was a physical weight, smelling of stale cigarettes and the metallic tang of copper. Susan Wilson lay on the Persian rug, her blonde hair fanned out like a halo around the jagged ruin of her temple. Twenty years old. A lifetime of mistakes ahead of her, cut short by a single .38 caliber “solution.”
“Open and shut, Mendoza,” Detective Miller grunted, snapping his notebook shut. “Note’s on the nightstand. Door was bolted. It’s a clean suicide.”
Tara Mendoza didn’t move. She tracked the trajectory from the wound to the splatter on the baseboard. The angles were wrong—too precise, too clinical. Her gaze drifted to the sofa where Rico, the boyfriend, sat hunched over a smartphone. He was whispering into the receiver, his shoulders shaking with the rhythmic tremors of a man in mourning.
To Miller, he looked broken. To Tara, he looked like a chimp mimicking human grief for a piece of fruit.
“He’s devastated,” Miller sighed, heading for the door. “Wrap it up, Tara.”
As the door clicked shut, Rico’s sobbing stopped instantly. He straightened his spine, the “grief” evaporating like mist in a furnace. He didn’t look at the body. He looked at Tara. His eyes weren’t wet; they were obsidian, hard and predatory. He tucked the phone away and gave her a slow, jagged smile—the kind of look a wolf gives a sheepdog when the farmer isn’t looking.
Tara reached for her holster, her pulse drumming a frantic rhythm against her ribs. Rico stood up, his hand sliding slowly into the deep pocket of his leather jacket.
“You should’ve listened to your partner, Detective,” he whispered.
How does Tara survive the next thirty seconds? Does she pull her weapon, or is she already too late? You decide the final blow.