LITMIR.BIZ

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It had to be the coffee, she thought as she took another sip. It certainly couldn’t be the food.

      Across the table of the window booth they shared, Gavin was finishing his own breakfast. Claudia watched him spear another piece of omelette and fought back the urge to reach across with her fork to sample some. She’d have done exactly that, a year ago, when it would’ve been Frank sitting with her. And, while she did that, he would have been stealing her last slice of bacon.

      As usual, she tried to clamp down on the nostalgia.

      “So you met James Silver only a couple times?” Gavin had asked the question already once after she’d explained Frank’s connection to the dead PI. Even so, a glimmer of suspicion wavered in his voice as he studied her over the rim of his juice glass.

      “That’s right,” she assured him again. “What? You think I’d lie about something like that? Why would I?”

      “Maybe so you could stay on the case?”

      “Please. Give me a little credit for professionalism. I understand what conflict of interest is. If I had actually been friends with Silver, I’d remove myself from the case, all right?”

      “All right.” The defensiveness in his voice attested to the bite she’d heard in her own, and immediately Claudia regretted her harshness.

      “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to snap. It’s just…I’ve had a long twenty-four hours, you know?”

      “Sure.”

      Gavin reached across the table and snagged her last piece of bacon on the end of his fork. Speechless, she watched him take one bite and then pop the rest into his mouth. For ten months, she’d been returning to Jimmy’s for breakfast, and for ten months, she’d always left that last slice of bacon. Until this morning no one had touched it.

      He must have seen her surprise because he said, “Oh, I’m sorry. Were you saving that?”

      “Not at all.”

      He nodded, finishing the bacon. “Look, you’re right. It’s been a long twenty-four hours for you. Maybe you should just call it a day. I can look through Silver’s files myself and—”

      “No way.” She took another swig of coffee. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy. I’m still among the living. Another cup of coffee and I’m good to go. We’ll head back and check out Silver’s office, see if we can figure out what cases he’d been working on these past few days, who he’s been talking to, and who he may have ticked off.”

      “Honestly, Claudia, I can handle it.”

      “It’ll take us half the time working together. Besides, I have the next couple days off. After this, I’ve got a twelve-hour power nap scheduled, followed by a full-night’s sleep.” She flagged down the waitress for one more refill and the check. “Besides, I could use some work to help me forget yesterday.”

      Gavin nodded. “I heard about the Brown case.”

      Of course he had heard. By now the entire unit would know about her case being thrown out of court.

      “Yeah. Lamont Brown.” Closing her eyes briefly, Claudia massaged the bridge of her nose. She was tired, and if it wasn’t for her personal interest in Silver’s murder, she would take Gavin up on his offer and go home right now.

      “I heard the judge dismissed for lack of evidence.”

      Claudia nodded. “I shouldn’t let it bother me. It was just another drug-related shooting, you know? So what if Brown walks on this one? He’s a punk. In no time he’ll be back, clogging up the system, arrested on some other charge. He’ll do his time eventually.”

      “You’d just hoped it would be your charge that put him away, right? Hey, you don’t have to explain to me. I understand.”

      When she looked across to Gavin, she met his reassuring smile. It was the kind of don’t-let-the-bad-guys-get-you-down expression Frank would have given her, and at that moment, Claudia hated that Gavin reminded her of him, that their working relationship—so new—had already begun to take on nuances of what she’d had with Frank as a partner.

      She blinked. Again forcing back the unwanted memories.

      “Of course it would’ve been nice if my charge had been the one to put Brown away,” she said, trying to stay focused on the conversation. “I put a lot of time into that case, piecing it together, interviewing dozens of witnesses, preparing the reports. Only to have it all thrown out because the murder weapon went missing. That gun was on the scene. I pointed it out to the techs. Heck, I even saw them bag it, and then I saw it down at Evidence Control myself. But somewhere between me and the lab, that gun must have grown legs and walked off on its own, because it was never seen again. I had Lori turn the place upside down trying to find it.”

      “And they hadn’t run any tests on it before it disappeared?”

      “No ballistics. No fingerprints. Nothing. They hadn’t gotten a chance before it went missing. And now it’s as if that gun never existed except in the crime-scene photos. It’s my own fault.”

      “How is it your fault?”

      Claudia shrugged. “I should have walked the gun down to the lab myself. I should have watched them run the tests I needed.”

      “That’s not your job, Claudia.”

      “No, but it’s my job to see that the investigation is run properly, that witnesses and suspects…and especially evidence is handled correctly. And in this case, it wasn’t. So, instead of a smoking gun with the suspect’s prints all over it, we got zilch. It falls on me. Doesn’t make me look too good. Not to mention the fact that the state’s attorney is all over me with accusations.”

      “Accusations?”

      She’d said more than she should have. Even to Tony—with whom she’d worked for three years—Claudia hadn’t revealed as much about the Brown case, nor had she mentioned the state’s attorney’s threats.

      But for some reason, with Gavin Monaghan, Claudia felt more willing to discuss yesterday’s proceedings at the courthouse. Maybe she was tired, she thought as she stared at him across the Formica-topped table. Or maybe it was Gavin’s eyes. Something about him made her want to trust, even though trusting had never come naturally to her.

      “It’s probably nothing,” she said, trying to minimize its importance.

      “Come on, Claudia, accusations from the State’s Attorney Office aren’t generally ‘nothing.”’

      “It was just a warning really. After the judge dismissed it, the state’s attorney pulled me aside and basically implied that if it weren’t for my otherwise flawless record, the office would suspect me of getting rid of the gun for a bribe, and they’d be looking to accuse me of evidence tampering.”

      Gavin seemed to consider her revelation for a moment before responding. “Well, I wouldn’t let it get to you. It happens to the best of us,” he offered, calmly wiping his mouth and tossing his napkin onto his empty plate.

      “It doesn’t happen to me. I mean, maybe that sounds arrogant, but as much work and precision as I put into the Brown case—all my cases—well, that gun going missing…it shouldn’t have happened. It’s a sign of sloppy police work. Bottom line.”

      “So is that how you explain what happened to your partner then? Seems he had a similar problem with evidence ‘growing legs.’ Are you saying that was sloppy detective work?”

      Maybe ten months of grieving had drained most of the fight out of her. Maybe, after finally believing that Frank had taken his own life, Claudia no longer felt as strong an impulse to jump to his defense. Or maybe it was just something about Gavin. Because instead of the usual surge of resentment that a comment like his would have normally spurred within her, Claudia found herself able to bite her tongue and respond calmly.

      “Frank

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