Guilt burned a hole in his stomach. He never should have gone upstairs. A promotion to investigator could have waited. After all, Hudson was staring down the barrel of another twenty years in law enforcement. He could have stayed with Garrison for his last few months before retirement. Had the tables been turned, Garrison would have done it for him.

Investigator Devine escorted the female witness outside, likely to find her a ride home, since the suspect had stolen her car. Hudson had observed Devine interviewing her earlier. She’d sat in the candy aisle with her knees tucked into her chest, rocking backward and forward, like a buoy stranded in a low tide.

Now, he heard Investigator Fletcher interviewing the cashier. According to the man’s statement, he’d been held at gunpoint by a suspect clothed in all black: long-sleeve shirt, pants, and a balaclava, the fabric of which had been bunched up to expose a patch of light-colored skin. “Anything unique about him?” Fletcher asked. “Identifying features like scars, tattoos?”

“He had a mark on his neck,” was all the cashier said.

“Anything else? Approximate height and weight? Eye color?”

Hudson stared at the floor. Saw the pool of blood becoming more viscous in the cold. Saw Fletcher’s snakeskin cowboy boots. And he focused on them, anything to not look at Garrison. His eyes traced the outline of the pointed toes, scales carved in rounded diamond patterns, rivers of black that divided the continents of greys. Who wore cowboy boots in the city?

Fletcher scribbled something in his memo pad, shoved it in his back pocket.

Devine returned inside and joined his partner. “You got surveillance?” he asked the cashier.

“No. The camera’s been busted…”

Their voices were drowned out by the blood rushing in Hudson’s ears. Any other time, any other victim, he would have listened intently for any morsel he could pick up and file away for later to help solve the case, for when he built his own case to move to the Robberies Unit once Fletcher’s or Devine’s time was up. But tonight’s victim was Garrison, and Wesson PD—the neighboring jurisdiction—would be taking over anyway. He was just here to stand watch until Medical Examiner Winthorp arrived and pronounced Garrison dead at the scene.

“Fuck me.” Breaker stood beside him. His eyes were bloodshot. “You all right?”

Hudson set his jaw, locking in a sob. He tried to nod. He was all right, considering he still had a pulse. “You call Noelle?”

“I was just leaving to go over there. Did you want to come?”

Hudson swallowed. He couldn’t imagine showing up at Garrison’s house, ringing the doorbell, seeing his wife and daughter’s faces when Breaker delivered the news.

Breaker took his silence as a no. He set his hand on Hudson’s shoulder. “You should go home. Tell Miserelli to come sit with you. This is Wesson’s investigation anyway.” He left, then, to inform Noelle Garrison she was now a widow.