He broke the hug and kissed her again, softly, on the side of the mouth.

"I think we need to celebrate the occasion. You want to get dinner?"

She sighed and gave a shaky smile. She had already broken through an emotional barrier by confessing her feelings to him. What harm could it do to continue being blatantly honest with him now?

"I do think we need to celebrate," she said. "But right now, at this very moment, I'm not too interested in dinner."

"So what do you want to do?" he asked.

His obliviousness was beyond charming. She leaned in and whispered into his ear, enjoying the feel of him against her and the smell of his skin.

"Let's go to your place."

He pulled away and looked at her with the same seriousness as before, but now there was something else there, too. It was something she had seen in his eyes from time to time-something that looked very much like excitement and was born out of a physical need.

"Yeah?" he said uncertainly.

"Yeah," she said.

As they hurried across the gra.s.s, toward the parking lot where they had both parked their cars, they were giggling like children. It was fitting, as Avery could not recall the last time she had felt so liberated, excited, and free.

The pa.s.sion they had experienced while along the river was still there as Ramirez unlocked his apartment door. There was a part of Avery that wanted to jump him right there and then, before he even had time to shut the door behind him. They'd lightly pawed at one another the whole ride to his place and now that they were there, Avery felt like they were on the precipice of something monumental.

When Ramirez closed the door and locked it, Avery was surprised when he didn't come to her right away. Instead, he walked through the living room and into his modest kitchen, where he poured himself a gla.s.s of water.

"Water?" he asked.

"No thanks," she said.

He drank from his gla.s.s and looked out the kitchen window. Night had fallen and the city lights sparkled through the gla.s.s.

Avery joined him in the kitchen and playfully took the gla.s.s of water from him. "What's the matter?" she asked.

"I don't want to say," he said.

"Do you...well, have you changed your mind about me?" she asked. "Did all the waiting make you stop wanting me?"

"G.o.d no," he said. He put his arms around her waist and she could see him trying to form the right words.

"We can wait," she said, hoping he wouldn't take her up on it.

"No," he said, a little urgently. "It's just....s.h.i.t, I don't know."

This was a surprise to Avery. With all of his masterful flirtation and seductive talk over the last few months, she was sure he would have been a little aggressive when and if the time ever came. But right now, he seemed unsure of himself-almost nervous.

She leaned in and kissed the corner of his jaw. He sighed and leaned in against her.

"What is it?" she asked, her lips brushing his skin as she spoke.

"It's just that this is real now, you know? This isn't just some one-night stand. This is for real. I care about you a lot, Avery. I really do. And I don't want to rush things."

"We've been dancing around this for the last four months," she said. "I don't think that's rushing."

"Good point," he said. He kissed her on the cheek, then on the little bit of shoulder her T-shirt was showing. His lips then found her neck and when he kissed her there, she thought she might collapse to the floor right on the spot, pulling him down with her.

"Ramirez?" she said, still playfully refusing to use his first name.

"Yeah?" he asked, his face still brushing against her neck and applying kisses.

"Take me to the bedroom."

He pulled her close, hoisted her up, and allowed her to wrap her legs around his waist. They started kissing then and he obeyed her. He slowly carried her to the bedroom and by the time he shut the bedroom door, Avery was so lost in the moment that she never even heard it close.

All she was aware of was his hands, his mouth, his well-toned body pressing against hers as he laid her down on the bed.

He broke their kiss long enough to ask: "Are you sure about this?"

And if she needed one more reason to want him, that was it. He genuinely cared about her and did not want to ruin what they had.

She nodded and pulled him down onto her.

And then for a while, she was not a frustrated Homicide detective or a struggling mother, or a daughter who had watched her mother die at her father's hands. She was just Avery Black then...a woman like any other woman, enjoying the pleasures life had to offer.

She'd almost forgotten what that was like.

And once she started to get acquainted with them, she vowed to herself that she would never allow herself to forget them again.

CHAPTER THREE.

Avery opened her eyes and looked at the unfamiliar ceiling over her head. The muted light of dawn came in through the bedroom window, spilling across her mostly naked body. It also painted Ramirez's naked back beside her. She turned over slightly and smiled sleepily. He was still asleep, his face turned away from her.

They'd made love twice the night before, taking two hours between each session to make a quick dinner and discuss how sleeping together could complicate their working relationship if they weren't careful. It had been close to midnight when they had finally drifted off side by side. Avery had been drowsy and could not remember when she'd fallen asleep but she did remember his arm around her waist.

She wanted that again...that feeling of being wanted and being secure. She thought about running her fingertips along the base of his spine (as well as a few other places, perhaps) just to wake him up so he could hold her.

But she did not get the chance. The text alarm of her phone went off. So did Ramirez's. They pinged together, an occasion that could only mean one thing: it was work-related.

Ramirez sat up quickly. When he did, the sheet slid off of him and revealed everything. Avery snuck a peek, unable to resist herself. He grabbed his phone from the bedside table and looked at it with bleary eyes. While he did this, Avery retrieved her own phone from the pile of clothes on the floor.

The text was from Dylan Connelly, the A1 Homicide Supervisor. In Connelly's typical fashion, the message was direct and to the point: Body discovered. Burned badly. Maybe trauma to head.

Get your a.s.s to abandoned construction lot on Kirkley St NOW.

"Well, that's nice to wake up to first thing in the morning," she grumbled.

Ramirez climbed off the bed, still completely naked, and hunkered down on the floor with her. He pulled her close to him and said, "Yeah, this is nice to wake up to first thing in the morning."

She leaned into him, a little alarmed at how insanely content she was in that moment. She grumbled again and got to her feet.

"s.h.i.t," she said. "We're going to be late to the scene. I need to get my car and get back home for a change of clothes."

"We'll be okay," Ramirez said as he started getting dressed. "I'll text back in few minutes, while we're on the way to your car. You s.p.a.ce yours out. Maybe the text sound didn't wake you. Maybe it took me calling you to wake you up."

"That sounds deceptive," she said, sliding her shirt on.

"That's clever is what it is," he said.

They smiled at each other as they finished getting dressed. They then went into the bathroom, where Avery did her best to make sense of her hair while Ramirez brushed his teeth. They hurried to the kitchen and Avery threw together two bowls of cereal.

"As you can see," she said, "I'm quite the cook."

He hugged her from behind and seemed to breathe her in. "Are we going to be okay?" he asked. "We can make this work, right?"

"I think so," she said. "Let's go out there and give it a try."

They wolfed down their cereal, spending most of the time looking at one another, trying to gauge the other's reaction to what had happened last night. From what Avery could tell, he was just as happy as she was.

They headed out the front door but before Ramirez closed it behind them, he stopped. "Wait, back inside for a minute."

Confused, she stepped back inside.

"Inside," he said, "we're off the clock. Not really officially partners, right?"

"Right," Avery said.

"So I can do this one more time," he said.

He leaned in and kissed her. It was a dizzying kiss, one with enough force to cause her knees to sag a bit. She playfully pushed him away. "Like I said before," she said, "don't start. Not unless you intend to finish."

"Rain check," he said. He then led her outside and closed the door behind them this time. "Okay, on the clock now. Lead the way, Detective Black."

They went with Ramirez's plan. She did not return Connelly's text for another sixteen minutes. By that time, she was nearly back to her apartment and still quite giddy over the way last night had played out. She managed to get dressed, grab coffee, and hit the street again in less than ten minutes. The result, of course, was arriving at the scene on Kirkley Street roughly half an hour later than Connelly would have preferred.

There were several officers already milling around. They were all familiar faces, faces that she had come to know and respect since becoming a Homicide detective. The looks on their faces this morning clued her in to the fact that this was going to be a very long and bitter morning.

One of the people she saw in attendance was Mike O'Malley. She found it alarming that the captain would be out here so soon. As the head over most of Boston PD, he was rarely seen in the hustle and bustle of everyday crime scenes, no matter how vile they might be. O'Malley was currently speaking to two other officers, one of which was Finley. Avery had grown to respect Finley as an officer even though he tended to be a little too aloof for her liking.

She spotted Ramirez right away; he was chatting with Connelly on the far side of the abandoned lot.

As she made her way over to Ramirez and Connelly, she took in the scene as best she could. She'd been through this part of town several times but had never paid it any real attention. It was one of the many financial blights on this end of town, an area where enthusiastic developers had sunk tons of money into property only to see the property lose its value and potential buyers quickly run away. Once the housing efforts had shut down, the area had gone back to ruin. And it seemed to fit well with the surroundings.

Twin smokestacks could be seen in the distance, rising up like blemished giants. They both sent broken plumes of smoke into the air, giving the morning an overcast sort of feel-but only in this part of town. On the other side of the abandoned lot, Avery could see the edges of what could have been a promising little creek that would have run along behind the properties of upper-middle-cla.s.s houses. Now, it was taken over by an overgrowth of weeds and brambles. Plastic bags, snack wrappers, and other litter were stuck in the dead weeds. The shallow banks were muddy and neglected, adding a whole new stagnant level to the sludge of it all.

Overall, this area had become a part of town that just about anyone would gladly skip over. Avery knew the feeling; taking it all in as she closed in on Ramirez and Connelly, the area instantly made her feel burdened.

An area like this can't be a coincidence, she thought. If someone killed here or even just dumped a body here, it has to have some significance...either to the murder itself or to the killer.

Immediately to the left of Finley and Ramirez, an officer had just finished putting up thin red stakes to border off a rectangular section of the lot. As Avery's eyes fell on what rested inside that rectangle, Connelly's voice boomed at her from just a few feet away.

"d.a.m.n, Black...what took you so long?"

"Sorry," she said. "I slept right through the text buzz. Ramirez called me and woke me up."

"Well, you aren't late because you were busy doing your hair or makeup, that's for d.a.m.ned sure," Connelly remarked.

"She doesn't need makeup," Ramirez said. "That s.h.i.t's for girls."

"Thanks, guys," Avery said.

"Whatever," Connelly said. "So what do you think of this?" he asked, nodding down to the rectangle drawn out by the red stakes.

Inside of the marked-off area, she saw what she a.s.sumed were human remains. Most of what she saw was a skeletal structure but it seemed to gleam. There was no age to it. It was unmistakably a skeleton that had very recently been robbed of its flesh. All around it was what appeared to be ash or some sort of grime. Here and there, she saw what may have been muscle and tissue clinging to the skeleton, particularly around the legs and the ribs.

"What the h.e.l.l happened?" she asked.

"Well, what a great question for our best detective to start with," Connelly said. "But here's what we know so far. About an hour and fifteen minutes ago, a woman out for her morning run put in a call about what she described as something that looked like a weird Satanic ritual. It led us to this."

Avery hunkered down by the red markers and peered into the area. An hour and ten minutes ago. That meant that if the black stuff around the skeleton was ash, this skeleton had been covered in skin at least an hour and a half ago. But that didn't seem likely. It would take some sick determination and planning to kill someone and then miraculously burn them down to nothing but bone in such a short amount of time. In fact, she thought it would be next to impossible.

"Anyone have evidence gloves?" she asked.

"One second," Ramirez said.

As he ran to Finley and the other officers who had stepped back to allow Avery some room, she also noticed a smell in the area. It was faint but noticeable-a chemical smell that was almost like bleach to her nose.

"Anyone else smell that?" she asked.

"Some sort of chemical, right?" Connelly asked. "We figure a chemical-induced burn is the only way you can fry a body like this one so quickly."

"I'm not thinking the burn was done here," she said.

"How can you be so sure?" Connelly asked.

I'm not, she thought. But the only thing that makes sense to me at first guess seems pretty d.a.m.ned absurd.

"Avery-" Connelly said.