Poker Face

by Noelle Winters

Mocha placed a paw on her knee and looked up at her. She wasn’t the type of beagle that did kisses, but she loved having her ears scratched. She was much too dignified for any other type of attention.

  Snapping the leash on Mocha’s harness, Liv turned off all the lights and ensured all the equipment had been cleaned. She needed to do some prep for tomorrow, but she could do that later. Or River could do it in the morning.

  Liv locked the coffee shop door behind her as she and Mocha ventured out into the dim sunshine. It was the Pacific Northwest, the sun was always hidden behind a veil of clouds, but she loved it nonetheless. As it was fall now, she could feel the light breeze on her skin. She had missed it being cool, after the humid heat of the summer.

  She knew Cairo still lived where she had grown up, albeit by herself now. Mentally tracing the path, she skirted the part of Amaranth that Ryan lived in.

  Even the thought of her name set off butterflies in Liv’s stomach. She forced them down, ignoring the increase in heart rate and the way her throat dried. It had been ten years since they had broken up, since things had ended, and even thinking of Ryan still did that to her. She was almost thankful for her grandmother’s memory loss. Gram never mentioned Ryan.

  The traitorous part of Liv couldn’t help but wonder what Ryan was up to now. What had she done with her life? Had she stayed in town, become a police officer like she’d wanted to? Had she ever been brave enough to ask someone on a date? Or was she still single?

  The rhythmic thump of her feet on the concrete sidewalks comforted her. It wasn’t a long walk to Cairo’s, but it was long enough that she could clear her head. Her purse hung from her shoulder, the pastry tucked in there.

  Liv took a deep breath when she got to the intersection she had been dreading. She could almost see Ryan’s house, a delicate blue single-story with plain white windows.

  “That’s not creepy,” she muttered to herself. She didn’t know what Ryan was doing for a living (and had asked River and Abby not to tell her), but she remembered what her house looked like. Ryan had stayed in her childhood home. Liv had left.

  She shoved the thoughts out of her mind and continued forward, towards Cairo’s house. It wasn’t far down the side street she took, three houses to the right. It looked eerie. Not like a haunted house, but while it looked good on the outside, she could see hints of disrepair. The shutters on the windows looked normal, but if she looked closer she could see the fraying paint. There were a few missing tiles, a scratch on the door that had been shoddily tended to.

  There was a car in the rocky driveway. Good, Cairo was home then. Liv and Mocha headed up the walkway, up the three steps to the door. Mocha sat next to Liv’s feet, oddly obedient.

  Liv smiled down at her before knocking on the door. No answer. She frowned at it, then knocked louder. She listened as hard as she could for any sign of Cairo rustling in the house.

  Nothing.

  She pushed the doorbell, hearing its ‘ding dong’ echo in the home. Still nothing.

  Maybe Cairo was sleeping, she rationalized to herself. Her grip got tighter on Mocha’s leash, uneasiness making goosebumps prickle on her arms. There was a small porch with the living room window. It was mostly covered with thick curtains, but they fluttered where they hung. Maybe Liv could get a glance inside.

  “I’m not a stalker,” she assured herself. As if that did anything. With Mocha right beside her, Liv inched onto the patio and looked into the window, trying various angles in order to see inside.

  The first thing she saw was the cards everywhere, strewn across the room as if someone had tossed them up in the air with no regard for what would happen when they came down.

  Mocha whuffed, her alarm causing Liv alarm. She pulled back, looking around. But there was no one there. Just them.

  Unease prickled across the nape of her neck. She turned back to the window, but her heart was racing now and her palms were sweating.

  Then she saw it. Saw the feet swaying in the air, back and forth, like a hypnotist’s watch. The feet were pointed down, like a broken marionette. Cairo wasn’t sleeping, Liv knew. She was dead.

  No one slept with a noose around their neck.

  She stepped back from the porch almost fast enough to trip over Mocha, then darted down to the end of the driveway, trying to catch her breath. 911. She needed to call the police.

  3

  Wednesday 28th September; 6pm

  “One, two, three, four,” Ryan chanted as she did pushups, her long dark hair falling in her face.

  “Five,” her partner, Dane, continued.

  They made it to nine before the phone rang. Ryan held herself in the plank position, her ab muscles straining, as Dane answered the phone.

  “Uh huh. Oh. Yup.” Then he hung it up. “Game’s up.”

  “You owe me a drink,” Ryan said as she stood up, brushing her hair back behind her ears. Her abs were complaining a touch, but she could have done plenty more push-ups if she needed to. Next time she’d put her hair up in a ponytail first. Her bangs were growing out and needed to be bobby-pinned back. Annoying.

  “Later.” Dane’s voice had shifted oddly serious. “There’s been a murder.”

  “Shit.” Ryan headed straight to her desk. “Leave in five?”

  Dane nodded, then Ryan turned back to her desk. She didn’t know if she or Dane would be the primary, but she had to be prepared. She cleaned off her desk, setting files aside. She couldn’t completely ignore her caseload, but homicides took priority.

  She lingered over one of the folders, guilt tugging at her. 19-year-old Jasmine Turner had gone missing a week ago, and the case had ended up on her desk. Her parents were frantic, but the leads were drying up. Her friends wouldn’t talk to her, especially once they found out she worked for the police.

  “Ready to go?” Dane’s voice caught her attention.

  “Yup.” Ryan tucked her ID into her pockets, ensuring everything was settled on her belt and her gun was properly holstered. She left Jasmine’s case file in her desk and headed after Dane. “Your car?”

  “I need gas,” Dane said, arching an eyebrow at her.

  Ryan rolled her eyes. “And you know my car has been topped up.”

  “You’re the workaholic, not me.” Dane just looked at her.

  Ryan let the comment roll off her shoulders. Yes, she did work closer to sixty or eighty hours a week than she should, but that was just how detective work went sometimes. Besides, it kept her from stopping by Liv’s coffee shop. Her ex-girlfriend, who was back in town after a decade.

  Even the thought of her name made Ryan’s stomach flip.

  They headed for Ryan’s cruiser, and she got in the driver’s seat. Dane was next to her, but he seemed distracted. She buckled herself in, turning the car on and pulling out of the lot. After almost thirty years in Amaranth, she knew where everyone lived.

  Dane had entered the force before her, and while he was technically her supervisor, they worked well together and had an easy camaraderie. He allowed her to handle her cases by herself, and she provided support on his when he needed them. They were the only two detectives on the Amaranth force, so they often worked cases on their own when needed. “What do we know about the case?” Ryan prompted.

  “What? Oh.” Dane shook his head at himself. He wasn’t that old, mid- thirties, with one kid and another on the way. His wife, Ruby, was a sweet woman who worked at the local school. Ryan was fond of both of them. You knew everyone, in towns as small as Amaranth.

  “Civilian saw the deceased hanging from a rope, called police. The witness is on site to talk to us when we get there, in case there’s anything the patrol officer didn’t ask.”

  “Good.” Ryan was relieved. “Do we know who it is?”

  Dane paused. “Nope.”

  Ryan side-eyed him, but let it go. He had been acting strange, but it wasn’t exactly illegal. “You okay?”

  Dane let out a yawn and rubbed his face. Suddenly he looked exhausted. “Ruby isn’t sleeping we
ll. She’s six months along now.”

  “Ah.” An unhappy pregnant wife would certainly explain the change. She nodded in sympathy, although her attention was on the road. “How’s Bella?” Their three-year-old kept them almost as busy.

  “Good,” Dane said with a nod.

  Ryan let the topic drop. The silence between them was comfortable, after all. Ryan had been with the Amaranth police department since she had started in the force. She had never left town, was born and bred there. Not that she had ever properly settled down. She lived in the small house she had grown up in by herself. Not even a pet. With her schedule, she never knew if she could get home in time to look after them. It’d been that way since she’d lost Liv.

  She promptly shoved Liv out of her mind. Nope. She totally didn’t think of her often. Denial was a river in Egypt, and all that.

  The case. She dragged her mind back to the present as she parked the cruiser just outside of the bright yellow tape that screamed ‘police’. Patrol officers already buzzed around the scene, and she could see one of them guarding the door to the house. There were a few onlookers, one of them equipped with a news van.

  That was surprising. Amaranth rarely made the news. “Is there something unusual about the case?” Ryan asked, her voice quiet.

  “Apparently.” Dane’s eyes were taking in the watchers, but Ryan distracted herself by slipping underneath the police tape and walking towards the closest patrol officer.

  “Detective Olsen,” Ryan said, showing him her badge.

  The patrol officer, a young man named Mike, seemed caught off guard, his eyes a bit too wide.

  Ryan looked at him expectantly.

  “Um, a lady called and reported seeing someone hanging in the living room.” He checked his notes. “We entered, found someone hanging. Paramedics declared the woman dead on arrival, so we roped off the scene and one of the officers called you in.”

  That still didn’t necessarily explain what the news crew was doing there, but Ryan could figure that out later.

  “Come on,” Dane said as he headed to the door. Ryan followed. First the crime scene, then talking to witnesses.

  Ryan followed him inside the door and then stopped, as if shock had rooted her to the spot.

  Dane stood next to her, his eyes wide.

  The woman was hanging from a door via a rope tied around her neck. It must have been tied to something inside the room behind the door, for her feet were dangling less than a foot above the ground.

  Ryan swallowed thickly. The image would be burned in her mind for a long time.

  “Once the paramedics pronounced her DOA, they left her the way she was.” Dane’s voice was soft. He pointed to her limbs. “Rigor mortis is almost complete.”

  “So, she’s been dead quite some time, then.” Ryan frowned. Rigor mortis didn’t normally start setting in until four to eight hours after death, and didn’t usually take the whole body until around thirteen or fourteen hours after death.

  They stood there for a few moments, Ryan only hearing the clicking of the photographer and the noise of the other forensic analysts as they worked around them. Then she finally caught sight of it. “What?”

  “That’s the other thing,” Dane said ruefully. He gestured to the entire room.

  Ryan had been so focused on the body that she had missed the obvious. There was a deck of cards, possibly more than one, strewn around the room, as if someone had thrown the deck up in the air and decided to see where it fell. “What the…?”

  “I have no idea.” Dane shook his head. “Techs are photographing it all.”

  There was a knock on the door, drawing Ryan’s attention. It was Elliot, their medical examiner, or ME. A tall, dark-haired woman, she was no-nonsense as she strode into the house. Despite the fact she looked all terrifying, she was actually pretty nice.

  Mostly. As long as you didn’t mess with her crime scenes, or her bodies.

  “All yours,” Dane said. Ryan nodded in agreement. There were still sketches to take and measurements, but the photos seemed to be done.

  Elliot nodded and turned to her work without saying anything to them. Ryan was fine with that - Elliot was more than talkative when she had her findings, and was in her element. The crime scene wasn’t her element, the autopsy table was.

  “Where’s the witness?” Ryan turned to look at the patrol officer who had brought them in.

  “Over there.” Mike nodded outside to the opposite side of the driveway. There was a woman crouched down, sitting on the curb with her knees up and her head between them.

  Nerves fluttered uneasily in Ryan’s stomach, and she shoved them away as she headed back outside, leaving Dane to supervise the crime scene. Of the two of them, she was the people person. There was something about the woman that was familiar, but she ignored it. She was dressed plainly, in jeans and a sweatshirt. Something moved, catching Ryan’s attention. Then she realized it was a dog. A beagle, to be precise.

  Mike gestured to her, and Ryan started walking forward. “The witness’s name is Olivia Evans,” he started.

  Ryan stopped listening. She stopped walking, too. Her stomach had given up on butterflies and turned into a fierce ocean storm instead. Nerves thrummed through her body, and her heart was racing. Her throat was dry, her palms sweaty. Was it nerves? Or desire?

  With Liv, she never knew.

  “Olivia, this is Detective Olsen.” Mike introduced the woman as she stood and turned to face Ryan.

  Memories flashed through Ryan’s mind like a projector had laid them out.

  Their mouths meeting, their bodies twining together.

  Ryan reaching out to help her, and Liv pushing her away.

  The moment they joined together.

  The moment they broke apart.

  “Liv,” Ryan managed.

  “Ryan.” Liv seemed equally stunned.

  Liv looked just as beautiful as she had been in high school. Dark hair, tied back in a ponytail. Sharp brown eyes, piercing Ryan’s blue ones even now. Her upper lip was thinner than the bottom one, but still kissable. Her nose was as sharp as her eyes, but it worked on her face.

  Liv’s face was pale. Shock. Ryan had seen that expression on many witnesses. Soon her body would start to shake, and the world would feel too small. She gestured to one of the paramedics, grabbing a warm blanket and wrapping it around Liv’s shoulders.

  Even after ten years apart, after everything that they had been through, the physical response was still there. Ryan’s blood was heating, warmth pooling in her middle. Shit. She hadn’t seen Liv in a decade and she could still do that to her.

  “You found the body?” Ryan tried to shift into professional detective mode. Concerned, caring, and disconnected, all at the same time.

  “Yeah.” Liv exhaled.

  Ryan nodded, trying to draw more out of her. But as ever, Liv was a closed book. She was short, about five foot four, with a slender body that was curved at the chest and hips. Her breasts were perfect, just big enough for Ryan’s hands, and her body had fit so well against hers.

  And there Ryan was, failing at the whole professionalism thing. Shit. This was so not the time and place.

  “What brought you here?” Ryan decided to start generic.

  Liv cleared her throat. She also didn’t meet Ryan’s eyes. “I came to visit Cairo.” She shrugged awkwardly. “She always comes into my coffee shop on a Wednesday and when she didn’t show, I decided to bring her favorite pastry to her in person.”

  “Did she know you were coming?” Ryan asked. She was taking notes now, because a documentation of the conversation was as important as her memory. She knew Cairo, they had gone to high school together and she had been one of Liv’s friends.

  “No.” Liv shook her head to punctuate her point. “I didn’t call.”

  “Do you have her number?”

  “Yeah.” Liv touched her pocket, presumably where her phone was. “We texted occasionally when I came back.”

  Ryan nodded, jott
ing that down as professionally as she could. “And when did you return to town?” It was a question Ryan knew the answer to. Dane had been the one to break the news that Liv was back, and that she had taken over the coffee shop. Not that it had provided Ryan any incentive to go there. No, she had been trying to avoid this exact situation.

  This time, for the first time since they had seen each other, Liv met her eyes. They were like molten chocolate, burning straight into Ryan’s middle. Not that Ryan could read what her face said. Liv was as guarded as any royal jewelry. “I came back a month ago.”

  Ryan wanted to ask more, wanted to ask why, but it wasn’t relevant to the conversation and she was already pushing her luck. She sped through the next few questions, discouraged by Liv’s answers. No, she hadn’t seen anyone suspicious. No suspicious cars, either.

  Then Liv’s eyes went unfocused, a hint of a frown on her face.

  “What?” Ryan looked at her sharply.

  “There was a strange woman at my coffee shop.” Liv tightened her grasp on the leash she held, winding it around her hand. The beagle hadn’t moved from beside her. “I didn’t recognize her, and I don’t think she was a local.”

  Ryan nodded, jotting this down. “Could you give me a description of her?” It may have not been anything, but it wasn’t like they were in the way to get a ton of strangers. It was only those passing down the highway who needed to stop for gas, or a snack from the gas station.

  “Blonde hair, blue eyes. Professionally dressed, like a lawyer or businesswoman.” The adorable crinkle that Ryan loved appeared above Liv’s nose as she thought. “Probably mid-thirties.”

  Ryan nodded. “Anything else you can tell me?”

  Liv met her eyes again. “No.”

  Ryan nodded again, putting the pen and small notebook back in the pocket of her coat. “Thanks. Would you like a ride home? One of our patrol officers can take you.”

  Liv shook her head. “I’m fine.”

  Ryan studied her for a moment, then nodded. “Thanks for your cooperation.” Then she turned on her heel, heading back towards Dane who was near the door. The patrol officers would have already taken her contact information. Ryan didn’t have to ask.