Josh Solomon had barely slept in thirty-six hours. The call had come in while he’d been eating dinner with his wife. The body of a seventeen-year-old had been found in a dumpster on the north side of town by a store owner taking out the trash. It was days like this when he wondered why he hadn’t chosen a different career. But a decade of investigating homicides had given him one thing. A feeling that he was responsible for—at least in part—cleaning up the scum littering the streets.
Still, he was exhausted.
He flipped off the car radio as the news came on, relishing the silence. The last thing he wanted to listen to right now was another depressing news cycle. Olivia wouldn’t be home until tomorrow, which meant a night of playing the role of a bachelor. Not that he minded the time alone. As much as he enjoyed coming home to his wife, after the day he’d just had, he could use a couple hours to wind down watching some brainless movie and falling asleep on the couch.
Five minutes later, he pulled into the driveway of their two-story home, reached up to open the garage with the remote, then paused. Two figures wearing dark hoodies ran out the side door of the house. His headlights caught a glimpse of the men as they hesitated, then took off running across the neighbor’s lawn and down the street.
Without stopping to think about the consequences, Josh slammed the car into park, jumped out of the driver’s seat, and took off after them.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and put in a call to dispatch. “This is Detective Josh Solomon. I need backup immediately at my residence. Two intruders just ran out of my house, heading north up Washington Street.”
He gave the operator his full address, then glanced back at the house, now second-guessing his decision to give chase in the dark. There were always risks with following on his own, and he had no idea if the men were armed. Reacting without a plan—alone—was always dangerous, but this was his house. Over the past couple months, nine houses in his neighborhood had been burglarized. So far no one had been hurt in the process, but these guys needed to be stopped.
His internal debate ended. As long as he could maintain visual contact with them, he’d stay in pursuit. He’d ensure they knew he was behind them and let them tire out. If they tried to engage, he’d back off. He had no desire to escalate the situation, but whoever these guys were, he wanted them locked up.
The scenario in this neighborhood had become far too common, but this time they’d messed with the wrong homeowner, and he was going to make sure their string of luck had just run out. The streetlight exposed their position, and he quickened his pace. Unless he kept close, the odds of losing them were high. There were a dozen places they could hide, or even turn the tables and come after him.
Five seconds later, they vanished. Josh stopped at the street corner to catch his breath while he studied the surroundings for movement. A dog barked in the distance, but there was no sign of the intruders.
He’d lost them.
His phone rang. “Quinton?”
“I just heard your call go through. What’s going on?”
“Two intruders were coming out the side door of my house when I pulled up. I took off after them, but I’ve lost ’em.”
“What about Olivia?”
“She left yesterday for a medical conference. Won’t be back till tomorrow night.”
“Don’t try to find them on your own. Go back to the house. See what kind of damage they’ve done. I’m heading to your place now.”
Josh started back to his house at a jog, adrenaline still pumping. Something had been nagging at him ever since he’d arrived home, but what? He stopped in the driveway and stared at the front of the house. Then it registered. The upstairs light was on. Which wasn’t possible. Intruders wouldn’t turn on lights. Olivia wasn’t due home until tomorrow, and he knew he hadn’t left it on.
He reached into his car, clicked the garage door opener on the visor, and felt his heart go still . . . Olivia’s silver Prius was parked in the garage.
How was that possible?
He ran into the garage, then opened the door into the house. “Olivia?”
No answer.
He checked his phone as he rushed toward the kitchen. No messages. No missed calls.
But her coat had been thrown over one of the breakfast nook chairs where she always left it after work. Chinese takeout sat on the kitchen bar, still in the plastic bags. He breathed in the smell of garlic and seared meat and felt his stomach heave.
Why hadn’t she told him she was coming home early?
The faint sound of sirens wailed in the background through the open garage. He hurried up the stairs while fear swept through him. If she’d been here when the house had been broken into . . . If she’d walked in on the burglars . . . And why wasn’t she answering?
This he knew—sometimes people died because they’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But not his family. Not his wife.
He stopped at the threshold of their room. Fully clothed, Olivia lay in the middle of the bed like she was sleeping, her hair spread out across the pillow. A red stain seeped from her abdomen.
He fumbled for his phone as he rushed to the bed. He needed to make sure they sent an ambulance. Needed to know if she was still alive.
“Josh . . .”
His heart stilled. “Olivia . . .”
He caught the pain in her eyes as she continued. “They . . . they must have already been in the house. I came upstairs to change . . .”
He grabbed a shirt from the edge of the bed, found the wound, then pressed the shirt against her side.
“Don’t try to talk. You’re going to be fine.”
With his free hand he punched in 911, praying he’d somehow be able to keep his word.
“I need an ambulance,” he said once the operator answered. “My wife . . . my wife’s been shot.”
“Sir, can you give me your name and address?”
Numbness spread through him as he gave her their address.
“A squad car and ambulance have been sent to your address. Where’s your wife right now?”
“I’m upstairs with her, in our bedroom. Third door on the . . . on the left.”
“Can you tell me where she was shot?”
“In her abdomen. There’s blood everywhere.”
“Were you there when it happened?”
“No. I . . . When I got home, two male intruders were exiting the house from a side door.”
“I want you to stay on the line with me but keep pressure on the wound. The ambulance is about two minutes out.”
Two minutes? He studied Olivia’s pale face. She was the woman he’d pledged to be with through sickness and in health. To honor. To cleave to . . . To love . . . He dropped the phone, allowing him to pull her against him and nestle his face in her hair. He couldn’t lose her. Not this way.
Olivia reached up and pulled on his arm, as she struggled to breathe, “I’m . . . sorry. So sorry. I came home early . . . because I needed to talk to you—”
“Don’t talk. Just lie still. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Except he knew it wasn’t. Blood already soaked through the shirt and onto the comforter she’d bought last month.
“I need you to know the . . . the truth about what happened. Why . . . why . . .”
Her increasing struggle to breathe only multiplied his panic as he struggled to understand what she was saying. “Shhh . . .” He pressed his fingers against her lips. “You’re going to be fine. And we’ll catch whoever did this.”
Sirens wound down in front of the house, the vehicles’ strobe lights reflecting against the mirror on the other side of the room. This was supposed to be someone else’s nightmare. He investigated the crimes. Husbands murdering their wives, crimes of passion, jealousy. He was on the other side, looking on.
He wasn’t supposed to be the victim.
A paramedic entered the room. “Sir . . . I need you to step back, out of the way, so we can help her.”
Josh climbed off the bed and stumbled backward as they went to work. The walls were closing in on him. Why hadn’t he caught the men who’d broken in? There were no answers. Just questions about the nightmare he’d walked into.
“Josh.” Someone grasped his arm and pulled him away from the bed. But he couldn’t leave Olivia.
“Don’t—”
He glanced up at his partner. Quinton Lambert was two hundred and thirty pounds, with dark skin and kinky hair that had started to gray over the past couple years. He forced Josh across the hardwood floors and out of the way.
“I know this is hard but let them work on her.”
Josh stood in the corner of the room while they worked on her, his dress shirt now covered with blood. It was as if he were watching through someone else’s eyes. Some late-night detective show. Because this couldn’t be real—her pale face staring up at the ceiling, her body limp.
Quinton’s hand rested on Josh’s shoulder. “Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know.” When had his mind frozen? He couldn’t think. Couldn’t remember. He couldn’t be a husband of the victim. He was a detective who found the answers. Who never panicked.
“Josh . . . the more information you give me, the more it will help us find them.”
“I know.”
“Take a deep breath and try to focus on my questions. Did you see the men who broke into your house?”
The words clicked something on in his brain. He knew Quinton. He was trying to distract him. Trying to get him to focus on something he could do rather than on what he was losing. Figuring out who had done this had to be better than this feeling of helplessness. He spent his days tracking down killers. Had learned to shut down his emotions in order to cope. He needed to do the same now.
“I saw them coming out of the house and tried to chase them down. Two men, early twenties. I only saw them for an instant in the beam of my car’s headlights when they turned and looked at me. One had a dark beard. The other . . . it was hard to tell. Red shoes. I remember he had red shoes.”
He fought to remember the details. “I took off after them, heading north on Washington Street. After about five minutes I lost them in the darkness when they ducked into someone’s yard.”
“That’s when I called you?”
Josh nodded. “I decided to go back to the house like you said. But Olivia . . . she wasn’t supposed to get back until tomorrow.” Confusion wormed its way through him again. “I don’t know why she’s here.”
“She was here when they broke in?”
He nodded again. “I never saw a weapon, but they must have been armed.”
“We’ll have officers search the vicinity in case they dumped it.”
Josh shifted his gaze back to Olivia. The paramedics were shouting back and forth. Trying to stop the bleeding. Trying to start her heart. The room began to spin again. Two men had broken into his home. Shot his wife. Something that never should have happened. It was his job to protect her, but now . . .
“Josh, I want you to keep focusing on me. You can help her the most right now by helping us figure out who did this.”
The paramedics shouted out frantic directives as they continued working on her. He felt his own heart stop. Eleven years of marriage wasn’t supposed to end this way. He’d always loved her. Always imagined the two of them getting old and retiring together. He couldn’t hear Quinton anymore. Could barely breathe.
“I can’t lose her, Quinton. Not this way.” Josh started back toward the bed, but Quinton held him back.
“Let them do their job, Josh. They’re going to take her to the hospital. If there’s any chance at all for them to save her, they will.”
He watched the paramedics transfer Olivia’s limp body to a gurney. But he somehow knew it was too late. She wasn’t coming back. He felt his legs collapse as he leaned his back against the bedroom wall, then slowly slid to the ground. Suddenly everything was clear. This was his new reality. A widower before he turned forty. And Olivia . . .
Life as he knew it was over.