Page 124 of Heart Over Heels

We entered the bar area, passing the counter into the cramped storage room beyond. Shelves lined the walls, cluttered with bottles and bar tools. Crates from our last-minute liquor order were stacked waist high, and cleaning supplies crowded in alongside a mop and bucket.

At the back, the shiny steel door of the walk-in was dimly lit by the single bulb assigned to this space.

When Beck’s gaze landed on it, the color left his face.

“All hells…” he murmured.

They let the dogs go first. The handler unclipped the leashes, and the pair of shepherds moved like shadows, nosing along the floor, up the shelving, and into the narrow gaps between crates. One slid its muzzle along the baseboards while the other worked the edge of the walk-in door, nostrils flaring.

“Could you open that, please?” an officer asked Beck.

“I don’t have a key,” he admitted. “It isn’t usually locked.”

“But it is now,” one of the other policemen said.

Beck grimaced. “Clearly.”

The dog at the walk-in door had been circling, nose skimming the seams of the metal. Suddenly it froze—head up, muscles taut—then dropped into a stiff sit.

The handler’s focus sharpened, all business now. “Dog’s given,” he announced.

The lead officer gave a curt nod. “We’ll need bolt cutters.”

The third cop turned on his heel and exited the room while the rest of us closed in, drawn by some morbid gravity.

Beck found his voice again. “Gentlemen, I think you should know this property was vandalized yesterday. We were out for the afternoon and returned to find?—”

“You can save that for questioning,” the officer cut in with a sense of finality.

The room descended into miserable silence until the officer returned with a pair of bolt cutters slung over one shoulder. He faced the cooler door, and the dogs shifted, nails clicking and tails beating against their handler’s legs.

Beck stood beside me with every trace of charm scrubbed from his face. His glamor was nearer to failing than ever, causing his edges to flicker and wave. Shadows curled like smoke up his form, twisting around the spirals of invisible horns.

“Step back,” the lead officer said, and we obeyed, retreating to the far wall. The bolt cutters severed the lock with a metallicsnap, the sound loud enough to make me flinch.

The lock clattered to the floor, and the officer gripped the handle. His gloved fingers flexed once before he pulled.

The door gave a hiss of suction then cold air poured out. A low fog rolled across the ground, white clouds over battered floorboards. It moved toward us, clearing a line of sight to the inside of the cooler. Kegs, like Rush had mentioned earlier, lined the back wall. And in front of them, on the ground, was a shape.

For half a second my brain tried to make it anything else—a pile of refuse, a bundle of linens, some old supplies—but then my eyes caught the contours. The bend of a shoulder. The taper of legs.

An unmistakably human figure lay before us, wrapped in black plastic with duct tape cinched around it in brutal bands.

No one spoke. The dogs whined once and were hushed.

Rush turned aside with a hand cupped to his mouth like he might be sick.

Beck stood closest to the open door, staring at the bundled corpse while the chill burned off around him.

I swallowed, trying to stomach the sight and its implications.

The silence broke with the crackle of a radio.

A call for forensics.

“Everyone out of the room,” the lead officer barked. “Now.”

The handler tugged the dogs away while the third policeman shooed us out. Beck remained anchored until I caught his arm and pulled. He blinked and took one step backward, then another.