The team cheered when Simon walked through the incident room to his office, but he hardly heard them. He didn’t feel like he deserved to be cheered. He felt dirty and unclean and like a failure because the killer had gone unscathed by law. Only divine judgment awaited Garland Grimble now.
Simon closed the door, shut the blinds, and peeled his clothes off his body. His skin was icy. The cold sat deep inside his bones. For the first time he didn’t feel noticeably better once he had donned a fresh suit. The river’s scent was still on him—in his hair, on his skin—he needed at least two hot showers and a bottle of shampoo to take it off.
The knock on the door gently guided him out of his compulsion and back into the present. It was Ralph. His sergeant was dressed in track suit bottoms and a p
