DEATH PLAYBACK

CHAPTER 2: THE WATCHER

Jaxon got in his car and slammed the door so hard the whole vehicle shook. He sat there for ten minutes, hands gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were white.

The smell of blood was still on his hand. He could see it under his fingernails, crusted there, dark and brown. He'd just watched a man get murdered. Not on TV. Not in a report. He'd been there. He'd seen the knife go in. He'd heard Amy Chen choke on her own blood. And the murderer was still in that building, thirty feet away, walking around like nothing had happened.

【Yo you gonna sit there hyperventilating all day or are we gonna go catch a motherfucking killer? You're wasting daylight. And also I'm bored.】

"Shut up," Jaxon mumbled. His voice was hoarse. He hadn't spoken this much in weeks.

He turned the key in the ignition. The old car sputtered once, twice, then roared to life. He didn't go to the police station. He didn't call a lawyer. He put the car in drive and circled the block, parking two buildings down from Amy Chen's apartment complex.

Carter's black and white was still parked out front.

Jaxon got out and slipped into the alley behind the building. He knew this neighborhood. Three years ago, before everything went to s**t, he'd worked a six-month undercover drug case here. He knew every blind spot, every security camera, every dumpster, every broken window, every fire escape.

He knew the big metal dumpster around the back, the one the whole building used. In the playback, Carter had left Amy's apartment at 11:28 PM. He'd wiped everything down. He'd walked calmly down the stairs, out the back door, and thrown something small and white into that very dumpster. Gloves. The knife. Maybe both.

Jaxon climbed into the dumpster. The lid clanged shut behind him, plunging him into darkness and the overwhelming stench of rot. Old food. Dirty diapers. Something dead in the corner. Probably a rat. He didn't care. He got on his hands and knees and started digging. Garbage stuck to his jeans. Rotten milk seeped into his shoes. He kept going.

Ten minutes later, his hand closed around something smooth and plastic. An evidence bag. The kind they used at crime scenes. Inside was a pair of latex gloves, stiff with dried blood.

【NICE! You touched a dead body AND dumpster dived in one day! This is officially the most productive you've been in three years! Proud of you, buddy!】

Jaxon ignored him. He held the bag up to the tiny bit of light coming through the cracks in the dumpster. The gloves were covered in blood. Amy Chen's blood. And inside the glove? Carter's DNA. Skin cells. Sweat. This was it. This was the evidence that would put him away for life.

He climbed out of the dumpster, boots squelching, and landed on the asphalt. He turned around.

Carter was standing there, leaning against the brick wall, watching him. He was smiling.

"Looking for something, Reid?" Carter said.

Jaxon froze. The evidence bag was still in his hand, right out in the open. Carter could see it clear as day.

【OH f**k OH f**k OH f**k. RUN. RUN RIGHT NOW. DON'T STOP. DON'T LOOK BACK. JUST f*****g RUN.】

Jaxon didn't run. He just stood there, garbage on his jeans, blood on his hands, holding the evidence. He didn't run because he knew Carter wouldn't kill him here. Not in broad daylight. Not in an alley behind an apartment building with a hundred witnesses. Not yet.

Carter pushed off the wall and started walking towards him. Slow. Casual. Like they were just two colleagues having a chat after a long day. He had his hands in his pockets. Relaxed. Confident.

"You know," Carter said, stopping three feet away, "I knew you were different the second you touched that blood. Most guys would have freaked out. Started screaming. Wiped it off as fast as they could. You? You just stood there. Stared. Like you were watching something."

His voice was low. Conversational. No anger. No fear. Just curiosity.

"What did you see, Jaxon?" Carter said. "What did I show you in that hallway?"

Jaxon's mind was racing. He couldn't fight Carter. The guy was 6'4", built like a linebacker, trained hand to hand combat. Jaxon was hungover, out of shape, hadn't been to the gym in three years. Carter would break him in half.

He couldn't go to the other cops either. Carter was a hero. The golden boy. Solved more cases than anyone in the department. Everyone loved him. Everyone trusted him. And Jaxon? Jaxon was the drunk fuckup who got his partner killed. Who would believe him?

Carter reached out and tapped the evidence bag in Jaxon's hand with one finger.

"Those are nice," Carter said. "Real nice. But you know what's going to happen, right? You bring those in tomorrow morning. I say you planted them. I say you've been obsessed with me since I got your job. I say you blamed me for Marcus's death. Everyone believes me. You go to jail. For a long time."

He leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper.

"And then when you get out?" Carter said. "I find you. I find your ex-wife. I find your little girl. What's her name again? Lily? Yeah. Lily. Cute kid. I saw her at the grocery store last week with her mom."

Jaxon's blood turned to ice. Carter smiled. He knew he'd won.

"So here's what's going to happen," Carter said. He held out his hand. "You're going to give me those gloves. You're going to go home. You're going to get drunk. And you're going to forget everything you think you saw."

Jaxon stared at him. He was f****d. He knew it. Carter knew it. The system knew it. There was no way out. No good options.

For three years, Jaxon had run from everything. From his mistakes. From his guilt. From the ghost of his dead partner Marcus. He'd run into bottles. He'd run into the basement of the cold case department. He'd run from anyone who tried to get close.

Not this time.

"No," Jaxon said.

Carter blinked. For half a second, he looked surprised. "What?"

"I said no," Jaxon said. He tightened his grip on the evidence bag until his knuckles turned white. "You're going to