Espresso Shot by Cleo Coyle

man in the nylon jacket was saying. “Entry wound is evident but no exit wound.”

    “The witness assures us that she only heard one shot fired,” Lori Soles told the group.

    “Then your only bullet is lodged right here,” the Asian man replied, “inside the victim’s skull.”

    “Let’s hope it didn’t get pancaked against a bone,” Sue Ellen said.

    “If there’s no exit wound—” Lori glanced down the block, “then the bullet lost velocity.”

    “That’s correct.” The Asian man nodded. “The weapon couldn’t have been fired from a very close range.”

    Sue Ellen pointed to the upper floors of buildings in the vicinity. “Could the gun have been fired from a window or balcony?”

    “Not possible.” The man shook his head. “Look at the angle of entry on the wound. The victim was shot at street level from somewhere directly behind. We’ll know more after we get inside the skull.”

    “Thank you, Doctor.” Lori Soles turned to the older plainclothes officer. “I guess the guys can stop looking for bullets. There was only one, and it’s in there.” She pointed to the dead girl’s cranium.

    “We’re canvassing the neighborhood now. The shooter may have dropped something . . .”

    Just then I noticed a white panel van with a satellite antenna double-parking across the street. Emblazoned on the van’s side were three words that sent a chill though my blood: New York 1.

    “Oh, God . . .” I muttered. Hazel Boggs’s murder was about to make the local news. As a technician jumped out and began unpacking camera equipment, I hurried back to Matt. He looked positively stricken.

    “Clare,” he whispered, “I have to get out of here.”

    “Wait!” I grabbed his arm before he could bolt. “These cops will detain you if you try to run. It could get loud. You’ll just end up calling attention to yourself.”

    “But if Breanne sees me on the news—”

    “Just give me a second.”

    I rushed up to Lori Soles, who’d always been the softer touch. “Detective Soles, I’m happy to stick around, but my business partner really needs to get back to our shop. Can you talk to him another time?”

    Lori frowned. “ Now would be better—”

    “Oh, let the guy go,” Sue Ellen broke in, surprising the heck out of me with an accommodating hand wave. “Spinelli got a statement from him already. And we can track Mr. Tight End down tomorrow. On one condition . . .” She shot Matt an openly flirtatious smile. “He has to give me his digits.”

    With New York 1’s cable news camera approaching, Matt wasn’t about to argue. He quickly reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet, extracted a business card, and slapped it into Sue Ellen’s outstretched hand.

    “My cell number’s on there,” he said before taking off. “Catch you later.”

    The detective smiled as she pocketed my ex’s card. “Not if I catch you first . . .” she promised, her eyes following Matt’s posterior all the way back to our coffeehouse.

FIVE

    FIFTEEN minutes later, I was back inside the Blend.

    “Where’s Matt?” I asked, approaching the espresso bar.

    Gardner Evans glanced up, jerked his thumb toward the ceiling, and went back to crowning a hazelnut-toffee latte with spoonfuls of frothy foam.

    I looked around the Blend’s first floor and realized I was witnessing an unheard-of customer pattern for a Monday at midnight. The place was packed, and I didn’t need a beverage-service management spreadsheet to analyze why.

    Sitting around our marble-topped café tables was a base of neighborhood regulars, a handful of NYU undergrads, and a sprinkling of FDNY and police personnel. All of them had come here as a result of the bad business a block away. Murder and coffee, it appeared, were a profitable mix.

    “You okay here?” I asked Gardner, scanning the work area. I was unhappy to see him alone. “Where’s Dante?”

    “Downstairs, getting stuff from the big fridge.” Gardner