Fractured by Kate Watterson

the actual attack. This is absolutely just my opinion, but alone I’d guess the attacker might be caught easily. They have to be covered in blood once they are finished. And the planner would never go through with it. It’s like a bank robbery. One goes in with a gun to get the money, and the other one drives the getaway car. They have different skills.”
    Ellie went to the window. Down below cars crawled along the avenue since it had really started to snow. White flakes floated past the glass. She didn’t like that idea at all. “Two of them?”
    â€œDifferent stab mark signatures. Bodies don’t lie to you.”
    â€œJust as long as they don’t start talking.” Santiago walked over and grabbed Ellie’s wrist. “Come on, let’s go. I have an idea. Thanks, Doc.”
    â€œDetective, please don’t call me that,” Hammet requested, going back to her computer.
    â€œI can try to remember, but don’t expect much,” he said as he dragged Ellie out into the hall. He turned urgently, “Bear with me.”
    She looked pointedly at where he had ahold of her arm. It was out of character since he almost never touched her. “I assume you’ll let me come of my own free will.”
    â€œSorry.” He let go. “But the person we are going to see is probably still at home in bed. He kind of works the night shift. Once he’s up and headed off to work, he’s hard to catch.”
    â€œMind telling me who he is?”
    As they left the building, her partner held the door for her, a particular courtesy he’d mentioned once was drilled into his head when he was in the military, not by the father that had kicked him out of the house on his eighteenth birthday. In a noncommittal tone he’d added that life on the streets had been sending him into a downward spiral, so he cleaned up and enlisted. Becoming an MP had helped him get a law enforcement job when he got out of the service.
    That was the sum total she knew about his past.
    Just in the short time they’d been in Hammet’s office the car had accumulated an inch of snow and the leaden skies threatened more. It was the kind of wet heavy snow that promised great snowballs when she was a kid. The temperature had been rising all day as a new front blew in, but it was supposed to plummet again tomorrow.
    A far cry from the sunny beach she’d left behind in Florida just a few days ago, but that had hardly been a joyous trip.
    When Santiago slid into the car and started it, he informed her, “He is a dealer I busted a few times that has a specialty in drugs like Ecstasy and other substances, all of which are against the law in the state of Wisconsin and pretty much everywhere else. How the hell he’s still alive is beyond my comprehension, but he is one fucking connected asshole. I doubt he ever takes names, but whoever is killing these guys is getting the drug somewhere. He’s gotten promoted … he deals to the dealers now, but maybe he can tell us who to talk to.”
    That was iffy, she thought as they pulled out of the parking lot onto a street full of slushy snow. “What makes you think he’ll talk to us?”
    â€œWe went to high school together.” Santiago lifted his shoulders in a negligent shrug. “When I say I busted him a few times, I meant I could have busted him a lot of times. To narcotics he’s a problem; to me he’s a source.”
    â€œInteresting way to look at it,” she muttered. Big fat flakes were falling on the windshield now so fast the wipers weren’t quite doing the job. The gutters were filled with slush. When the temperature dropped, it was going to be treacherous.
    Paulo Astin proved to live in a very nice part of town, which offended Ellie in every way possible considering what he did to be able to afford a high-rise condo with security, but undoubtedly he needed the protection.
    She waited curiously