Chapter 1

Just once, Bashir wanted to get through a first date or even a hookup without somebody dying.

It didn't seem like too much to ask. It really didn't. Yeah, fine, in a city of just under a hundred thousand people, an average of three or four deaths per day wasn't all that out of the ordinary. But a lot of those were the kind that didn't necessitate a call to—never mind a visit from—the county medical examiner.

Yet here he was, disappointment curdling the exceptionally good artichoke dip he and Max had shared as an appetizer. And he wasn't going to get to eat that chicken marsala he'd ordered, was he? This place had some of the best chicken marsala he'd ever had, and he'd been looking forward to it all week. Ever since he and Max had agreed to meet in person.

Bashir sighed apologetically. "I'm sorry. I, um…" He grimaced as he gestured at the phone. "I have to go."

On the bright side, at least this was going to prevent him from wasting any more time with Max. The guy had been nice enough when they'd chatted, and the flirtation had seemed promising. So far, the chemistry had been good in person, too. Max was funny and smart, and he had a nice smile.

But the annoyance in his expression now—the tsk and the roll of his eyes as he reached for his wine—told Bashir this was not a good match after all.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "I'll, uh… I'll pick up the bill on my way out. Text me?"

Max's smile was sour and his shrug was non-committal.

No, this was not going to work in the long run or even the short term. Shame, because much like he'd been looking forward to the chicken marsala, Bashir had been eagerly anticipating everything else they'd both alluded to during their flirtation via phone and text.

As he left the restaurant, it occurred to him that it was just as well they'd decided on an actual date instead of going straight to a hookup. If Max was this put out over Bashir bailing in the middle of dinner, he'd have been thrilled to be left with an unexpected case of blue balls.

Well. Back to the drawing board.

Tomorrow, anyway. Tonight, Bashir had other priorities.

Those priorities took him to a farm just outside of town. He was given little more information than the location and the number of bodies; his predecessor taught him not to ask for or even accept any further details, as there was too much potential to cloud his judgment. The deceased—and indeed any possible suspects—deserved his objective and unbiased conclusions about what had taken place. Much of that came down to the CSI techs, the detectives, and the district attorney, of course. Nevertheless, many a suspect had walked because, despite everyone else painting a clear picture of homicide, an M.E. testified that the manner of death was an accident, a suicide, or undetermined .

No pressure or anything.

The responding officer had duly cordoned off the entire property as well as the long driveway and a hundred-foot stretch of road in either direction with yellow police tape. Just outside the cordon was a patrol car as well as the black CSI van. Beside the vehicles, a cop spoke with Carlos Huerta, a CSI tech Bashir knew well. The officer was twitchy and agitated; maybe because he was young, or maybe because the scene was especially grisly. Given the extra-wide cordon, it was probably both. The new guys often took "make the scene as big as you can because you can always shrink it later" to heart. Some of the older officers ribbed them for it, but Bashir appreciated it, earnestness and all. The older guys might've laughed and the younger ones might've felt sheepish, but it only took one instance of a critical piece of evidence being found—untouched and uncontaminated—six inches inside a scene's too-big perimeter for them all to shut their pieholes.

Leaning against the side of the van, arms crossed and a loosely-laced combat boot resting on a running board, Huerta looked about as nonplussed as he ever did. Bashir wondered sometimes if anything affected him, or if he—like most of the crime scene techs, even in their mid-twenties like him—had just seen it all.

Bashir got out of his car, left his suit jacket in the front seat, and changed into the pair of weathered sneakers he always kept in his trunk. He also stuffed a few pairs of shoe covers and gloves into his pocket, then headed over to the van and patrol car.

Huerta flashed him a smile. "Hey, Doc." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Homeowner's waiting inside."

From the way the officer turned a little green, Bashir didn't have to ask if the homeowner was the decedent. Huerta was respectful of the dead and of crime scenes, but he wasn't the greatest at reading social cues, and on top of that, he sometimes couldn't help trolling the younger cops who were still squeamish.

Bashir nodded. "Still waiting on a warrant?"

Huerta rolled his eyes. No shock there; the homicide detective was likely hammering the judge at that very moment to get a signature on the warrant, but it took time.

Bashir, however, did not need a warrant. The body was all the warrant he needed.

He signed into the crime scene log and gave it back to the officer—Officer Doran, it turned out, who was indeed quite young if the nonexistent stubble on his boyishly soft jaw was any indication.

Bashir raised his eyebrows. "First time at a scene like this?"

Doran swallowed as if he were struggling to keep his esophagus on a southbound trajectory. "Yeah."

Bashir offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "Well, lucky for you, you're on gatekeeping detail." He pointed at the clipboard in the officer's hand. "This place is going to be crawling with people as soon as word gets out. You know how to manage traffic?"

Now it was nerves more than horror on Doran's face, but he nodded again. "Yes, sir. I, uh… I already marked a path inside. I…" He furrowed his brow. "Should I have waited? Until we got a warrant? God, did I fuck this up already and—"

"You're good," Bashir said gently. "You're protecting and preserving evidence. Don't need a warrant for that part. Especially if, uh…" He gestured at the house. "No one's home. "

Doran was white already—far paler than Huerta or Bashir—and he lost even more color.

"How about you have a seat, kid?" Bashir nodded at the bumper of the patrol car. "Let's not have you pass out and bust your head open."

"Aww, why not?" Huerta grinned. "You can stitch him up, can't you?"

"Yes, I can," Bashir said. "But I can never remember which set of tools I last used on the living or the—"

"Jesus Christ," Doran mumbled, and he wisely sat down on the bumper, putting his head between his knees.

Bashir chuckled and gave the kid a pat on the shoulder. "You'll be fine. Just breathe. And this is your scene, okay? No one enters the house unless they absolutely need to, including the captain or the lieutenant."

Doran made a choked, panicked noise. Yeah, nothing intimidated a rookie like having to tell the brass no.

"The detectives will be here soon," Bashir reassured him. "They can take over and assign a scene commander."

"Thank God," Doran muttered.

Bashir gave a little nod. Then he turned to Huerta and indicated the cop. "Keep an eye on him, will you?"

Huerta nodded. Wasn't like he'd be doing much of anything until that warrant came through.

Bashir took his kit from his car and walked up to the house. The front door was ajar with no signs of forced entry. He didn't have to ask if Huerta had already photographed that area; the tech was very good at his job, and one of the first things he always did was document every single exterior detail in and around the designated path for investigators. Without the warrant, he couldn't go inside, but he could absolutely take note of anything in plain sight— footprints, blood spatter or smears, items that seemed unusual or out of place… and signs of forced entry.

Confident Huerta had done a thorough job as always, Bashir paused on the porch to pull on his shoe covers and gloves, double-bagging both. He also put on a mask; there was always the possibility of airborne pathogens, and… well, death scenes could be messy. Bashir had literal nightmares about moving a body and having some fluid fly up and land in his mouth or nose. His stomach was strong, but it wasn't that strong.

Once his hands, face, and feet were covered, he nudged the door open with the corner of his kit, touching as little as possible to avoid ruining any latent fingerprints. Then he used the flashlight on his cell phone to skim over the hardwood floor for blood or shoe impressions. While crime scene details weren't part of his job, he was careful to watch for potential evidence and, at the very least, not disturb or destroy it.

As soon as he crossed the threshold into the house, that familiar taste of copper settled onto Bashir's tongue. It was thick and intense; not just blood—a lot of blood. Bashir could guess why Officer Doran had been green around the gills, especially if this was his first time walking into a gruesome death scene.

Fortunately, despite being so affected by what he'd found inside, Doran had done a great job protecting the scene. Not only had he set up a wide perimeter outside, he'd established a clear path through the entryway and living room to the kitchen, carefully lining it with tape. The pathway zigzagged a bit through the living room, and it didn't take but two seconds to figure out why: a smear of blood on the floor, a partial footprint, and a gouge in the hardwood that was probably preexisting but may not have been (well done, Officer Doran, not taking for granted that it was old).

Nevertheless, Bashir shined his flashlight on the wood as he walked, and he took the path slowly, just in case Doran had overlooked something.

When he reached the end of the path, he was at the kitchen doorway. There, he stopped to take in the scene.

Given the heavy presence of blood on the air, Bashir had guessed this was most likely a murder or a suicide. Maybe natural causes if someone had had a catastrophic medical event and bled out—wouldn't be the first time he'd attended such a scene. Animal was always a possibility, however minute. He had to keep an open mind, of course, and it was prudent to not make any assumptions or jump to any conclusions so early in the game. Even mentally running through theories wasn't a good idea. The curious and analytical mind was what it was, though, and it was human nature to start considering how pieces might ultimately snap together.

But as he looked over the scene, it was like watching a long shot horse surge past the sure things in a race—the odds went out the window, and in this case, the horse named Accidental Death was leaving the others in the dust.

In what was once a kitchen decorated with country kitsch like hat-wearing chickens and deceptively friendly geese with bows around their necks, the man Bashir's colleagues had indicated was the homeowner lay sprawled in a pool of congealing blood. There was blood smeared, pooled, or splattered over every surface from floor to ceiling, turning those chickens and geese into witnesses of something straight out of a horror film, with red streaks, droplets, and the odd chunk of the decedent sticking to their painted faces. Amidst the carnage were leaves and splinters of wood from the giant tree branch that had crashed in through the kitchen window.

Bashir's best guess? The homeowner had been attempting to break the branch into manageable pieces so he could remove them before cleaning up his kitchen. Somewhere in the process, the chainsaw had ceased to be cutting through wood and instead divested the man of several organs and a substantial amount of blood.

Unless there was a killer in town who'd taken to sabotaging power tools and heaving tree-sized branches through windows, the odds were tipping very, very heavily in favor of this being an extremely unfortunate freak accident.

That is, until Bashir looked closer.

As he'd begun his routine process, which started with photographing the body, he'd considered telling Doran there was no need for the warrant or for homicide to get involved after all. The kid was probably a rookie and had jumped the gun, thinking such a horrifying scene had to be a murder. Some young cops were like that; they still believed in a just universe where if someone met a terrible end, someone else could always be blamed and punished. If there was a lot of blood and destruction, then there had to have been a crime.

Fact was, though, accidents happened. Horrible, unimaginable accidents that ended lives and traumatized witnesses forever. Accepting that was part of working in law enforcement, whether in Bashir's role, Officer Doran's, or Huerta's.

He was just about to call the homicide detectives and tell them to nix the warrant, then gently explain to Officer Doran that this was just an accident, when something caught his eye, and the world… the scene… everything…

Shifted .

Though Bashir's focus was on the body itself, corpses didn't exist in a vacuum, and he also wanted to maintain a good working relationship with the CSIs. So he observed, recorded, photographed, and protected any evidence he found so Huerta could collect it. And this time, as he did so, his gaze landed on a shard of glass.

A shard of glass lying on top of the pool of blood around the unfortunate homeowner.

Once he saw that, other details came into focus.

More glass… on top of blood.

Pieces of wood and bark… on top of blood.

Bashir stood back and looked around the scene, suddenly feeling like he was in a slasher film, the geese and chickens staring at him without the ability to tell him what they'd witnessed.

And as he took it all in, he remembered the gouge in the hardwood, the blood on the floor, and the partial shoe impression Doran had cordoned off.

Then he turned his head and peered at the chainsaw. It, like everything in the kitchen, was covered in blood, glass, and tree detritus.

Beside a chunk of viscera, stuck in the blood on the blade, was a leaf. Its surface? Clean.

Perhaps most telling was when Bashir turned that scrutiny on the deceased. There again—shattered wood and glass sprinkled on wounds that should have happened after the tree had broken the window.

Bashir exhaled hard behind his mask. There was no way this wasn't a homicide.

He finished his preliminary exam, mostly to stay ahead of—and document—the blowflies already making themselves at home. Based on their infestation and current life cycle stage, the man had been dead for a handful of hours at most. When Bashir's assistant Tami arrived, they could bag the body and take it back to the morgue for an autopsy.

In the meantime, Bashir stepped out of the kitchen, stripped off the first layer of shoe covers, and slipped them into a sealed bag. Then he went outside, took off the second layer, and strode toward the cars.

Officer Doran had regained a little color, and he rose as Bashir came toward him.

"Question for you, officer." Bashir halted, studying the young man and gesturing over his shoulder at the house. "What made you set this up as a crime scene rather than an accidental death scene?"

Doran's pallor made the sudden blush appear even more intense, and he shifted nervously as he stammered, "I, uh… Um…"

"I'm not putting you on the spot," Bashir said evenly. "You were right to call it. Because that"—he pointed at the house again—"is absolutely a crime scene."

"It is?" Huerta appeared beside Bashir. "I thought the guy just fell on his chainsaw or something."

Bashir shook his head. CSIs were supposed to go in with no preconceived notions as well, but this was an unusual scene. One that really did seem like an accidental death, only revealing itself as something more sinister upon much closer inspection. Huerta was good at his job—thorough and objective—but any investigator could sometimes take their foot off the gas a little when it seemed like a clear-cut accident. Bashir wanted everyone involved erring on the side of caution with this one, because he had a feeling someone was trying to make this look like an accident.

"It's not an accident," he told Huerta and Doran. "Which is why I'm curious what tipped you off."

Doran shifted from foot to foot. He glanced over his shoulder, and when Bashir looked, a burgundy sedan was approaching. Homicide detectives, most likely. Suddenly even more nervous, Doran said to Bashir, "I don't know, honestly. Something about it… It just didn't seem right." He cringed as if expecting Bashir to read him the riot act for relying on intuition over evidence.

"Nice job," Bashir said with a nod. "Trust your gut—it'll serve you well."

Doran exhaled. Bashir suspected that was the first relief the kid had felt since he'd come to this scene. "Thank you, sir."

Bashir chuckled. "Just Bashir is fine. I'm not in your chain of command."

Whatever he was going to say next was cut off by a pair of car doors closing, and all three of them turned as the pair of detectives ducked under the police tape and headed down the driveway toward them.

Bashir had known Detective McKay for a long time. Typical grizzled veteran detective who'd seen it all and, though he was good at his job, was kind of a dick. No doubt he'd have ribbed Officer Doran even harder than Huerta and Bashir had.

His partner… oh, Detective Villeray was not someone Bashir needed to be around tonight. Not after he'd had his date—but not his lengthy dry spell—interrupted. Definitely not while he was concentrating on a horrific crime scene that was meant to be mistaken for an accident. Not the time or the place to notice gray eyes, full lips, or dark hair that pulled off the artfully mussed thing so well, it made Bashir want to know how it looked when it was mussed for real.

Not. The time. Or the place.

Not even if the distraction was a welcome breather from the horror show inside the unassuming farmhouse behind him.

He cleared his throat as the detectives approached, and by the time he was shaking their hands, he had his game face on. Hopefully.

"We got a warrant?" Huerta sounded antsy. Bashir didn't blame him—the sooner he got started, the more evidence he could preserve and collect before every cop in town found a reason to be here and tromp through the crime scene.

McKay scowled. Sliding his gaze toward Officer Doran, who was in full-on embarrassed little boy mode, the detective said, "Judge Ruffino isn't going to forgive us any time soon for interrupting her dinner, if that's what you're wondering."

Bashir rolled his eyes. At least the judge probably hadn't had to leave her dinner, but okay.

McKay sighed. "We've got the warrant, but I want to have a look inside the house before we turn you loose on it." He shot Doran a pointed look. "Make sure we're not wasting police resources processing an accident scene as a homicide. Especially since I have to agree with the judge that an entire criminal investigation contingent might be, if you'll pardon the expression, overkill."

Before Doran could speak, Bashir said, "Uh, actually, I do think we're looking at a homicide here." He needed to stay as unbiased as possible, but he still had to be realistic, and the sooner a scene was investigated as a homicide, the less critical evidence would be damaged or overlooked. And in this case, with at least one of the detectives already preemptively ready to dismiss the death as accidental, he wasn't about to take chances .

McKay eyed him with annoyance. Villeray's expression held nothing but interest.

Bashir motioned toward the house. "I thought it was an accident, too, but the evidence is telling a different story."

McKay raised an eyebrow. "What story? That the killer tossed a tree through a window while the homeowner was carving a turkey with a chainsaw?"

Huerta was clearly trying to bite back a laugh. So was Villeray. Truthfully, Bashir might've too; it wasn't that he was irreverent or disrespectful, but a dark sense of humor was part of what kept a lot of people sane in this line of work. You grabbed whatever you could find to anchor you on this side of the abyss.

The only reason Bashir wasn't laughing this time was that McKay's joke was at Doran's expense as well as Bashir's own. Bashir could take it. The kid needed to know he could trust his gut, and catching hell from the veterans when he did would make him doubt his intuition.

Bashir narrowed his eyes. "Tell you what, detective." He again gestured at the house. "Why don't you and your partner go inside and have a look. See if anything seems…" he paused for effect, pursing his lips as if he really needed to consider his choice of words. "…out of place. And if you come back out here and tell me that looks like an accident—one you're willing to put your signature on—then we'll call it what it is." He showed his palms in mock surrender. "I mean, unless the autopsy gives up anything that says it's a crime, and then you'll have to find your suspect without a proper crime scene investigation, and—"

"All right, all right. We'll have a look." McKay rolled his eyes and yanked some shoe covers and gloves out of the box Huerta had put out. "Come on, Sawyer. Let's go see what the Dr. StrangeDeath found. "

Villeray again suppressed a laugh, and he offered Bashir a look and a shrug that were equal parts apology by proxy and dark amusement.

Then he followed his partner.

As the detectives disappeared into the house, Officer Doran timidly asked, "Do you think they'll call it an accident?"

"If they do," Bashir said, watching the house, "they don't deserve their badges."