Hannah stood in the doorway shifting uncomfortably. “Uh… Dr. La Montaigne?”

“Hmm…” I continued to make notes.

“You’ve been working on Mrs. Frandsen’s file for the last three hours,” she said. “Her family requested to have her body released by noon. It’s almost two now.”

I pushed the papers into the file. “Right. I’m sorry. I’ve been distracted.”

“Should I prepare her for release?”

“Yes, please.”

Hannah turned and then paused. “I forgot to tell you. That cute detective, Detective uhh… Bellamy is here to see you again.”

“Really?” I scolded myself internally. I sounded too excited to see Oliver again. I cleared my throat. “Send him in.”

Hannah grinned, probably noticing the unseemly shade of pink my cheeks had turned. “Right away.”

“Hey beautiful,” Oliver greeted me as he slipped into my office. “Why was your assistant grinning at me like a cat who just found the canary?”

“She finds you attractive,” I replied, my eyes fixed on my notes so he would not see my flushed face.

“Is that a note of jealousy I hear?”

“Hush up, you. Did you find out anything about your case?”

“Uh-huh.” Oliver produced a file folder from inside his leather jacket. “I spent most of the day digging through our old case files. Now, I was only Eli’s backup. He asked me to meet him at the address on this piece of paper. When I got there, Eliot’d been shot.”

Oliver's face became still. His eyes were glossy with tears that he tried to resist as he told me the story of Eliot's last moments. He said he had arrived just in time to see his friend clinging onto life, and in that moment he decided he would risk his own safety to protect Eliot. The world seemed to move in slow motion as Oliver raced towards him, but before he could reach Eliot, the second round of gunfire erupted, cutting short both their lives.

“Oliver…”

“Would you come with me, Ivy?” he asked, softly. “I know the fellas with your crime lab have probably gone over everything with a fine-tooth comb, but I gotta know for myself.”

“Of course, I will come with you.” I shrugged off my lab coat, replacing it with my street coat.

“Really?”

I nodded. “I promised that I would help you, so that is what I’m going to do.”

He kissed my forehead. “You’re one of a kind, Miss Ivy.”

___

Oliver held up the yellow police tape for me as we sneaked into the old auto garage. “There are a couple of offices in the back. Let’s each take one.”

I slipped on a pair of rubber gloves as I surveyed the small office. Evidence had been removed from the shelves. Black fingerprint powder still lightly covered the desktops. “What are we looking for, Olly?”

The bookcase behind me opened up. I heard the soft click of a gun. “Don’t say a word,” the woman’s voice ordered. “Put your hands in the air and turn around.”

I obeyed and turned around very slowly. My captor was in her late forties with dyed blonde hair with flecks of gray along her hairline. Her hair had been highlighted to cover an expanding bald patch at the back of her head. She smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and camphor oil.

“I… um… I’m Dr. La Montaigne,” I replied, producing my identification. “I work for the medical examiner’s office.”

“Medical examiner?” She looked at me like I had three heads. “What’s that?”

“I… uh… I examine the dead.”

“There isn’t any dead body here, not anymore that is.”

“I am here as a favor to a friend,” I insist, though I doubt that she believes me. “I mean you no harm.”

“You’re here about the money, aren’t you?”

“What money?”

“The money that Leo promised me. I killed the traitor. He owes me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Leo knows that I won’t share the money.” BANG! BANG! BANG! She fired her pistol three times into my stomach. “At least now there will be a dead body for the police to find.”

I crumbled to the ground as the pain radiated through me. Scarlet blood seeped from my wounds. The woman picked up a paper bag and ran out the back door, casting furtive glances over her shoulder as she escaped.

“IVY!” Oliver bellowed, running into the office and skidding to his knees beside me with wide eyes. His stomach twisted when he saw the deep red pool on my abdomen—I had been shot. He forced back the tears that threatened to break through and put his hand on the wound. “Can ya still talk? Who did this to ya, love?"

"A woman…" His heart sunk as I spoke in a pained gasp, every breath I took scream of agony. "50s… dyed blonde hair… Olly…" His grip tightened around me as my words grew weaker. "She killed… she killed Eliot too."

"Come on now," Oliver pleaded, keeping the quiver out of his voice. "What else can ya tell me? What'd she look like?"

"Olly…" My palms lifted to caress his face and he gasped at the sight of blood smeared across my hands. "You came back to me."

"And I ain't leavin' you no more," Oliver whispered feverishly, pulling me closer as though trying to mend my body with his own strength alone. His lips brushed mine gently, tasting the salt of my tears mixed with scarlet liquid. "If yer gonna go," he whispered against my skin, every word like a plea for salvation from death's cold grasp. "Go knowin' that I won't stop until I find ya again. We'll be together forever, no matter what." With one last shuddering sob, he kissed me goodbye as my vision faded away into darkness.