Crush

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For Corey, Matthew, and Danielle:

You are the branches on my tree that keep on giving.

And I’m the old stump.

I love you all, to the moon and back.

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”

—SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, WRITING AS SHERLOCK HOLMES

“You see, but you do not observe.”

—SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, WRITING AS SHERLOCK HOLMES

“In wine there is truth.”

—ROMAN PROVERB

“O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.”

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

PROLOGUE

675 15th Street NW

Washington, DC

“So the dick says to the woman, ‘I got nothing.’” Karen Vail burst out laughing. Here she was, out on the town with Detective Mandisa Manette—just about the unlikeliest of acquaintances she’d socialize with—and she was guffawing at another of Manette’s crass jokes. But she noticed Manette was not enjoying her own punch line. In fact, Manette’s face was hard, her gaze fixed. And her hand was slowly reaching inside her jacket. For her weapon.

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