Teagan said, returning from the kitchen with two fresh glasses of vodka. “Just checked my phone.” It was possible the other detectives were out of range. It was equally possible, he supposed, that whatever forces were at work in Colby were deliberately blocking messages, particularly calls for help. It was an idea he didn’t especially want to dwell on. He set Kathy’s glass on the desk and moved to the couch, sipping his own. Like Kathy, he was on his third. He was starting to feel the soft, warm haze of a mild buzz. That they were technically still on duty hardly seemed relevant anymore. Both of them functioned just fine on the stuff. In fact, Teagan always thought he worked better that way, with distractions and old ghosts dampened down and his spirits lifted up. It came back to the job, both here and across the pond. It wasn’t just the brutality, the blood, the butchery of it. It wasn’t the body parts and the body fluids. It was the crying of the family members, the sad, lost look of orphaned kids.
