I want to line the pieces up; yours and mine

But he wasn't a cop anymore. And he'd squandered his chance at making detective.

Some habits die hard, though. And others haunt you for life.

Which is why, as he approached the houseboat, alarm bells clanged in his head. The changes were subtle, but to his trained eyes, they stood out like bruises. A deck chair was pushed an inch away from where he'd set it. The curtains hung at odd angles. The Atlantic Ocean lay still and quiet, but the houseboat rocked gently on its mooring nonetheless.

But more than all of that, the air around the houseboat felt different. Like someone had turned the gravity up to ten and it was pulling him in…to something. Or someone.

Brian would bet his life on it that somewhere beyond dark windows, an intruder lurked, watching him. Waiting for him.

He pawed at his waist for his gun—those old habits again—and cursed. However he approached this—cautiously or in a blaze of glory—he would have to make do with his fists.

Brian decided to split the difference. He crouched low to make himself less of a target, but the element of surprise had never failed him before, so he ran to the deck of the houseboat and burst through the door—truly, was he a good cop if he didn’t follow even the basic rule of locking up while he was gone—to confront…nothing.

A cursory glance into the small bathroom confirmed it: the houseboat was empty.

Brian stepped back into the night and collapsed into one of the deck chairs. He bent forward over his knees and breathed deep, trying to get himself under control.

But the creak of the deck boards and the faint touch on the back of his neck made his heart race faster than a hundred shot of NOS.

“So, Miami, huh? Fitting place for a buster.”

Brian's eyes closed against a flash of pain, anger, and fear. And, threaded through it all, admiration.