Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 94076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
By the time I reach the other side of traffic, the black car has pulled away. I bite back a curse. Black town cars, strange feelings of being watched. . . I’m on the brink of something. I just need to pull the threads together.
“Ramos?” Diego Silva walks up from a coffee cart with a fresh cup of what must be his favorite chai. He stops and scans me. “You look like you’ve been through the wringer.”
“Yeah, it’s been a day.”
“Detectives Diaz and Jacobs are good. They’ll do this by the book.” His soothing tone sets my teeth on edge.
“They just finished questioning me.”
“Routine. They’ll clear you.”
I hunch into my jacket. It’s early October, and the weather is considered mild, but to my coastal California-tempered skin, anything below sixty degrees is winter. I’m wrapped in my heaviest coat and still shivering. “They’re shutting me out.”
“You wanna work your own case?”
A jogger trots by, her cheeks flushed from the cold. I wait until she’s out of earshot before saying, “What would you want if it happened to you?”
He curses. I’ve got him. “The vic’s name was Joseph Daniels. Went by Joey. Age twenty-six.”
My age.
“A tweaker,” I say.
“He was on something, yeah. Blood work should come back in a few weeks. Autopsy is scheduled for Monday.”
That’s the difference between my case and a multi-millionaire’s. Money greases the wheels and gets things expedited through the backlogged labs.
“They’re still interviewing the neighbors, but no one saw anything. By lividity, we can guess the vic was killed in the middle of the night and dumped before dawn.”
“And no one saw a thing? What about whoever lives next to me?”
“The unit next to yours is empty.”
“Really?” I could’ve sworn there were lights on at some point. And someone put birdseed in the bird feeder.
Maybe it was the landlord?
“Have you ever seen anyone there?” Silva asks, just like Diaz and Jacobs did in my interview earlier yesterday.
“No. And before I found the body, I was sleeping—totally out of it.” But I woke up with the feeling that someone had been there. A feeling strong enough to make me reach for my gun and clear each room.
Was my subconscious trying to tell me something?
Silva’s gaze is intent on my face, so I say, “I didn’t hear anything.”
“You were sleeping.”
“Yeah.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah.” Because I was alone and in my bed, I had no alibi for the hours when the man was hunted and killed. “Diaz and Jacobs think it’s a gang thing.”
“Do you?”
No. I mull my answer, which comes from my gut. “It’s possible the gang did him and dumped him. But I get the sense it was one killer.” I feel comfortable sharing my gut feelings with Silva. “The crime feels. . . personal. I just don’t know why the killer left him on my stoop.”
“You got a secret admirer?” It’s the sort of gross joke Burgess would make, but Silva sounds serious.
“You think the killer left him for me?”
“Girl.” Silva snorts. “He practically gift-wrapped him.”
“He?”
“Or she. But it’d take someone strong to carry a dead body down that walk up.”
The wind tugs at my ponytail, and stray hairs whip my face. I raise my head to the slate-gray sky.
Maybe Silva’s on to something. Burgess, too, as much as I hate to admit it. Someone hunted one of my attackers down and left him on my doorstep. Like a cat dropping a dead mouse at its owner’s feet.
It feels right. My instincts say yes, this way. It’s not a perfectly marked path, just a few breadcrumbs dropped in the woods. I have a sense of the shape of it, but it’s not yet clear. The images in my brain are jumbled.
“Can you get me pictures of the scene?” Something about the position of the body is bothering me.
It’s Silva’s turn to stop and turn his face to the tree branches overhead as if praying for help. “Ramos. . .”
I swing around to face him. He takes one look at my expression and sighs. “Yeah. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks. I’ll owe you one.” I hunch my shoulders against the wind and walk away. I can sense him wanting to call me back, maybe invite me out to hang at the local watering hole or whatever, but he doesn’t, and I’m grateful. I need to be alone.
For the second time in my life, a murderer is hunting me.
Darling Swallow,
I stood in the shadow of the oaks and watched you in the park. Fall is coming, and the birds are restless.
I’d hoped you would turn and see me, but you were preoccupied. You spoke with that man again.
Don’t let him get close to you. I won’t tolerate anyone else in your life. You belong with me and me alone, and I’ll kill anyone who stands in my way.
BK
10
Inara
Friday, after a night in a cheap hotel on the department’s dime, I spend hours at the station reviewing nutty calls from the tipline. The day passes in a blur, and when it’s over, I want nothing more than to drag myself home. Instead, I have the stupid gala to attend. Chief’s orders.