Deadly Past, Sarah Spillman Police Procedurals: Book 8

Sample Chapter

CHAPTER ONE

Twenty years ago

 

“Aren’t you a pretty little thing?”

She looked up. She hadn’t heard the car slow down. They were smiling at her, seeming friendly enough. The car they were in wasn’t much, tan, dirt on the tires. It needed to be washed. She shielded her eyes against the hot spring sun and smiled back.

“Hey,” she said shyly.

“That’s a pretty dress,” one of them said.

She smoothed the front of her dress. “Thanks.”

She glanced away. Down the street, her brothers and their friend were playing in front of the house. They always got home from school a little before she did. They weren’t supposed to play in the front yard, but they did anyway. They hardly paid any attention to her. No one ever noticed her. Even when she tried, when she went out of her way to be good, went out of her way to be pretty. No one ever said a word. If anything, she was told just the opposite, how ugly she was, how chubby she was, how she needed to get her teeth straightened. But they couldn’t afford braces. They couldn’t afford much of anything. She looked down at her dress. She wasn’t sure how pretty it actually was. Her mom had gotten it at the Goodwill, and it still had a little grease stain on the front. When she’d pointed that out to her mom at the store, her mom said no one would notice. The girl sighed. She did. She longed for a new dress, but that wouldn’t happened. There was never any money. It always went elsewhere.

The street remained quiet, just her and the car. And her brothers, down the street.

The one in the passenger seat leaned over. “How’d you like to go with us to get a Coke, or maybe an ice cream? It’s a hot day.”

“Um.” She hesitated. “I’m not supposed to go anywhere with strangers.”

All the kids knew that. It didn’t matter that their mom got friendly with strangers. The girl scrunched her nose, then wiped beads of perspiration off it. Her nose always sweated. She didn’t like some of the guys her mom was with. Yuck. The one in the driver’s seat continued to talk, seeming to know why she was balking.

“It’s okay. We know your mom. She’s at work, right?”

The girl nodded. That was true. “Yes. She’ll be home later.”

Her mom worked afternoons at the King Soopers grocery store several blocks away. Their dad … well, he worked at a construction site, before he ran off. She didn’t know if he still worked there. Now it was just her brothers and her and their mom. Sometimes she missed her dad. Not always. He could be mean, and most of the time he didn’t notice her. But every once in a while, he did, and that had made her feel so good.

“We’ll have you back before she gets home,” the driver said. “It’s okay. We’re friends with your mom.”

Now the girl wasn’t sure. If they knew her mom, maybe going with them wasn’t wrong. Her mom liked to tell them not to do things; always so many rules. They broke other ones, and it didn’t mean anything. She was tired of it. The driver spoke again.

“No kidding, it’ll be okay. Your mom told us to watch out for you kids.”

The girl bashfully smoothed the front of her dress. “I guess if you know my mom …”

Maybe it would be okay. And she’d love to have a Coke or an ice cream. They hardly ever got something like that. Not lately anyway. Once upon a time, there was more money, but not right now. That made their mom cranky and sometimes nasty. It was all because their dad quit paying child support. That’s what their mom said.

“Come on!” The driver’s tone got a little pushy, a little excited. “We’ll have you back soon. It’s no problem. Hop in the back seat.”

The windows of the car were tinted, and she couldn’t see in the back seat. She glanced down the street. Now, one of her brothers was looking toward her, his hands on his hips. The other two were playing in the grass. He was giving her a look, like he always did. He always picked on her, acted as if he was the oldest. He could be so mean. But wouldn’t he be jealous when he found out that she’d gotten ice cream and he hadn’t. A little smile crossed her face.

“Okay.” She took a step into the street.

“There’s a good girl,” the driver said. “Come on, get in.”

The back door of the car opened. The girl looked toward her brothers, then stepped up to the car. She knew she probably shouldn’t be getting in the car, but she put her backpack on the seat and got in.

And it changed her life forever.

CHAPTER TWO

“Sometimes I think I could stay here endlessly,” Harry said.

I reached out, took his hand, and nodded. “I could, too.”

Harry Sousen – my husband – and I were sitting on the back porch of our ranch-style house in east Denver. The twilight was calm, peaceful, the sounds of the neighborhood dimmed and distant as we enjoyed each other’s company.

Husband, I thought with a small smile.

Harry caught the look and raised an eyebrow. “What?”

He looked handsome, his steel-gray hair still neatly trimmed from our wedding a couple of weeks ago. Even in the low light, I could see his tanned features. We’d honeymooned in Nassau, Bahamas, and it had been a blissful twelve days. I’d needed that, a break after convalescing from a gunshot wound in the spring, followed by an investigation where my life had again been threatened.

Harry and I had been together for over ten years before I’d been ready to take the next step. The hesitation had been on my part, not his. He’d have married me a long time ago, but he’d also understood that I’d needed time; a long time to work through my commitment fears. I hadn’t known if I could make a marriage work, and so I’d kept the idea at a distance. I’m thick-skulled, but even I reached a point where I was ready. I’d also recently realized that Harry had some of his own fears, worrying about the possibility of my being injured or killed on the job. He’d faced those, and thankfully, he still wanted to be married to a homicide detective with erratic hours, who might walk out the door some morning and not come back. I fiddled with the ring on my left hand. It felt good.

“What?” Harry repeated.

I smiled at him. “I was thinking about you being my husband. Not my boyfriend, my fiancé, my partner … whatever. My husband.” A tingly warmth filled me. “It sounds really nice. I don’t know why I waited so long.”

He returned the smile, then took a sip of his Scotch. “It doesn’t matter. It was the right time, and I love that you’re my wife.” His smile broadened. “I like saying that. My wife.”

“I like hearing it.”

We sat in companionable silence for a moment. In a yard down the street, some kids squealed in delight, and then I heard a man’s voice calling them inside. I looked up and saw the first star of the night. I thought about the poem, something about seeing the first star at night and making a wish. I wasn’t sure what I’d wish for.

“Are you ready to go back to work?” I asked.

His brow furrowed. “I am. Don’t get me wrong, it was a wonderful wedding and honeymoon, but I’m ready to get back to the challenge.” Harry owns and runs a computer consulting firm. Some of his clients are bigger companies that are suffering through IT growing pains, and he and his team help them figure out what systems they actually need, as opposed to what some ambitious tech salesman is trying to sell them. But he especially likes working with start-ups where, as he says, he can put them on the right IT path from the get-go, rather than having to undo and re-do systems that were never what a company needed to begin with. I don’t actually understand much about the technical side of what he does, but I do know that he busts his butt to do right by his clients and get them what they really need. It keeps him busy, and I’m sure he was thinking about what all awaited him when he went back to the office. “What about you?”

I gave that some thought. Being a homicide detective isn’t easy. Now I knew what I’d wish for. No more homicides. But since that seemed an impossibility, I had the same feelings as Harry. I wanted the challenge of solving a crime, and the satisfaction of catching the bad guys.

“I’m ready to go back,” I replied. “I also have lunch with Diane tomorrow. She called to ask if we could get together.”

My sister Diane is three years older than I am, and she and I have had a difficult past. It’s not that we don’t love each other, but we’ve never seen eye to eye. We’re two very different people, and although we’d recently resolved a particularly painful issue from our college days, our relationship is still tenuous. There’s been some valuable healing and growth, but that hasn’t changed either of our basic personalities. Diane is even more headstrong than I am, and she doesn’t let anything get in her way.

“Just to hear about our honeymoon?” Harry asked.

“She didn’t ask about that. She said she had something to discuss. I don’t know what.”

He sighed. “She is rather self-focused, isn’t she?” Then he smiled. “But she means well.”

“Yes, she does.”

I sipped my drink and we chatted for a bit as darkness descended like a warm June blanket around us. Then Harry swallowed the last of his drink, yawned, and stretched.

“I need to go to bed. Are you coming?”

I peered into the darkness. “I’ll be there in the minute, okay?”

He nodded and swung his legs around the side of the chair. He leaned in close to me, looked into my eyes, and kissed me.

“I love you.”

I smiled. “I love you, too.”

He pushed himself off the lawn chair and strode into the house. Through the open door, I heard him clinking dishes in the kitchen, and then it grew quiet. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. It was so peaceful, so calm for me. But given the nature of my work, I knew it wouldn’t last.

***

It was late, the city as quiet as it would get as he drove slowly down the paved alley with his headlights off, then slowed near a small church. It was dark out here, the nearest streetlight at the end of the alley. A light hung on the corner of the church building gave precious little illumination this far away. He put the rental car in park, leaned over the passenger side, and opened the door. He’d disabled the dome light, so the car remained dark. Then he shoved the body out. It was awkward, her head lolling to the side, her legs splayed awkwardly. She hit the edge of the drainage ditch and rolled down, a few feet away from the car. He quickly pulled the door shut, not worried that he’d been seen. It was too dark, the middle of the night. He wore a mask and gloves. No one would know who it was.

He put the car back into drive and eased slowly down the alley, so as not to attract any attention. A car racing away might be noticed. He didn’t see anyone as he turned onto the street and drove a few more blocks. He made his way along dark streets back to Colfax before he finally pulled the mask off. He drove to Colorado Boulevard, then north, and then picked up Interstate 70. He stayed at the speed limit to Strasburg, a tiny town forty miles east of Denver. The streets were deserted as he parked the car near the frontage road. He scoped the area out, knew there weren’t any surveillance cameras around. He smiled to himself. That was one thing you had to think about these days; it seemed that everybody had surveillance cameras. But not here. He’d rented the car the day before, having decided that a rental was less risky than using his own pickup to transport and dump the body. And yesterday, he’d driven his own pickup to the truck stop, parked it, and gotten an Uber back to his house. Now he got out of the rental, locked it, and tossed the keys into a field. Then he trekked west to the Love’s Travel Stop. The place was busy day and night, cars and big rigs coming and going. No one saw as he got in his pickup, started it, and pulled out of the lot. He drove onto the entry ramp of I-70 and headed back toward Denver.

Finally, he allowed himself a contented smile. He’d thought about this for so long, and now he’d finally made it happen. As far as he could tell, it had gone off without a hitch. It’d taken so much careful planning, so much patience. It was one step in the process. Now he had to wait to see what would happen next.

 

This series of books is my new favorite. Love that there are so many of them to read, been working my way through. If you like a realistic, interesting detective series with great characters, look no further. ~Reader review