fuck yourself.”
“Does that mean the race begins?”
“I’ll track you, Hersch. I’ll find you before you find anyone. And I’ll do something I haven’t done in a while. I’ll kill you.”
The laugh that came back at me was thick and sinister, the pervert stoner act fully shed. “My name isn’t really Hersch. You do know that, right?”
“I don’t care what your name is. I’m a damn good detective. You want to race? Fine. You can run from me.”
“Damn good, huh? Then how come you haven’t found her yet?”
I let loose, control out the door, reason a puddle at my feet. I popped off my seat and shouted so hard into the phone the tendons in my neck felt like a pair of hands trying to choke me. “You motherfucker I’ll fucking end you you son of a bitch cock-sucking piece of pig shit. You’re dead, you hear me? You are fucking dead!”
I dropped back into my chair, panting, throat raw. A cold sweat streaked my hot face.
“Are you finished?” he asked.
“Not by a long shot.” My voice sounded like gravel in a Vitamix.
“It’s your choice how you want to run this race. Come after me, if you’d like to try. But remember. You always have an out. One-million dollars and the game ends.”
I had my mouth set to spew another stream of curses, but he hung up before I got the chance.
I threw the phone across the room. The sound of it snapping apart against the wall satisfying, but not enough. I swept my arm along my desk. Pens, a legal pad, my to-go mug (coffee splattering as the top came off), a picture of my parents, a paperback copy of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot all poured off the end of my desk like a knick-knack waterfall.
Gasping, I threw myself against my seatback and pounded my fists on the chair arms. I didn’t think I had ever thrown such a temper tantrum in my life, not even as a kid resisting another damned recital Mom and Dad forced me into.
And I could think of only one other time I had felt the bass-beat thrum of murder’s music pulsing in my body.
Chapter 8
I had to get out of my office. The place felt like a prison. The buzz through my nerves made it impossible for me to sit still. So I broke out of that prison and headed to another.
This is a bad idea, I kept telling myself on the drive over. Yet I couldn’t stop myself, couldn’t turn around, like a lemming following the crowd to an inevitable plunge.
She agreed to see me.
I had hoped to do the whole phone through the glass kind of meeting. Instead, I was escorted to a room about the size of a café furnished with the plastic, metal, and fake wood kind of tables and chairs you’d find in a school room. Autumn came in from a door in the opposite corner of the room from the one I had entered through. When our gazes met in the middle I winced. Seeing her face sent a wind through my mind, tossing memories around like dead leaves.
She actually smiled, like we were old friends meeting after a long absence. We might have been old friends, but she was no friend of mine anymore. I didn’t smile. In fact, I could feel the corners of my mouth tug down. I wondered what the guard standing by would do if I crossed the room and slapped Autumn across the face. The guard’s rock-hard expression told me she would probably bludgeon me with her nightstick and take pleasure all the while. Not wanting to get beat up by a girl, I tamped back my urge and took a seat at the nearest table. Let her come to me.
She did, without hesitation, and took a seat next to me instead of across the table. She raised a hand as if to touch me.
I stood and moved around the table, took the chair across from her.
She drew her hand back and held it with her other hand like a wounded paw. “I thought you’d finally got over your anger.”
I spat air. “Never going to happen.”
“Never?”
I looked her over, just in case I thought I could change my mind. She had her dark hair cut short, hanging just below her ears. The style made her look more like
“Does that mean the race begins?”
“I’ll track you, Hersch. I’ll find you before you find anyone. And I’ll do something I haven’t done in a while. I’ll kill you.”
The laugh that came back at me was thick and sinister, the pervert stoner act fully shed. “My name isn’t really Hersch. You do know that, right?”
“I don’t care what your name is. I’m a damn good detective. You want to race? Fine. You can run from me.”
“Damn good, huh? Then how come you haven’t found her yet?”
I let loose, control out the door, reason a puddle at my feet. I popped off my seat and shouted so hard into the phone the tendons in my neck felt like a pair of hands trying to choke me. “You motherfucker I’ll fucking end you you son of a bitch cock-sucking piece of pig shit. You’re dead, you hear me? You are fucking dead!”
I dropped back into my chair, panting, throat raw. A cold sweat streaked my hot face.
“Are you finished?” he asked.
“Not by a long shot.” My voice sounded like gravel in a Vitamix.
“It’s your choice how you want to run this race. Come after me, if you’d like to try. But remember. You always have an out. One-million dollars and the game ends.”
I had my mouth set to spew another stream of curses, but he hung up before I got the chance.
I threw the phone across the room. The sound of it snapping apart against the wall satisfying, but not enough. I swept my arm along my desk. Pens, a legal pad, my to-go mug (coffee splattering as the top came off), a picture of my parents, a paperback copy of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot all poured off the end of my desk like a knick-knack waterfall.
Gasping, I threw myself against my seatback and pounded my fists on the chair arms. I didn’t think I had ever thrown such a temper tantrum in my life, not even as a kid resisting another damned recital Mom and Dad forced me into.
And I could think of only one other time I had felt the bass-beat thrum of murder’s music pulsing in my body.
Chapter 8
I had to get out of my office. The place felt like a prison. The buzz through my nerves made it impossible for me to sit still. So I broke out of that prison and headed to another.
This is a bad idea, I kept telling myself on the drive over. Yet I couldn’t stop myself, couldn’t turn around, like a lemming following the crowd to an inevitable plunge.
She agreed to see me.
I had hoped to do the whole phone through the glass kind of meeting. Instead, I was escorted to a room about the size of a café furnished with the plastic, metal, and fake wood kind of tables and chairs you’d find in a school room. Autumn came in from a door in the opposite corner of the room from the one I had entered through. When our gazes met in the middle I winced. Seeing her face sent a wind through my mind, tossing memories around like dead leaves.
She actually smiled, like we were old friends meeting after a long absence. We might have been old friends, but she was no friend of mine anymore. I didn’t smile. In fact, I could feel the corners of my mouth tug down. I wondered what the guard standing by would do if I crossed the room and slapped Autumn across the face. The guard’s rock-hard expression told me she would probably bludgeon me with her nightstick and take pleasure all the while. Not wanting to get beat up by a girl, I tamped back my urge and took a seat at the nearest table. Let her come to me.
She did, without hesitation, and took a seat next to me instead of across the table. She raised a hand as if to touch me.
I stood and moved around the table, took the chair across from her.
She drew her hand back and held it with her other hand like a wounded paw. “I thought you’d finally got over your anger.”
I spat air. “Never going to happen.”
“Never?”
I looked her over, just in case I thought I could change my mind. She had her dark hair cut short, hanging just below her ears. The style made her look more like
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