Fox’s ears went beet red. Linc was pretty sure his boss had actually stopped breathing since the beer belly covering his belt buckle had frozen in mid-rise.
Linc took another moment. “Cap…” He laughed breathily. “I’m just following up. It took me two seconds.”
“Two seconds to try to twist this case around and make your vic a perp. These rich bastards have been down my neck all morning because Todd and Eugene’s attacker has yet to be found. You should be looking for his attacker! This isn’t a game, Linc. If word gets out that you’re not just going off course, but working against Eugene, it’s both our asses on the line. I’ll tell you this one last time, stop bringing your personal shit to work or I guarantee the next suspension will be your last.” Fox’s eyebrows knitted as if those words were painful for him to say.
“Like I said… This has nothing to do with Lisa.”
Fox looked in the midst of laughing, but his anger won out. “Who the fuck are you talking to?”
Linc looked away. “A’ight.”
Fox put a hand to his ear. “I didn’t quite hear you.”
“I said alright,” Linc said, loud enough to cause a few of his co-workers to stop what they were doing and throw them curious looks.
“Good,” Fox said, freezing in the midst of walking away. “If I catch you again, you’re fired. You understand me?”
“I got you,” Linc spat, avoiding his eyes. When he still felt the captain’s shadow looming, his eyes shot up.
Fox cringed at him, hands on his hips. “You gotta be shitting me.”
Dumbfounded, Linc held his arms out. “What?”
Fox’s face went beat red. “Where is your badge?”
Linc’s eyes shot down to his white t-shirt, and when he saw that his badge was no longer around his neck, he cursed and slapped his palms against his chest, as if that would make it suddenly reappear.
His gaze shot up, and realization washed over his face.
—
Veda adjusted the police badge around her neck when the chain began to bite at her skin, clearing her throat.
A small smile lit up her face as she noted that Lincoln Hill wasn’t the only one on that island with eyes like a hawk. He might’ve memorized that kid’s plate number in seconds—but Veda had memorized his bumper sticker: Shadow Rock Basketball.
It had taken nothing more than a quick Google search between patients, followed by some intermediate Facebook sleuthing, before she’d found herself looking at a team photo from a few years earlier, with the kid from that morning looking right back. The friend who’d posted the team’s photo to Facebook had been kind enough to tag every player’s face with a name.
And that kid’s name was Luke Greer. Thanks to a visit he’d made to the emergency room a few years back, his name and address had popped right up when Veda had typed it into the hospital’s search database.
Perhaps Linc had been right.
She really should apply for his job.
Taking a deep breath, she banged on the rickety door of the red shack at the very top of the hill. The fog that always lingered at the hill’s peak bubbled down and surrounded her, making the dark alley humid and hard to breathe in.
It was the first time she’d returned to the hill in ten years. It hadn’t gotten better. If she wasn’t crazy, it was even scarier than she remembered.
She’d never appreciated the risks Shadow Rock PD took whenever they responded to emergency calls from the hill, until that afternoon. During her journey up there, the police badge swinging from her neck had earned her more than a few sour looks. She’d honestly been waiting for the moment she found herself face to face with the wrong one—with a resident of the hill who’d lost everything at the hands of the police, and therefore had nothing to lose. Having grown up there, she knew the wrong one had the potential to pop up at any moment. Waiting around any corner. Ready and willing to take back what had been taken from them.
She knew how strong the need for revenge could be, so she’d been utterly thankful when she’d made it to Luke Greer’s door fully intact.
She only had thirty more minutes until her lunch break was over, so she needed to get answers quickly.
She knocked again, and her eyes searched the long alleyway.
It was damn near pitch black on either side, even though the sun was high. The slums of the hill had a lot of dips and corners that remained dark as night, even at midday. The higher you moved to the top, the deeper the shadows loomed, making the northwest end the most dangerous place in all of Shadow Rock.
The shacks were compacted together like sardines. Laundry lines zoomed across the tight alleyways with tattered clothes hanging down. The laughter of children with no shoes on their tar-stained feet and no shirts covering their chests was the only thing that brought Veda solace at that moment.
She banged on the door harder. The heads of nosey neighbors peeked out of second and third-floor windows, scowling at the gold badge gleaming from the chain around her neck. Veda tried to swallow the lump in her throat.
When the door suddenly flew open, she almost screamed in delight when she came face to face with Luke Greer. But her happiness was short-lived.
Luke wobbled from the other side of the door. The darkness of his apartment loomed in the background. His blond eyelashes fluttered like they were being held down by boulders, and he couldn’t seem to stand on either of his unsteady bare feet for longer than a few moments. His chest was bare, and the track marks on his arms looked red and fresh.
“Luke Greer?” Veda asked softly.
The sound of his name was enough to steady Luke, but only for a moment because his heavy blue eyes were fluttering once more.
Changing her clothes and taking her hair down in the hopes he wouldn’t recognize her had clearly been a waste of time.
He managed to slur. “How’d you know my name?”
Yep. Cotton mouth. Flushed skin. Slow breathing. Constricted pupils. Sleepy eyes.
He’d definitely shot up. Probably in the last ten minutes. So far removed from the kid she’d seen hours earlier, he probably couldn’t even spell his own name.
Veda’s heart sank.
“You were at the hospital earlier this morning…” Veda said, stepping in closer and lifting the police badge. She tried to talk like a cop would, but the guilt she felt in her heart was making it impossible to focus. She couldn’t shake the fact that this kid was paying for her mistake, and it made her eyes burn with tears that she had to fight to keep at bay. “You seemed pretty upset at Eugene Masterson. Ran off before we could talk to you about it.”
Luke swallowed the lump in his throat. “I got nothing to talk about.”
“You certainly had a lot to talk about in that hospital room. Don’t get shy on me now.” She gave a nervous laugh, but it vanished when he didn’t have one to give in return. “Look, I’m not on the attack here, okay? Nobody’s in trouble.” That sounded like something a cop would say. “I just have a few questions about Eugene.”
Veda wondered why she needed her questions answered. Was the fact that Eugene raped her ten years ago no longer reason enough to give him what he deserved? She wondered why she needed further convincing. Further validation.
As her eyes searched Luke’s face, it hit her. Eugene had named Luke as a likely suspect. The police would be looking into him for no good reason. Veda knew, in her heart of hearts, she couldn’t let Luke be arrested for something he didn’t do. For something she’d done. She’d come to Shadow Rock with the sole intent of working alone. She refused to allow an innocent kid to get dragged into her madness.
She’d couldn’t take revenge on Eugene until she was sure Luke’s name was out of the crosshairs.
It was the only way she could do it. With a clear conscience. Because she wasn’t Eugene.
She wasn’t a predator.
“I said all that I had to say,” Luke slurred. When he tumbled forward, Veda held out her arms to catch him, but Luke shifted his feet before
he could fall, giving the doorframe all his weight. “I spent my last dollar on a new suit, trying to get my life together, and that bastard sends the police my way in the middle of my first job interview in forever?” Luke wobbled again. “I’ve been sober six months, man. I worked so… so hard…”
Veda couldn’t help it as her eyes burned with tears. She pressed her lips together, trying to hold back the guilt eating her alive. “I’m really sorry to hear that, Luke. Really.” She sucked in a breath through her nose. “But it doesn’t have to be this way.”
He chortled, his eyes now fully closed. A long silence fell in, his body leaning forward slowly. Only when he was a breath from falling down did his eyes flutter open. He found his footing.
“Yes, it fucking does have to be this way,” he garbled. “That rich prick will never get what he deserves because the only language Shadow Rock PD speaks is paper. He’ll pay you off, just like the rest of them, so he can keep disappearing the poor girls from the hill, just like he disappeared my sister.”
Veda nodded, trying to maintain her composure as he finally gave her something to work with. “What was your sister’s name?”
Luke seemed suspicious, as if even that sliver of information was too precious to share, but something made him sputter, “Greta.”
“Greta.” Veda realized she couldn’t dance around this issue. She had to go straight for the jugular. “And how old was Greta when Eugene disappeared her?”
Luke cringed at her, banging a fist into the frame. “She was ten. She got away, escaped, long enough to call me, after he took her. She was crying. Said she needed help. Then the phone went dead. That was the last time I ever talked to her.” Luke’s eyes fell. “I was fucked up… too fucked up to help her. But I remember… all she could do was say the number eight. Over and over. Eight, eight, eight…”
Veda’s eyes nearly exploded. “Eight?”
Her tear filled eyes fell to the number 8 as he locked his fingers around her neck from behind, squeezing hard enough to cut off her air supply. She prayed for him to squeeze tighter. To end it all. But his grip loosened to make room for the sound of his zipper coming down as it rang into the night air. The laughter of his friends, his teammates, ensured Veda that she was still alive and well, and the tears never seemed to stop coming as he pushed inside her with a grunt.
“I’ll give you three guesses what number Eugene Masterson has tattooed on his wrist, huh?” Luke asked. “What number was on his jersey for all four years he played ball in high school?”
Veda’s breath came short.
Luke wobbled. “His lawyer said because I was high when my sister called, that I was making it all up. That I heard wrong. That the number 8 could easily be 28, 48, or 108 when it’s hitting the ears of a junkie. That I was just some bitter addict looking to stick it to a rich prick. That because Eugene found her in an escort ad, because she turned tricks, that her life didn’t matter anyway. That just because…” Luke hiccupped and didn’t finish.
But Veda didn’t need him to.
“Why am I wasting my breath? Like you give a shit.” Luke dug his fingers into the doorframe and appeared to choke on his own saliva. He bent at the hip, coughing up a storm before he finally stood tall and gave her his lazy gaze. “You don’t give a shit about me…”
“I don’t think you have any idea how much.” Veda frowned.
Luke slammed the heel of his palm into the wall. “Every kid that disappears on Shadow Rock disappears from this hill, and only this hill. So that fucking predator will never be made to pay the price. Because the lives of Hill kids don’t matter—”
“They matter to me.”
Luke jammed a finger at her. “Fuck you. You’re a cop. You’re a liar. Our lives have never mattered to you. We’re as disposable to you as the tampon string hanging out of your snatch as long as those rich animals keep signing checks.”
Sensing she was losing him, Veda pushed for as much as she could get. “You said your sister turned tricks before she disappeared. Did she have a pimp? Do you remember?”
He nearly fell asleep, but snapped awake when he almost fell, blinking rapidly. “Don’t waste your time on Nikki. They own her ass too.”
Nikki. Veda made a mental note. “Will you fill out a police report?” Not that she had one to give him, but she hoped, somewhere in the back of her mind, that she could convince him to go to the police station and do it himself.
“So you can throw it to the bottom of a pile like you did Greta’s?”
Veda struggled. “Maybe you could just tell the police what you know. What if the people who took your sister are the same people who took the girl who went missing yesterday? Zena Jones? Your information could be invaluable.”
For the first time since she’d knocked on his door, Luke’s eyes softened. He cut his hooded gaze at her. “You ain’t no police.”
Veda was unreasonably offended. “Um, excuse me…” Her eyes widened as she lifted the badge around her neck. She waved it around. “Of course I am. I have my badge, right here.” She lifted it higher as if he couldn’t see it, tapping the metal with her nail. “See? Police.”
He smirked, his slurred voice going playful. “You ain’t no police.”
Veda pouted. Was she that bad an actor? She decided to get the hell out of dodge before she made things worse. She’d probably gotten as much information as she could out of him anyway, and her lunch hour was almost up.
She thanked Luke for his time, and after he’d closed the door, she looked to her right.
Kids in swimsuits at the end of the alley were using a line of garbage bags and a leaking water hose as a makeshift Slip ’N Slide.
Veda’s heart warmed. She remembered those days. Diving headfirst into a slide comprised entirely of Glad garbage bags, too busy having the time of her fucking life to worry about how impoverished she was.
She remembered the days when she was still capable of feeling pure, unadulterated happiness.
Thanks to Gage, she knew she still had that happiness within her.
It was in there.
And she knew, once she made Eugene pay, she’d be one step closer.
One step closer to pure, unadulterated happiness.
—
Veda’s visit with Luke had sent a dark cloud that loomed long after her lunch break. She’d been moving through the hospital halls like a coma patient all day.
Thankfully, she still had the music of Eugene’s cries playing on repeat in her head, helping to break through the storm clouds, shining a ray of light. That music had helped carry her through the rest of the day until the smile on her face finally became genuine.
It was her last patient of the day, and she spent her prep-time whistling while she worked. She even went so far as to sync Eugene’s screams to a rap song she’d written in her head.
As she set up her anesthesia machine and surgical tools, she whistled around the sucker in her mouth, the sound bouncing off the walls of the bright operating room. She couldn’t wait to be done so she could go home and get ready for her first night out on the town with Gage.
Just hearing his name in her head made her heart warm. It sent the pitch of her whistles to a higher caliber.
The phone rang from where it was bolted to the operating room wall, starting her so much she nearly fell out of her rolly stool, frowning across the room.
She’d never heard that phone ring. It was primarily used to make outgoing calls.
Sensing that an incoming call spelled urgency, Veda leaped out of the chair and crossed the room, taking the time to note that it was getting dark outside the room’s windows before she snatched the phone off the cradle.
“Exam room seven, this is Veda.”
“Yeah, Veda…”
Veda recognized the voice of the hospital pharmacy technician. “Hey, Jake.” Why in the world was Jake calling? “What’s up?”
“Can you come down to the pharmacy for a second?”
Veda frowned at the hitch she heard
in his voice. She and Jake weren’t exactly best friends, but she knew him well enough to know that his was the type of personality that wasn’t easily rattled.
“Um…” She looked into the hospital room. “Not really. I’m scheduled for a surgery in half an hour and haven’t finished setting up.”
“I found another resident to cover the rest of your shift.”
“You did what?” She cringed. Operating room hours were as precious as solid gold in that hospital. For a resident with half a million dollars in college loans, who made just as much as a fast food worker, those hours were even more precious. If it were legal for the anesthesia residents to murder each other in order to acquire more hours and experience, Veda had no doubt every last one of them would. “Jake… you had no right to do that.”
“Veda…” Jake’s tone remained calm. “I think you need to really trust me on this, and come down to the pharmacy.”
But Veda couldn’t hear past the anger pumping in her ears. “Trust you?” She nearly laughed. “I’m not coming down, and you’d better find whatever resident you offered my shift to—without my permission—and let them know there’s been a mistake.”
“What if I told you I have proof that you were the person in Eugene Masterson’s apartment last night?”
Veda gasped. Her heart stopped in mid-beat, even as a full body tremor exploded over every inch of her body. She nearly dropped the phone when her hand began to shake out of control. That shake seemed to move all over her body, until every inch of her trembled, including her parted lips. Her eyes bulged out of her head and dashed all over the room as she tried to think of a response.
“Do you trust me now?” Jake asked.
Veda swallowed back the massive lump that had taken up residence in her throat and seemed to be growing larger by the second.
“Give me five minutes,” she croaked, before slamming the phone down.
For a while, she just stared at it, no longer bothered by the chipped cow-print nail polish that screamed up at her from her thumb.
She wanted to move for the door, but her limbs wouldn’t operate. So she just stared at that phone as if it had all the answers, all while ignoring the voice screaming in her mind.
Tingle (Revenge Book 2) Page 9