by Linda Berry
Sidney stood on the porch in the evening chill and watched David climb into his SUV. The engine started with a plume of exhaust, and she heard the tires crunching gravel as he drove down the driveway to Main Street. After his taillights disappeared, she lingered, rubbing the goose bumps on her arms, listening to the quiet sounds of the night, letting the peacefulness of the small town seep into her soul. In the vast dome of black sky overhead, stars sparkled like diamonds, and the fragrance of the forest lingered in the air. She entered the house, shutting out the mysteries of the night, wondering with a twinge of anxiety what wild and deadly creatures crouched out there in the darkness, waiting to strike.
ALSO BY LINDA BERRY
PRETTY CORPSE
Lauren Starkley, a widowed single mom and beat cop in San Francisco, has a rebellious teen, a night-shift partner with family issues, and a crush on the captain, her boss. When Lauren and her partner stumble on a series of sex crimes close to her own neighborhood, she does a little off-duty detecting. She earns official trouble for her efforts, but the warnings from her superiors don’t keep her from tugging at elusive clues. And Lauren finds she’s put both her daughter and herself in mortal danger.
CHAPTER ONE
October 1999
PATROL OFFICER Lauren Starkley pulled her gaze away from the laptop mounted on the console. Calls had come in nonstop since she and her partner started their evening shift two hours ago. Then for the last fifteen minutes, nothing. Dispatch was directing units to other parts of the city. Break time. “I need a java jolt.”
The car shifted abruptly as Patrol Officer Steve Santos stepped on the brakes, jerked the wheel to the right, and parked at the curb. She glanced up through the rain-marbled windshield. Peet’s Coffee glimmered in the darkness.
“Fast enough, Princess?”
“The whiplash wasn’t necessary.”
“Sorry. You could’ve driven.”
“Nope. Your turn. Wouldn’t wanna deprive you.” She’d had her fill of maneuvering on rain-slick city streets. They’d been dodging the downpour all evening and failing. Her uniform was damp, she was chilled to the bone, and the car was warm. Putting on her most charming smile, she asked sweetly, “You running in for me, darling?”
“You know I can’t resist when you call me darling.” He grinned, opened the door, and strode quickly across the wet sidewalk.
Rolling her shoulders back and forth, she tried to release her growing tension. San Francisco had been under a deluge for days. The storm had momentarily let up, but worse than rain was fog, which had thickened dramatically in the last few hours, drifting into the Mission District from the bay. There were always collisions on nights like this, and they’d already written up three fender benders and two DUIs. So far nothing serious, but it was the witching hour. Prime time for drunks to empty out of the bars.
The smell of wet asphalt rolled into the cab as Steve slid into the driver’s seat balancing two cups of hot coffee. He passed her a cafè mocha. “Here’s your frou-frou drink. That sugar and cream’s going straight to your booty.”
“My booty’s just fine, thank you very much.” Steve thought he was doing her a service by offering dieting tips, which she ignored. They both hit the gym hard almost every day. He was solidly packed muscle, while she always ran five to eight pounds overweight, which gave her a little paunch and forced her to constantly suck in her gut. To hell with fat. She removed the lid and sipped, sighing her pleasure.
Steve took his java robust and black, no frills. They drank in silence.
The voice of a dispatcher crackled over the radio. “We’ve got a 618. Report of a woman’s screams in Cypress Park.”
“We’ll take it,” Lauren said into her shoulder mic. “We’re three blocks away.”
Steve hit the siren and light and the patrol car roared forward. Lauren was pressed back against the seat and hot coffee spilled over her fingers. With a silent curse, she set the cup in the holder. “Where’s the witness?” she asked the dispatcher.
“Anonymous call.”
“Location?”
“East side. Near the tracks.”
“Copy that.”
A report of screams could mean anything, but a decade at the busiest station in the city had taught Lauren to prepare for the worst. City streets flew past the window, the patrol car squealed to the curb on Grifton Street, and she and Steve sprinted into the park. As a soccer mom, she had spent hundreds of hours on the fields of Cyprus Park, but tonight they entered the densely forested east side and she found it unrecognizable. Fog blocked out the glare of streetlights and it was pitch black under the thick canopy. Her flashlight beam steered her around trees and puddles, but bushes clawed her uniform, and a low-hanging branch whipped her cheek. There was no sound except her heavy breathing and her thick-soled shoes making sucking noises in the earth. Thirty feet to her left, Steve’s light sliced through the fog in sweeping strides. She heard him stumble and curse. “Where’re the damn tracks?” he yelled.
“Over here.” Using the faint glimmer of streetlights as a reference point, Lauren reached the rim of the trolley car gulch and swooped her light down to the tracks below, then up the opposite bank. Tattered mist shrouded the steep grades, while to the north the gaping mouth of the tunnel was barely visible. Low hanging clouds muffled everything, muting the persistent roar of the city. She wiped sweat off her face with the sleeve of her jacket and let the silence seep into her consciousness.
Emerging through the mist, Steve’s shadowy frame solidified as he joined her. He was breathing hard and tracks of moisture glistened in the folds of his neck. “Damn fog,” he said. “Anyone out in this soup is certifiable.”
“You should be very afraid,” she said in a low, creepy tone. “Vampires and werewolves abound.”
“No problem.” His handsome Latin features brightened. “My stake’s sharpened, and my cross is freshly doused with holy water.”
“I feel better now.”
“I sure don’t hear any screaming,” he said. “Someone’s getting their jollies screwing with cops.”
Turning her gaze to the south, Lauren peered into a dense grove of sycamore trees. “What’s that in there? A dumpster?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. Let’s take a look.”
She felt the temperature drop as they entered the grove. The air was moist and thick and smelled of decay. The drenched tree trunks looked black and oily and water dripped from the branches. Her beam cut across a glistening carpet of dead leaves, scaled the leg of a picnic table to its surface, and froze. An icy shiver raced across her scalp. “What the hell? Give me more light.”
“Holy shit,” Steve breathed as his beam joined hers. Caught in the crossbeams was the nude body of a woman. Lauren cleared her 9mm Beretta from its holster. Steve did the same. Standing back-to-back, their light splintered between trees and probed the latticework of branches overhead. The grove possessed an eerie stillness.
“Clear,” Steve said after several tense moments.
Holstering their sidearms, they approached the body. Lauren shuddered as she viewed the woman lying on her back with her arms crossed over her chest. Her body was graceful and athletic, legs straight and rigid, toes pointing outward. Her fingers pressed a full red rose to her pale breasts, and her dark hair fanned away from her bloodless face like a halo. She made a stunning corpse.
Lauren disliked touching the dead, but ignoring the queasy flutter in her stomach, she pressed her fingers to the woman’s carotid artery, and felt a pulse. “She’s alive!” Lauren hurriedly shook out of her jacket and draped it across the woman’s torso while Steve spread his own over her bare legs.
“We need a 408, Code 3,” Lauren barked into her mic. “We’re in Cypress Park across from the tracks.” With an ambulance and backup units on the way, she turned her full attention to the victim. A cloying floral scent Lauren didn’t recognize wafted off the body.
“Christ. She’s just a kid.” Santos was holding his beam over her face, and the
y could clearly see that alabaster makeup had been meticulously applied to her face from hairline to chin. Her generous mouth was painted scarlet. “The white makeup makes her look bloodless.”
“Just like a corpse.” Lauren felt a tightening at the back of her neck as she studied the teenager’s face—she was maybe fifteen, sixteen years old.
“What the hell is she doing out here, like this?” Steve asked.
The emotion in her partner’s voice matched her feelings exactly. She and Steve both had teenage daughters. Finding this young victim hit like a sucker punch. Lauren’s light traveled down to the girl’s throat, which was badly bruised and swollen. A bold weave pattern was impressed in the flesh, with tiny puncture wounds evenly spaced throughout. Lauren swallowed, found her voice. “Looks like she was strangled with something that had little sharp edges.”
Santos released a quick exhale. “Sick. These little cuts must’ve been bloody.”
“No doubt. Whoever did this had her for a while. Cleaned her up, and then took a lot of time getting this makeup just right. Had to be a man. Someone strong. She was carried in here from the street. Then he took his sweet time staging her like a corpse, fanning out her hair, placing the rose under her fingers. Everything perfect.”
Steve’s jaw bunched. “A regular Picasso.”
“I’m sure he thinks he’s a genius.”
“One thing’s for sure. She couldn’t have screamed. She’s out cold.”
“You’re right. The anonymous call must’ve come from the assailant. He wanted us to find her right away.”
“Admire his handy-work.”
“Let’s see if he left other evidence,” she said.
They scoured every inch of the clearing. No sign of the girl’s belongings, no disturbance in the leaves. “Didn’t expect to find anything,” she said, disappointed. “He’s too careful.”
A low guttural moan brought their attention back to the victim. Her eyelids fluttered open and Lauren gave a little gasp. The whites of her eyes were red. The strangulation, she realized, had to have been brutal to force blood to burst through the eye vessels. The assailant had been a hair away from killing her.
The teen held a fixed stare, then her eyes widened in terror. Lauren placed a hand on her arm and said slowly and deliberately, “You’re okay, hon. We’re police officers. We’re here to help you. Do you understand?”
The girl’s expression alternated between dazed and frightened. Her hands jutted out from under the jacket and lightly caressed her throat, fingers trembling. She winced and made a choking sound. Tears filled her eyes and ran down her temples. She tried to rise, but Lauren pressed a hand to her shoulder. “Lie still for now. Help is on the way.”
The girl lay back, motionless.
“What’s your name?”
No answer. Blank stare.
Lauren repeated the question. “What. Is. Your. Name?” “Melissa. Melissa… Cox.” Her voice was raspy and triggered a spasm of coughing. Her hands moved down to her groin. “It hurts.”
Lauren and Steve exchanged a look. His face darkened. Lauren quelled her own anger and spoke in a soothing tone. “Hang in there, Melissa. An ambulance is on the way. You’re safe now.”
Melissa reached out and grasped Lauren’s hand. “Will you… go with me?”
“I’ll be right at your side.” Noticing Melissa wore a gold band on her left ring finger, Lauren made a mental note to ask about it later. “Melissa, do you know who did this to you?”
The girl shook her head.
“Can you tell me your phone number?” Steve asked. Melissa rasped out a number.
A twig snapped just outside the grove. Lauren froze. Did a shadow flicker in the darkness? An animal? She peered through the mist, only half hearing Steve eliciting personal information from Melissa. The next sound Lauren heard was unmistakable. Muffled footsteps, moving away from the grove. Her partner’s voice was interspersed with static as he talked to Dispatch. Lauren met his eyes, signaled. He nodded.
She squeezed Melissa’s hand. “I’ll be right back.” Pulling out her Beretta, Lauren tread cautiously, her beam fanning between columns of trees and veils of mist. Disoriented, she waited until the haze parted and dim lights appeared in windows on King Street, seemingly floating above ground. Footsteps slapped pavement some distance to the east heading for the footbridge crossing the ravine. Lauren bolted through the underbrush and reached the gorge as the hazy figure of a man darted onto the bridge some twenty yards away.
“Stop! Police!”
His outline paused for a second, then disappeared into the fog. Lauren thought she could intercept him if she angled down the embankment and up the other side. The terrain dropped away and she descended the rocky slope in long, careful strides.
Across the grade, the suspect reappeared directly above her, metal glinting in his hand.
Shit!
Loud, thundering shots cracked the night. White sparks bounced off the rails below.
Adrenalin jolted her system. She moved fast, sidestepping on gravel. Her leg skidded out from under her and she felt herself falling. She lurched into a violent tumble, somersaulting once, and came to a jolting stop against the berm of the tracks. She lay dazed, shocked by the fall. A trolley car burst from the tunnel. Caught in its headlights, she made an easy target.
More gunshots. Dirt shot up the hill behind her. The ground exploded an even distance away on either side of her. The shooter was circling her with bullets. Deliberately missing. Playing her.
Blood pounding in her ears, she bent to one knee, took aim at the shooter, and fired off a few rounds before the trolley reached her and rushed passed in a rumbling blur of metal and blinking lights. The tracks cleared. The shooter was gone.
Lauren’s nerves felt exposed. Her pulse raced. Sweat dripped down her face. Staying on task, she crossed the tracks and mounted the hill. Gauzy layers of mist swirled over King Street.
Parked cars and houses appeared, then disappeared. Heart punching her ribcage, senses wide open, she scanned the area in slices. No movement. The distant wail of sirens rushed toward her and grew piercingly loud. Vehicles screeched to a halt. Blue and red strobes fractured the night. Car doors opened and slammed. Footsteps slapped asphalt. Uniformed figures approached through the haze.
Hands clammy, Lauren lowered her Beretta. “I’m Officer Starkley. A suspect’s at large in this vicinity. Male, lean build, dark clothing, ball cap.”
As cops dispersed rapidly into the park and immediate neighborhood, Lauren updated her report to dispatch. A dozen more officers arrived promptly and joined the manhunt. Shots fired at an officer was deadly serious business.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Linda’s love of the written word and the visuals arts culminated in a twenty-five-year career as an award-winning copywriter and art director. Now retired, Linda writes mysteries and intense, fast-paced thrillers. She currently lives in Oregon with her husband and toy poodle.