Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [readnow TXT] 📗

DEAD COLD BOX SET: BOOKS 5-8

Copyright © 2019 by Blake Banner

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BOOK 5 – THE SINS OF THE FATHER

BOOK 6 – STRANGE AND SINISTER PATH

BOOK 7 – THE HEART TO KILL

BOOK 8 – UNNATURAL MURDER

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BOOK 5

THE SINS OF THE FATHER

One

“This one.”

She had her boots crossed on the corner of the desk, at the end of her mile-long legs, and she was leaning back in a pool of lazy September sunshine. She threw the file she had been reading on the desk in front of me.

I sighed and dropped the one I’d been reading—a disemboweled mob lawyer—into the ‘maybe later’ pile and picked up her folder from the desk. She closed her eyes and made a temple of her finger, as though she were Sherlock Holmes. I was struck, not for the first or last time, by how exquisite her face was. She opened one eye and raised that eyebrow at me. “Are you going to read it?”

I sat back and put my ankles on the desk next to hers.

“Simon Martin, thirty-two, beaten and stabbed during a home invasion on the 5th of September, 1999, Bogart Avenue. That’s not far from here. Victim had just got home from work. He had bruising to the ribs and a jaw break consistent with having been punched and he had been stabbed in the chest with a very large knife. Weapon was not found. Wife, Sylvie, was apparently upstairs at the time of the assault, but suffered shock-induced amnesia, so was unable to give a statement…” I gave Dehan a skeptical glance, but her eyes were still closed. I continued. “There were no signs of forced entry. The back door was unlocked and there were footprints in the garden from common white tennis shoes, size ten or eleven. You awake?”

“I’m listening.”

“You can’t look and listen at the same time? I thought women were supposed to be good at multitasking.”

She opened her eyes and revealed a total lack of humor. “Really, Stone? Sexist stereotyping, now, are we? That is so typical of a man. The more sensory input you can shut down, the more you are able to focus.”

I ignored her and looked back at the file, glancing through the pages. “OK. Yeah, let’s do it.”

“You’re not going to read the rest of the file?”

“Tell me about it as we go.”

As we stepped out into the early afternoon, she said, “You know, Stone, you are not an unattractive man.”

I frowned at her. We crossed the road toward my burgundy 1964 Jaguar Mark II and I thought absently that it was not an unattractive car.

Dehan continued, which was a little unsettling. “You are not unlike the man, Bogart.”

“Knock it awf, shweetheart.”

I unlocked the car and climbed in.

As she got in the passenger seat, she said, “I’m serious. You’re taller, what are you, six-two?”

“Six-one.”

“Perhaps Harrison Ford or Hugh Jackman would be a better comparison.”

I reversed out of the lot and pulled onto Storey Avenue, headed east. I settled back in my seat and scowled. “Dehan,” I said with a degree of severity. “I know what you are doing. The answer is no, I do not want a woman in my life. What is it with you and trying to get me paired up?”

“I don’t know, Stone. You’re a good-looking guy, you’re comparatively young…”

“Thanks.”

“You’re one of the good guys, and believe me, that is rare. It just seems like a waste that you are single. It’s a shame.”

“We have had this conversation before. And besides, I could say the same about you. Only you are not a good-looking guy. You are…” I waved my hand around, realizing the conversation was getting into dangerous waters. “Anyway, the fact is we would probably both make terrible husbands and wives.”

She shrugged. “You would be a terrible wife. I would probably be a pretty good husband.”

“You are a very disturbing woman.”

She sighed. “That is what my shrink keeps telling me.”

I took Rosedale North as far as East Tremont, then turned left on to Bronxdale and right onto Pierce. Bogart was the second on the left. I parked outside the Martins’ house and looked at Dehan. She seemed abstracted. I smiled. “I’m glad it was Bogart Avenue and not Karloff.”

She gave a sad smile and climbed out.

There