Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

DEAD COLD BOX SET: BOOKS 1-4

Copyright © 2019 by Blake Banner

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BOOK 1 – AN ACE AND A PAIR

BOOK 2 – TWO BARE ARMS

BOOK 3 – GARDEN OF THE DAMNED

BOOK 4 – LET US PREY

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BOOK 1

AN ACE AND A PAIR

One

The door was open, but I knocked anyway. The captain looked up from her desk. She was one of those women who should have been attractive. She had thick black hair and deep brown eyes, and olive skin that in her midforties looked like it was still in its twenties. She had all the right bits in all the right places, but she was somehow unlovable. Her eyes gave me that “what the hell do you want” look. Then I guess she remembered she’d called me, and gave something that should have been a smile but wasn’t. Captain Jennifer Cuevas was all about what should have been.

“John, come in. Take a seat. Close the door, would you?”

I closed the door and sat. She laid her pen very carefully in front of her, like everything would go wrong if it wasn’t perfectly aligned.

“How long have you been with the NYPD, John?”

“Twenty-eight years, Jennifer.”

She glanced at me. It was okay for her to call me John, but I should call her Captain. I smiled nicely.

“You just turned forty-eight.”

“Last November.”

She sighed, like it was a shame I’d turned forty-eight in November. “John, don’t get me wrong, you are a very highly valued member of this precinct…”

“Thank you, Captain. That’s probably because I have the best successful arrest record of any cop at this station.” I was still smiling nicely, but she ignored me.

“However, things have changed since you qualified as a detective…” She glanced at a sheet of paper on her desk.

I said, “Twenty-five years ago.”

She said, “Thank you, twenty-five years ago. And somehow, and I don’t mean this in any critical sense at all, John, you don’t seem to have moved forward, kept up with the new technologies and methodologies…”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “What’s your point, Captain? I get the right results but in the wrong way?”

“No, John, what I’m saying is that perhaps it’s time for you to think about allowing some of the young bloods to move up the ranks. There are some very talented young officers chomping at the bit behind you. And you have, perhaps, already given us your best work.”

I frowned. “You want me to take early retirement so that somebody else can have my job?” I shook my head. “Not going to happen. We’re not here to offer jobs to college kids we happen to like, Jennifer. We’re here to serve and protect the public, and as long as I’m doing a good job, I’m going to keep doing it. When I find myself failing, then I’ll stand down.” She stared at me hard. “Was there anything else?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

She reached behind her and grabbed two boxes of files. She heaved them over and dumped them in front of me. She had to stand then, to be able to see me. I looked up at her. “What’s this?”

“We are creating a cold-cases team. In view of your exceptional record, Detective Stone, you will be heading up the team. These here are the cold cases we’ve accumulated over the last thirty years. I’ll leave it up to you how you tackle them, but work your way through them, and close them.”

I stared at her for a very long moment. “What about my current cases?”

“They have been reassigned.”

“Why?”

“I just explained it to you, Detective.” She echoed my words from a little earlier. “Anything else?”

I stood and picked up the boxes. At the door, I stopped. “You said I was heading up a team?”

She’d sat down again and had a smug look all over her face. “Yes. Detective Carmen Dehan will be working with you. I think you two should make a fine team.”

Dehan.

I carried the boxes to the detectives’ room and dropped them on my desk. I wasn’t all that surprised by what had happened. Jennifer had been gunning for me for a couple of years. We had bad chemistry, and to be honest I didn’t care enough to make an effort to improve it. I was never good at kissing ass, and I wasn’t