Famished, Meghan O'Flynn [free ebooks romance novels .txt] 📗

On the morning of his forty-ninth birthday, Edward Petrosky awoke with the remnants of liquor thick and woolly on his tongue. The dawn had brought a gray film that settled on him like fingerprint dust. He stretched, hauled on his clothes, and tripped over frayed carpet to the bathroom.

The mirror, over the sink revealed, a weathered forehead topped by thinning hair the color of salt and shit. In blue jeans, sneakers, and a gray button-down shirt, he probably looked more like a retired gym teacher than a detective. But that was appropriate; he hadn’t felt like a detective in a long time.

Petrosky brushed the fuzz off his tongue, willing his bleary mind to connect with his legs, and headed for the kitchen. In the living room, the suede sofa sat, scuffed and battered, against one wall. Next to it stood a wooden end table, its cigarette-burned top hidden under a tattered copy of some fitness magazine he’d stolen from the dentist’s office, and a half-empty (aw, hell, three-fourths-empty) bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

He ignored the itch to grab the bottle and hauled himself through the doorway into the kitchen, where his daughter’s old princess night-light lit up the stovetop in rose. He swallowed away the ache in his chest and flicked the light switch. Cabinets that had glowed dusty pink now showed their true state, covered with nicks and dings over top of the three refinishing jobs completed at the behest of his ex-wife. She had left the month after Julie’s death—before the last coat of paint had dried—still screaming: “Why can’t you find who did this to her?”

Julie’s thirteen-year-old body had been found broken and mangled after being ravaged for two days by feral dogs. She’d been strangled to death and discarded like a piece of trash. Petrosky had left the room before the coroner could finish with the details—probably the only reason he was still functioning at all. His ex-wife certainly hadn’t helped him stay sane. Or sober.

“If we didn’t live down here, this never would have happened!” had been her favorite assault because she knew it cut him deepest. And she was right. That shit happened far less to rich folks. He should have worked harder. Now he had less reason to. He fucking hated irony.

He grimaced at the cabinets and shut off the overheads. On the wall, the night-light flickered, the only candle on his pathetic cake. Petrosky grabbed his keys.

Happy birthday to me.

His unmarked Caprice smelled like stale fries, old coffee, and resentment, like any respectable cop’s car should. Through the windshield, the clouds were pregnant with rain—or maybe snow. You never could tell. October around Metro Detroit was a crapshoot: sometimes warm, sometimes frigid, usually miserable. In the distance, the sun peeked through heavy layers of cloud cover and bathed the street in light. But Petrosky saw the sickness the sun illuminated. The sun’s rays couldn’t wash away the grime that covered humanity, couldn’t conceal the barbs in people’s brains that led them to strangle their children, beat their wives, or leave their best friends lying in the gutter, life shimmering from their limp bodies through the manhole covers. By now, the blood underneath the city probably flowed like a hematic river.

Out the passenger window, the Ash Park precinct grew larger, two stories of the dullest dirt-colored brick, home to donuts, pigs, and paperwork. On the other side of the street, a matching building proclaimed Ash Park Detention Facility, only partially visible behind the lake fog that crept over their tiny part of the city every morning.

He swung into the lot in front of the precinct—an acre of cement and not one close spot. Typical. Stray pebbles crunched and spun from under his tires as he drove to the back of the lot and parked under a streetlamp. It blinked out for the day as he killed the engine and opened the door.

Petrosky glowered at the light and shoved his keys into his pocket. The air brushed at his cheeks with damp fingers, the wet seeping into his sneakers as he clomped toward the building.

On the sidewalk, two familiar silhouettes stood close—not close enough to arouse the suspicion of the masses, but Petrosky knew better. Shannon Taylor was a firecracker of a prosecutor with a perpetual knot of blond at the base of her neck and an ice-blue stare that could cut you in half. Severe black and white pinstripes covered a bony frame that could probably use more home-cooked meals or at least a few donuts. She wouldn’t get either of those with Curtis Morrison.

Morrison was a rookie in the detective unit and still wore pressed blue slacks, though he’d at least traded in the traditional blue uniform shirt for a black crew-necked sweater. He’d relocated from California after getting some fancy English degree. Since they’d met last year, the guy had spent their downtime trying to feed Petrosky granola and hounding him to join his gym. Petrosky was perfectly content with carrying twenty years of stake-out donuts around his waist. He assumed he would continue to decline until he finally retired, and then it would be too late to give a shit anyway.

Not that he gave a shit now.

Petrosky stepped onto the curb.

“Leave my rookie alone, Taylor,” he barked.

Morrison jumped like he’d heard a gunshot. He was more physically imposing than Petrosky at a chiseled six foot one, but he had a surfer-boy smile on a perpetually tanned face, and blond locks too long for any self-respecting cop. Perfect for beach-going, though. All that was missing was the bong.

Taylor smirked. “That still works on him, eh?”

“Still.”

Morrison grinned. “I always get jumpy when I see that ugly mug of yours.”

Taylor leveled her gaze at Petrosky. “I was just filling in your better half on Gregory Thurman.”

“That asshole needs to go away forever,” Petrosky said.

“He won’t. Few months maybe, based on the physical evidence we had. Child abuse, but not rape.”

“I gave you the girl! What the hell happened?”

“She told you he raped her every day for five years. But she won’t tell me, and she sure as hell won’t tell a jury.”

“Fuck.” Petrosky glanced at a stray piece of concrete near his shoe. He fought the urge to kick it.

“You have a way of getting female vics to talk, Petrosky. If you figure out a way to keep them talking, let me know.”

Petrosky glared at her. In his peripheral, Morrison opened his mouth, closed it again, and looked at his shoes.

Taylor adjusted her bun and brushed imaginary lint off her suit jacket. “Speaking of talking, I’ve got a date with a working girl later. She’ll serve some time. Keeps asking for you, Petrosky. Says you bailed her out before, thinks you’ll do it again.”

“I didn’t do shit.”

“You don’t even know her name.”

“I plead the fifth.”

“I have the paperwork.”

“I’m sure she was innocent that time. And anyways, sex isn’t a crime.”

“It is if you get paid for it.” Taylor glared at him. “And it’s dangerous. If we get them off the streets, we can help them.”

“How very utopian. But it isn’t her fault when someone else is abusing—”

“I prosecute the abusers too.”

“Right. Sometimes.” Petrosky’s phone buzzed in his back pocket. He ignored it in favor of watching Taylor’s left eye twitch.

“If you want out of sex crimes, bailing out working girls is the way to do it,” she said.

“Who says I want out of sex crimes?”

Taylor crossed her arms as Petrosky’s back pocket buzzed again. He snatched out the phone, glanced at the text message, and jerked his head from Morrison to the direction of the parking lot. “We’ve got a call. Get moving, California.”

Morrison nodded goodbye to Taylor and stepped off the curb. Petrosky followed.

“I’ll be down in a little while to get your working girl, Taylor,” he called over his shoulder. “Do me a favor and have her ready, would ya? And remind her to put the wrong address on her paperwork, so she’s harder to find when she skips bail.”

“Fuck you, Petrosky.” Her heels clacked away until the only sounds against the pavement were Petrosky’s sneakers and Morrison’s rubber-soled somethings, probably made out of hemp or whatever the hell they made shoes out of in California.

“Consorting with the enemy, Surfer Boy?”

“She’s on our side, Boss.”

“That she is. But she’s still a fucking lawyer.”

“I guess.” Morrison didn’t look convinced. “So, what kind of call did we get?”

“Some kids found something over on Old Mill. If we hurry, we’ll beat the medical examiner.”

The cemetery was in an older part of town where residents had started demolishing abandoned homes and raking up the dirt to plant gardens. Across the street, a defunct workout facility sat next to a Chinese food restaurant, each furthering the need for the other, yet both one step away from being turned into a cabbage patch.

Petrosky parked in the road. The entrance gate to the cemetery hung from one hinge and shrieked as Morrison pulled it open. Petrosky winced. Whispering Willows, my ass. The gravestones were cracked and crumbling, etched with faded epitaphs about the beloved deceased: William Bishop, forever in our hearts, though the barren grounds around the plots suggested that poor Mr. Bishop had been very much forgotten. Through the fog, toward the center of the grounds, stood a small stone building—a poor man’s Taj Mahal.

Crime techs milled about in the brown grass outside the building, tweezing bits of dirt and leaves into baggies. One—a kid with insect eyes and boy band hair—saw Petrosky and Morrison and waved them over. “You