Read Cold Hard Steele (Daggers & Steele Book 2) for Free Online Page B

replace.”
    “Anything else?” asked Shay.
    “What else is there?” said Yates. “Look, I liked the guy. Really, I did. But he was a loner. Didn’t socialize at all. Not that we have any time to do so even if we wanted. I mean—”
    “Did he come in to work last night?” I interrupted.
    “Nope.”
    “You have any idea why?”
    “Sure do,” said Yates. “It was his night off.”
    “Oh,” I said, feeling a little deflated. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but looking at you I’d never have guessed you guys get nights off.”
    “We don’t,” Yates spat. “Look, those of us who work the graveyard shift earn a premium over day folks, but Mann opted out of that. Instead, he arranged to get a night off every two weeks, and he took those evenings off religiously. Smart guy, Terrence. If I could rearrange my deal I’d do the same thing, but given how deep in the weeds we are, upper management isn’t letting anyone work less than they’re contractually obligated to.”
    “Do you have any idea what Terrence did on those nights off?” asked Shay.
    “He probably stayed home and slept. That’s what I’d do.”
    “What about here at work?” said Shay. “Did he have any disagreements or issues with people?”
    Yates shook his head. “Nah, none of that. Like I said, he was a good guy. Even keel. Although…”
    “Although, what?” I asked.
    Yates rubbed a couple fingers along his greasy forehead. “Well, now that you mention it, a few nights ago some guy stopped by the factory to talk to Terrence. I assumed he was a friend or relative or something, but the guy was agitated. Nervous. I didn’t make anything of it because Terrence didn’t seem to either. He just brushed him off and went back to work.”
    “Did you hear what they were talking about?” I asked.
    “Are you kidding?” Yates pointed at the presses. “I can barely hear you right now. I saw them talking from thirty or forty feet away.”
    “Had you seen the guy who came by before?” asked Shay.
    “No. This was a one-time thing. No one had ever stopped by looking for Terrence before.”
    “Did you get a look at the guy’s face?” I asked.
    Yates nodded. “More or less.”
    “Alright,” I said. “We’ll send a sketch artist over—have you work with him to give us a picture of this guy you saw with Mann. You got any runners around here?”
    At the precinct, we always had a herd of urchins loitering near the front waiting to carry messages around town in exchange for a few coppers. Most businesses tended to have at least one or two lying around in case some work materialized.
    “Yeah,” said Yates. “Check the loading dock.”
    “Remind me to send one to HQ before we leave, Steele,” I said. “You going to be here this afternoon, Yates?”
    The night manager sighed the sigh of a tired, beaten man. “Yeah. Probably.”
    I felt for the guy. Captain could be a hard-ass when he wanted to be, but at the same time, he let me come in to work late on a consistent basis. The worst I’d ever shown for my sloth was the occasional spittle burn. As much as I bemoaned my salary and benefits as a public servant, my job did have its perks. Unlimited coffee, for one, and increased job security due to all the bureaucratic red tape that had to be cut to fire someone, even with cause.
    I took a final glance around the factory. Laborers hustled back and forth between the presses, some feeding paper into machines, others carting numbered sheets to binding stations. A guy in the aisle next to us wheeled a dolly stacked with boxes of books from the binding stations up toward the front of the building to be loaded onto carts for transport.
    “So, what’s got you guys in such a bind, anyway?” I asked. “Somebody write one of those crazy popular vampire erotica novels again?”
    Yates shook his head. “Nah. It’s just another of those damned Rex Winters novels.”
    I nearly choked on my spit. Before anyone had a chance to raise any objections,