Read Nowhere to Run (Stephanie Carovella) for Free Online Page A

you. You’re a hell of a lot stronger than you think.” Cocking her head, she studied the woman’s corpse with a frown. “As soon as you get back to the morgue...”
    “I’ll work on her, and call you with the results ASAP,” Cynthia finished with a knowing grin.
    In the year that Cynthia had worked with Gena Evans, she’d learned Gena was a slave driver who expected perfection from everyone, especially herself. She was a classic workaholic who lived and breathed her job. More often than not, when Cynthia was leaving work, she would see Gena still engrossed in her cases, unaware of the late hour. There were even times she would arrive early to work only to find Gena had never left.
    Gena dismissed Cynthia with a curt nod, rising to her feet. She swept her eyes around the crime scene, her thoughts already on the chosen location for the body dump.
    “Why here? Of all the places to dump her, why here? What’s the significance of this place?” She muttered to herself.
    She scanned the area, her eyes traveling over the people gathering in numbers. Most of them were tourists, trying to take snaps of her crime scene. To them, this was an added highlight of their trip, something to brag about and to tell their family and friends when they returned to wherever they came from.
    “Get those fucking tourists away from my god damn crime scene!” She yelled, irritated by the sight of people trying to take photos. Someone had just died, and they thought it would be a great little snapshot to add to their family holiday album. It was sick.
    She tapped her foot in annoyance, still confused at the crime scene location. “Why was she dumped here where she could be easily found?” she muttered, turning around.
    Her gut told her this wasn’t a random dumping. Whoever had killed their victim knew exactly what they were doing when they dumped her on Mount Lee Drive. This worried her the most. To her, it meant the killer either didn’t give a damn about when and where she was found or – worst case scenario – there was a motive behind the location.
    Gena hoped for the first option; she hoped they were dealing with an idiot, one who left his fingerprints all over the body. Sweeping her gaze over the crime scene again, she got the feeling they were dealing with the very opposite.
    “Why here?” She said quietly. It was a well-known tourist hot spot. She slowly walked around the perimeter, watching her team work efficiently. Moving to stand beside her partner, Detective Sandra Barton, she asked, “Have you found anything?”
    Her partner scowled in frustration. “Are you kidding me?” Breaking off, Sandra took a deep breath and jerked her head towards a petite blonde who stood talking to a police officer. “A tour group found the body. One minute their tour guide was showing them the glorious sights of Los Angeles, and then, bam, they were confronted with a dead body.”
    Looking down at her notepad, Sandra continued. “The Tour Guide, Paula O’Neal, said one of the tourists spotted the body and started screaming. Once she realized why the woman was screaming, she called 911.”She scowled at Gena. “You want to know what the whacky thing is, Gena? The crime scene is clean. It’s almost as if it was staged.”
    Gena nodded, shoving her hands into her black leather jacket. “I think it may have been. There’s just something too perfect about all of this.” Giving their surroundings another cursory glance, she smiled grimly at her partner. “What about the victim? Do we know who she is?” She asked, not liking Sandra’s observation about the staging one bit.
    “Did you see the body?” Sandra snapped, not waiting for Gena to answer. “She was cut up pretty good. We didn’t find a purse or any kind of identification on or near the body, but we did find this,” Sandra said, holding up a bloodied scrapbook.
    “Any prints?” Gena asked, already sure of the answer.
    “Not one,” Sandra replied in disgust.
    Gena