Read PsyCop 2: Criss Cross for Free Online

than antacids in my pockets and I felt sorry for myself. Then I grabbed a water from a refrigerated unit at the end of a checkout line, and rejoined Roger in the car.
     
    “Thirsty,” I said, toasting him with the water. And then I drank it so I wouldn’t have to talk to him while he drove the rest of the way to the park.
     
    I was thankful that the East River looked nothing like the Calumet. It was deep and rushing, and its surface started about twenty feet below street level. Not the type of slow, shallow river in which a guy would bob around in a rowboat.
     
    It occurred to me that if I just hurried up and talked to a dead kid and found out where it was buried, we could go back to the Fifth. Heck, maybe I could even go back home. I turned off my phone so it wouldn’t disturb me and started looking in earnest.
     
    We hiked up to the guardrail at the edge of the river and looked down. Someone had drunk a twelve pack of Busch Light and dumped all the cans and even the cardboard box onto the riverbank below. If the river had been higher the litter probably would’ve floated away by now, but instead it just sat there in the dirt, an unsightly reminder that most people suck.
     
    I bent at the waist and hung over the rail, looking hard for ghosts in the water. But the surface was just grayish, greenish rushing water. Nothing more.
     
    Since a ghost could theoretically hang out on the banks, just like those empty beer cans, I hiked up the river, pausing periodically at the guard rail and squinting down into the river. After walking what probably amounted to several city blocks, we came across a black metal footbridge.
     
    I trooped to the center of the bridge with Roger tailing me and stared down, fully expecting to see faces flowing past twenty feet below. Nothing.
     
    We crossed to the other side and combed through that for at least an hour. My stomach continued to churn, and I surreptitiously opened the antacid wrapper inside my pocket with my thumbnail. I crunched on the tablets whenever I could sneak one into my mouth without Roger noticing. I wished I’d eaten something a little blander for lunch, like maybe gruel. It's hard to try to pick out ghosts with your stomach screaming for your attention.
     
    Eventually I spotted a park bench half-hidden among a cluster of scraggly shrubs and made my way over. I sat, and Roger sat beside me. He pulled out a notepad and started writing, presumably detailing all the areas we’d scanned and come up empty.
     
    I cast my mind back to the files from the morning. I’d memorized the kids’ first names: Michael, Lucy, Dawn, Hubert... who the hell names their kid Hubert, even in the 70’s? Must’ve been a family name. I pressed my thumb into my forehead. I stared in the direction of the river and actually tried to see the kids. Nothing.
     
    I let my breath out and sagged against the park bench, draping my elbows over the back. The cell phone store would be open. I figured we could go back there, scan the place, and call it a day.
     
    I looked at Roger and was about to say as much when I saw it. There was a face in the bush behind Roger’s head.
     
    I focused on the face and it grew clear. A man, late thirties-early forties, with the top of his head sliced off.
     
    I wanted to jump back and yell out the first swear word that popped into my head, but there was Roger. I have no idea why, but I just couldn’t let Roger know I’d been spooked, just like I wouldn’t tell him about my stomach ache. Probably it's a guy thing. I just blinked.
     
    The shallowly-decapitated guy’s eyes widened, as if he’d just realized that I could see him, or maybe as if he’d just seen me. He’d probably want to tell me what’d happened. Industrial accident. Gruesome mob hit. Whatever.
     
    A hand appeared in the bush beside the face and reached toward me.
     
    “Don’t you fucking dare,” I snarled, and it was Roger who jumped.
     
    I ignored Roger, went around him, and grabbed