Read Red rain 2.0 for Free Online

the males—and a hell of a lot of the female cops, too—like to keep their distance with Annie. They can't find any clearly labeled box to put her in, and that always makes cops uneasy.
    "I'm cool," I say, having held her eyes through the scan. I'm not, really, since about seventy percent of my mind is going through hoops over Dee Dee's Vaseline. But the thirty on Annie's deal is on strong and tight.
    "It goes like this. I track down her parents, both lawyers. Both 'in conference.' I leave messages. I hang around the hospital. Our guys do all they have to, the hospital does all it has to, the kid's ready to go home.
    "The father takes an hour to make the callback. He's real curt when I tell him what's up. He sounds fucking annoyed. They don't exactly break speed records getting to the hospital, either. Then they take a quick look at their daughter, sort of pat her hands and say they're glad she's fine. Then I take them outside the room.
    "They tell me, like it's an imposition they have to talk to me at all, that when she didn't come home at eight last night, they assumed she was sleeping over at a girlfriend's, and when she wasn't around when they left for work, they assumed she'd gone to school straight from the girlfriend's.
    "Now I'm losing it big-time," Annie goes on. " 'You never phoned her friend's parents to find out if she was there? You never thought to phone them in the morning? It never occurred to you to try the police?'
    "The bitch gets all huffy and says, 'We're not under interrogation here. We're taking Emma home, now.' So the orderlies wheel her out in a hospital gown and robe, a nurse tells them they'll have to return the stuff. 'Where are her clothes?' the bitch snaps. I say, 'Didn't you hear a word I said? Your daughter was found completely nude, brutally raped, half-dead of exposure, in the woods near Loch Raven Reservoir.' And she says, 'If we had a decent police force in this county nothing like this would be allowed to happen. You'll be hearing from us!'"
    "And you go?" I say. It's getting very overcrowded in my head.
    " 'No way, honey. You're going to be paid a visit by me personally in a squad car with lights and sirens going, and by the county social welfare people. I'm filing a report naming you as unfit parents whose child needs to be removed from your custody for her own safety. I'll have a court order with me, count on it.' "
    "Jesus Christ," I mutter. "Scumbags like that aren't fit to…”
    "Whoa, Luther. Just let it go, before you make me sorry I told you. I had to tell somebody, had to vent. Don't make it a mistake for me to' ve picked you."
    And remembering how she'd never made confession a mistake for me, I let it go.
    3
    1 glide into Annie's office early next morning before the shift changeover. She's staring at what looks like a forensic report on her computer screen, hair still wet and rubber-banded into a ponytail. It's at least two minutes before she notices I'm there. Or lets me know she's noticed.
    "Hey, Five-O," she says cheerfully, hitting the save and store keys so the screen goes that wavery gray. "Sony I laid all that on you last night. Didn't lose any sleep over it, did you?"
    "Nah." I say. Double lie—the girl, and also a Russian I once knew but can't tell anyone about, not even Annie.
    "Well," she says, facing me now, "check this. There's three messages on the machine when I get in today. All from the father. He's saying he and his wife were simply in total shock last night, they'd said a lot of things they realized were totally inappropriate, they're of course absolutely willing and eager to cooperate with my investigation. And I quote, 'This doesn't have to get into the newspapers, does it?'"
    She's laughing before I am. "So which way did you go on them?"
    "No way," Annie says. "I'm not calling the fuck back. He and his wife can shit bullets for a while."
    I'm grinning but not saying anything.
    "What's your read, Luther?"
    "No case."
    "Hey, we got the perp nailed. They