Read Ripper for Free Online Page A

anguished, misshapen figures painted in thick angry brushstrokes clashed not only with the Holistic Clinic’s last vestiges of art deco but with its new ethos of promoting physical and emotional well-being in its clients, no one dared suggest taking them down for fear of offending the artist.
    “This is all down to your ex-husband, Indi,” Matheus said as he was leaving. “Where else do you think Amanda gets her morbid fascination with crime?”
    “Bob’s as worried about Amanda’s new obsession as I am.”
    “It could be worse, she could be taking drugs—”
    “Look who’s talking!” Indiana laughed.
    “Exactly! I’m an expert.”
    “If you want, I can give you a ten-minute massage tomorrow between clients,” Indiana offered.
    “You’ve been giving me free massages for years now, so I’ve decided—I want you to have one of my canvases!”
    “No, no, Matheus!” said Indiana, managing to disguise the rising panic in her voice. “I couldn’t possibly accept. I’m sure one day your paintings will be very valuable.”

Wednesday, 4
    A t 10:00 p.m., Blake Jackson finished the novel he’d been reading and went into the kitchen to fix himself some oatmeal porridge—something that brought back childhood memories and consoled him when he felt overwhelmed by the stupidity of the human race. Some novels left him feeling this way. Wednesday evenings were usually reserved for squash games, but his squash partner was on vacation this week. Blake sat down with his bowl of oatmeal, inhaling the delicate aroma of honey and cinnamon, and dialed Amanda’s cell phone number. He wasn’t worried about waking her, knowing that at this hour she would be reading. Since Indiana’s bedroom was some distance from the kitchen, there was no chance that she would overhear, but still Blake Jackson found himself whispering. It was best his daughter didn’t know what he and his granddaughter were up to.
    “Amanda? It’s Kabel.”
    “I recognized the voice. So, what’s the story?”
    “It’s about Ed Staton. Making the most of the unseasonably warm weather—it was seventy degrees today, it felt like summer—”
    “Get to the point, Kabel, I don’t have all night to chat about global warming.”
    “ . . . I went for a beer with your dad and discovered a few things I thought might interest you.”
    “What things?”
    “The juvenile detention center where Staton worked before he moved to San Francisco was a place called Boys’ Camp, smack in the middle of the Arizona desert. He worked there for a couple years until he got canned in 2010 in a scandal involving the death of a fifteen-year-old kid. And it wasn’t the first time, Amanda—three boys have died at the facility in the past eight years, but it’s still open. Every time, the judge has simply suspended its license temporarily for the duration of the investigation.”
    “Cause of death?”
    “A military-style regime enforced by people who were either stupid or sadistic. A catalog of neglect, abuse, and torture. These boys were beaten, forced to exercise until they passed out, deprived of food and sleep. The boy who died in 2010 had contracted pneumonia; he was running a temperature and had collapsed more than once, and still they forced him to go on a run with the other inmates in the blazing, sweltering Arizona heat. When he collapsed, they kicked him while he was on the ground. He spent two weeks in the hospital before he died. Afterward, they discovered he had a couple of quarts of pus in his lungs.”
    “And Ed Staton was one of these sadists,” concluded Amanda.
    “He had a long record at Boys’ Camp. His name crops up in a number of complaints made against the facility, alleging abuse of inmates, but it wasn’t until 2010 that they fired him. Seems nobody gave a damn what happened to those poor boys. It’s like that Charles Dickens novel—”
    “Oliver Twist. Come on, Kabel, cut to the chase.”
    “So, anyway, they tried to hush up