Read Strip Search for Free Online Page B

usually like me and if we had babies that would be very nice I think. Babies are easier to understand than big people.
    I still see the Bad Man sometimes at night when I am sleeping or just before I am sleeping. Susan says I should not let him scare me because he cannot hurt me now but he does he does he hurts me and I don’t know what to do about it. I think that if Susan would adopt me then the Bad Man would go away forever just like my mother did but she said no so now I am alone with my father and I am not happy and he is not happy and what is the point of everyone not being happy?
    I wish that I were with Susan. I hope that she does not meet another Bad Man.
     
     
     

6
     
     
    YOU’LL UNDERSTAND when you get here,
O’Bannon had said, and those words were still echoing in my head when I reached the Burger Bliss fast-food joint as per his instructions.
Don’t bring Darcy.
O’Bannon had initially been resistant to my involving Darcy in police investigations, but over time had become gradually, if guardedly, accepting of it. Despite his protestations to the contrary, some part of him must’ve enjoyed seeing Darcy’s phenomenal gifts put to good use. For the past couple of months, it had been automatically understood that anytime he gave me a consulting job, Darcy would be tagging along. Until today. Which told me that either he had undergone a dramatic change of heart…
    Or there was something in there he really did not want Darcy to see.
    I gave a shout-out to the two uniforms posted at the door, who smiled and waved me inside without a word. I can still remember, just after I was released from detox and got myself booted off the force, when I practically needed a hall pass to get onto a crime scene. And O’Bannon would sniff my breath the moment I arrived. This was better.
    It wasn’t hard to figure out where the action had taken place. The videographer was making a detailed record of the entire kitchen, everything behind the cash register counter. At least a dozen other crime techs were swarming around in their coveralls, protective coverings on their shoes, always careful not to step off the butcher paper that had been laid on the tile floor. I loved watching these guys (and gals) work. It was like when you’re a kid and you can spend hours staring at an ant farm, observing all the specialized tasks as the creatures scurry across one another’s paths but never collide. Some of the crime techs were using forensic oils and chemical swabs, some were shining fluorescent lights, some were crawling on their hands and knees, scrutinizing the tile floor for anything that might’ve been missed. It was no accident they decided to set that TV show in Vegas; according to the FBI, we had the second best CSI unit in the country, here in a city that ranked only thirty-second in terms of population.
    On the far left, one of the stainless steel countertops was covered with blood spatter. Didn’t take empathic powers to figure out what must’ve happened there.
    I hopped over the countertop and was heading in that general direction when I felt a strong arm yank me backward. It was Barry Granger, the man who filled the gap I left when I lost my job and had recently been promoted to chief homicide detective. He’d been my husband David’s partner; he was very close to David and took his death hard. Over the past few months, we’d learned to coexist, but we weren’t friends and I couldn’t imagine that we ever would be. Fair or not, he blamed me for David’s death.
    “Just so you know,” Granger said, “I was opposed to bringing you in on this case.”
    I smiled. “Top o’ the mornin’ to you, too, Barry. How are the wife and kids?”
    “Don’t get smart with me. Just listen and understand what I’m saying. We have a good homicide department and we will crack this case. You’ve been asked—against my wishes—to give us some psychological insight on the sicko who did this. That’s all. The men here respect