The Wrong Girl

Read The Wrong Girl for Free Online

Book: Read The Wrong Girl for Free Online
Authors: Hank Phillippi Ryan
Tags: Fiction, Suspense, Thrillers
shot a couple exteriors, nothing exciting. That cop at the door, wide, medium. Nothing that’ll win us a Pulitzer. Or get us a front page. Any ideas?”
    The ME’s white van was parked in front of a fire hydrant a few yards away. That at least confirmed there was a victim, one who was probably dead. Someone had cleared the snow from the hydrant, but whoever got out of the van on the passenger side had stepped right into a knee-high pile of slush.
    “Let’s look for a person with wet shoes,” Jane said. “Hey. Check out the vans.”
    One after the other, the side doors of the multicolored news vans clanged open, the vans looking like circus clown cars as they disgorged neon-jacketed reporters, photographers lugging cameras with unwieldy tripods, and engineers with clackety metal light stands tucked under their arms and rolls of cable coiled over their shoulders.
    “Grab your stuff, Hec.” Jane pointed to the vans, all doors now flapping open, their glaring spotlights aimed at 56 Callaberry. “They’re raising their microwave antennas. Reporters are actually coming outside. Damn. Something’s up. Why didn’t we know whatever this is?”
    Her cell phone trilled. Was it Jake? Maybe that Hennessey cop had ratted her out, not knowing he’d actually be telling Jake she was here. She dug for the phone. Not Jake. Alex. He’d better be giving her info, not asking what was going on. Because she had no idea. This would have been a good day to stay home.
    Too late now . “Hey, Alex. What’s up? We’re—”
    “You set for the news conference?” Alex was talking before she finished. “You probably got this, but the BPD flack called. Says the body’s on the third floor, cops are coming outside with a statement. That’ll be a new top for your story.”
    A silhouette appeared behind the crime scene tape at the open front door of the murder house.
    She’d recognize that shape anywhere.
    “On it, Alex,” she said.

10
    Kellianne Sessions wished for the billionth time for some way to avoid looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy. It was completely freezing out, so she’d layered tights and a long-sleeved leotard under her jeans and T-shirt, zipped herself into the required white Tyvek, then put her white puffer jacket over that. Why she had to wear the moon suit now, before they even started, was totally ridiculous. But Kevin said the clients bought into it, said it made their Afterwards crew look “professional.” Her brother, the big shot.
    If Kev was such a big shot, how come they always, always, got to the murder scenes too early? She was sick of it, sick of waiting, sick of this stupid job and sick of the whole gross idea.
    But that’s what the Sessions family did. Kevin, Keefer, and Kellianne. And their mother, Karen, who kept the books and made the appointments and got their hazmat certifications and made sure their dad ordered enough cleaning stuff. If it was good enough for your father … Her brain gagged at her mother’s perpetual chant. If she never heard it again, it’d be too soon. Talk about soon. Soon she’d finish her classes, pay off her tuition bills, buy a one-way ticket to someplace warm with palm trees and water and no freaking snow and no freaking dead people to clean up after.
    Someday.
    Right now, she was cramped into the incredibly hot back seat of the Afterwards truck, Keefer in the front seat zoned out with his ear buds, Kevin inside the triple-decker. She’d bet ten billion dollars they were too early again. She wiped a place on the car window with her fingers to see out. The news people were still here, for crap sake, she recognized that hooker-looking girl from Channel 5. And that was absolutely the ME’s white van parked by the hydrant. Long as the ME was still here, they couldn’t go in and start. Even she knew that.
    “Yo, team.” Kevin opened the driver’s side door, blasting her with cold air.
    Team. What a full-blown moron. Who died and put him in charge? She winced,

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