Blood Runs Cold Read Online Free PDF Page A

foot toward the patient. He was tall, blond and in his early thirties, straight-nosed with sharp cheekbones. He should have been more handsome, but he had a snarly mouth and blue eyes two shades too pale to ever warm. He spent his life trying to soften his appearance with good humor. ‘Heard you were snowcorpsing.’
    ‘Nothing is sacred around here,’ said Lasco.
    ‘Sure isn’t,’ said Gressett.
    There was another knock at the door.
    ‘Let me get that,’ said Gressett.
    The door pushed open anyway and one of the new recruits from the Sheriff’s Office walked in. He paused when he saw the two men in suits and looked, panicked, to Bob and Mike.
    ‘Uh, we got an ID,’ he said. ‘One of the Search and Rescue guys found it. Where you were at,Mr Lasco.’ He turned to Gressett and Todd. ‘I’m sorry. Are you guys FBI?’
    They nodded. ‘Yes. From Glenwood.’
    Lasco had an instant stab of memory – he had held that ID in his hand. He had waved it at the others: FBI creds.

6
    Denver, Colorado
    The Livestock Exchange Building was over one hundred years old with a history that had nothing to do with law enforcement. In skinny white type on the first-floor directory of offices, individual letters spelled out The Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force, up there with the Colorado Brand Inspectors and Maverick Press. Behind the building was the Stockyard Inn and Saloon.
    Gary Dettling sat in his office, reading an angry-wife email addressed to Stupid Stupid Asshole. After a while getting his breathing under control, he picked up the phone.
    ‘Yeah, OK, I get it. Supervisory Special Agent: Stupid Stupid Asshole. Do I get a prize?’
    His wife bitched about her being his prize, something about playing with the box. Gary rolled his eyes, then let them wander to the photo on thewall beside him. It was a group shot of the twenty-six agents he had trained, all of them with paper bags over their heads; the UCEs – Under Cover Employees. He wanted a paper bag for his wife. Or a plastic one.
    ‘Gotta go,’ he said. ‘Something urgent is happening somewhere urgent. Urgently.’
    ‘You asshole.’
    ‘Stupid Stupid.’
    She hung up. He loved her deeply, the crazy bitch. And he always fought for the things he loved. Gary was a violent crime expert and five years earlier had set this up – the FBI Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force. He had fought the FBI, the chiefs of the local police departments – everyone who thought it was wrong to create a multi-agency task force and house it in a nine-dollars-a-square-foot non-federal building. The nine men and one woman who made up the unit were a mix of state troopers, local detectives, sheriff’s department investigators and FBI agents, all sharing the old-school bullpen next to Gary’s office. Egos were checked at the door and no one gave a shit who was from what agency. They worked robberies, kidnapping, sexual assault on children, serial killers, violent fugitives and crimes against persons in federal prisons, military bases, national parks and Indian reservations.
    ‘Hey, where’s our beloved Ren Bryce today?’ said Robbie Truax, the youngest – twenty-nine,toned, tanned and talky; Aurora PD’s contribution to Safe Streets. He was kneeling on a chair by the window looking out at the fire escape. A hawk was slicing back and forth through the entrails of a dead pigeon like he was stitching up a wound.
    ‘Nice work, buddy,’ he said. He turned around. ‘So where is she?’
    ‘Stout Street?’ said Cliff. Cliff James was fifty-two years old and had spent twenty-five-years with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. Stout Street was the FBI federal building in downtown Denver, a high-security, bulletproof-glass-fronted, charmless offensive.
    Robbie shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Where was she last night?’ said Cliff.
    ‘What do you mean?’ said Robbie.
    ‘Drinks at Gaffney’s. She didn’t show,’ said Cliff.
    ‘I wasn’t there either,’ said Robbie.
    ‘Yeah?