Bones and Roses Read Online Free PDF

wants to run away. Instead I stagger back to my gruesome find. I need to know if it’s what I think it is.
    â€œFuck me,” mutters McGee as I shine my phone’s flashlight over what appears to have been an adult female, judging from what’s left of her clothing.
    â€œTish, is that—?” Ivy’s voice penetrates the buzzing in my ears.
    â€œYeah.” I nod, a sharp jerk of my head. The rotted fabric that forms her shroud, once-yellow, now a dull ochre, printed with poppies, confirms my suspicion: The woman whose remains I’m looking at are those of my mother. She was wearing that dress the last time I saw her. I gulp hard against my rising gorge. “I think I need to sit down,” I hear myself say in a shaky voice.
    â€œWould one of you ladies mind telling me what the fuck is going on?” barks McGee after Ivy has phoned 911 and I’m once more seated on the grass, gulping in fresh air to combat my spinning head. I turn to look up at him, an action that seems to take place in slow motion underwater.
    I can’t speak. Ivy answers instead.
    She didn’t run out on us. All this time she was dead. Moldering away.
    Next thing I know, I’m tossing my cookies onto the grass. “Tish …” At the sound of Ivy’s voice I look up to find her squatting beside me and holding out a handkerchief, from McGee’s pocket. The faint odor of cigarettes invades my nostrils when I use it to wipe my mouth.
    I’m feeling a little less shaky by the time the cops get there. Though it doesn’t help matters that the first responders are none other than officers James and Ruiz. “Anything you want to tell us?” asks a narrow-eyed Jordan as he stands before me working a wad of gum.
    â€œLike what? That someone with a sick sense of humor played a practical joke on me? I should think that would be pretty obvious,” I snap.
    â€œIt’s just,” he pauses to give his jaws a rest, long enough for me to get a good look at the grayish wad protruding from his molars, “I gotta say, it doesn’t look good. Two crime scenes in one day?” Either he’s especially dense or he gets off on making other people suffer. My guess is the latter.
    â€œShow some respect,” Ivy snarls. “That’s her mom.” She gestures toward the yellow crime scene tape strung across the open door to the unit. The ME and CSI team have arrived and are busy photographing and combing the scene for forensic evidence.
    It was clearly the wrong thing to say. Jordan shifts his gaze from Ivy to me, his eyes narrowing further until they’re little more than slits in his pitted face. “And you know this because … ?”
    Before I can reply, a deep male voice interrupts. “Tish. Got a minute?”
    I turn around slowly to find myself face-to-face with another unwelcome blast from my past, in the form of one Spence Breedlove. My former nemesis, one-time crush, destroyer of my reputation in high school, and now, the lead detective on this case. “Sure,” I say as though to a stranger who’d stopped me on the sidewalk to ask directions. Defense mechanisms are a wonderful thing.
    Too bad they have a short battery life. “Listen, I know how it must look, but it’s not what you think,” I find myself babbling a minute later. “I didn’t know she was in there. I didn’t even know she was dead! Ask him. He’ll tell you.” I gesture wildly toward McGee, who takes a step back and throws his hands up.
    â€œDon’t look at me,” he says with his Brooklyn accent that makes him sound like Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny . “I don’t know nothing about it.” He explains how it all went down, in clear, concise language that tells me there’s more to this guy than meets the eye. Then it’s my turn to speak.
    â€œDo I need a lawyer?”
    â€œI don’t know. You tell me,” Spence