Deadly Descendant Read Online Free PDF Page B

willy-nilly, and I wouldn’t have known these were human remains if it weren’t for the head—skull, actually—that rested on its neck on the sidewalk, likeit was rising out of the ground. Close-ups showed obvious teeth marks on the exposed bone.
    I tried very hard to distance myself from what I was seeing, to look at it with dispassionate eyes and search for clues to who might have done this and where he might have gone, but I couldn’t get past the horror. I hoped to God the poor man had been dead before most of the carnage occurred. I told myself he had to have been, otherwise someone would have heard the screams and seen something. Of course, residents of tough neighborhoods like Anacostia knew investigating sounds of violence was seriously bad for your health, as was volunteering information to the police.
    Still shuddering in revulsion, I forced myself to look through all of the photos. If there was important evidence there, I failed to see it.
    I combed over the written report, hoping I’d have an easier time coping with that. And I did, until I got to the part that said the victim’s internal organs were missing. The report theorized that the victim had been killed by a pack of feral dogs and that the dogs had eaten the viscera.
    Nausea roiled in my empty stomach, and my skin was clammy with sweat as I tried not to let my imagination paint too clear a picture of what the poor victim had been through. And what his family would go through, if and when the body was ever identified. The idea of having your loved one not only killed but eaten … I shuddered.
    “I’m not cut out to be a cop,” I muttered under my breath. There was a reason I’d chosen to be a privateinvestigator instead of entering law enforcement. Numerous reasons, actually, but being exposed to violence on this level topped the list.
    The next two reports were just as awful, the victims brutalized beyond recognition. By the time the third victim was found, the police were sure they were hunting a human suspect who used dogs as his deadly weapon, though they hadn’t shared this conclusion with the press.
    I spent several hours going over the police reports, and while they gave me a clearer picture of what had happened, I couldn’t say they brought me any closer to finding the killer.
    I closed down the files at around five o’clock, and as if he had a sixth sense, Anderson showed up on my doorstep at approximately 5:01.
    “Ready to wrap up the case yet?” he asked me with a wry smile.
    I was already jittery from my day’s work. Being alone in a room with Anderson was not high on my list of things I wanted to do at the moment. Someday I would have to find a way to get over being creeped out by the knowledge that he was a freaking god, but I wasn’t there yet.
    I pushed back my chair and stood up, stretching out my stiff muscles and putting a little more distance between us as Anderson came to rest a hip on my desk.
    “Not quite,” I responded, hoping I didn’t sound nervous. “You know, looking at crime-scene photos and police reports isn’t exactly the same as chatting upnosy neighbors to see if they’ve seen the deadbeat dad around lately.” I waved my hand vaguely at the computer. “This is not my area of expertise.”
    “Not yet,” he agreed amiably. “But expertise or not, you’re more likely to find the killer than the police are. They’re going to be limited by their insistence on rational explanations.”
    I acknowledged that with a shrug. Since the police were convinced the killer had a pack of attack dogs, they were sure he was traveling in some kind of van or truck—a perfectly rational conclusion but one that could potentially skew their investigation. I didn’t know exactly what the killer was doing, but I doubted it was what the police were thinking.
    “What have you found?”
    I moved to the other side of the room, Anderson following me. There’s no reason to be nervous around him, I told myself. He was