Every Move She Makes Read Online Free PDF Page B

dozen uniformed officers, all wearing hooded yellow slickers, stood around a dark-colored sports utility vehicle, boxy-looking and high off the ground, the ever popular four-wheel drive. I owned a normal two-wheel drive Honda sedan, opting for mileage over trends. I headed in that direction. Lieutenant Majors I knew from my days on patrol. He ran the Night Owls, the Night Investigation Unit. Their responsibility was to start the preliminary investigation on any major crime that occurred at night. It was supposed to save on overtime. Majors was about a head shorter than the other officers, easy to pick out even with his back to me. He stood near the rear of the vehicle. "What's up?" I asked when I reached his side. "Hello to you, too, Gillespie," he said, shaking my hand. "Actually, the reason we paged you is my guys are tied up on a double homicide in the Mission district. You were it. Hope we didn't interrupt anything?"
     
    "No. What do you have?"
     
    "Looks like the Soma Slasher, though I didn't think he's ever struck north of Market. Victim's in the front seat," he said. "Pretty bloody.
    We haven't touched anything. We don't even know who it is. Vehicle's just how we found it. Engine running, lights on. No record of VIN," he said, referring to the vehicle identification number. "Car's too new, not registered yet." I eyed the paper plates that read CN-YWIDE FOREIGN
    CAR SALES. The hairs prickled on the back of my neck as I saw RANGE
    ROVER emblazoned across the tailgate. Between the rain and the glare of all the police lights, I still couldn't tell the vehicle's color. All I knew was that I didn't want it to be green. Please, Lord, any color but green.
     
    I approached the driver's side window and looked in.
     
    The glass was smeared with blood, so I went around and looked through the windshield. It too was blood splattered, but in a split second of light, I could make out the victim's profile. Bile rose to my throat.
    Like a surrealistic dream, each flash of the police unit's strobe burned into my mind the lifeless face of Dr. Patricia Mead-Scolari. Her head hung limply, her forehead and nose pressed against the glass of the driver's side window. With her throat slit, she was barely recognizable, and if Scolari and I hadn't talked about the new Range Rover, I never would have made the connection and identified her. Majors started toward me, moving as if in slow motion across a disco dance floor, except it was raining and we were staring at a dead body. "Turn off the lights," I said.
     
    "What?"
     
    "The damn three-sixties. Turn them off." Majors gave the order, and a moment later normalcy returned to a scene that was far from normal. No more strobe, no more red and blue flashing lights. Only the steady spotlights and rain sluicing down. I felt sick to my stomach, dizzy. I looked around. All eyes were on me, and I knew a number of them expected me to lose it-as they had from the day I entered Homicide. I took a breath, pulled myself together, pushed back the urge to cry from the unfairness of the doctor's death.
     
    "You okay?" Majors asked.
     
    "Where's Scolari?" Majors raised a brow at my curt tone. "He should've been paged the same time as you."
     
    "It's Patricia," I said. "His wife."
     
    Majors stilled, disbelief filled his gaze. He took his Streamlight and shined it into the windshield at her head.
     
    "Son of a ..." --I backed up a step, looking as sick as I felt.
     
    "You need to call the Op Center. I can't investigate this case," I said.
    "Scolari's my partner." Lord, don't let him be a suspect, I ' thought.
    Please let this be some random thing. But I recalled the way he'd stared at the coffeepot, so emotionless, like he'd given up.
     
    Suicide, I'd thought.
     
    Murder never entered my mind.
     
    The lieutenant pulled his radio from his duty belt.
     
    "Three-David two-hundred," he said into it.
     
    "Three-David two-hundred," came the response.
     
    "You got an ETA on Scolari? 2) "Negative." There