Hard Fall: A gripping, noir detective thriller (Thomas Blume series of Hard-Boiled Mysteries, Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

late night visitor, trying to figure out who it might be. The only thing I could figure is that maybe Anthony’s wife had found out where I lived. Maybe she had come by to give me a piece of her mind and then chickened out when she heard someone stumbling towards the door.
     
    The real question was why she had knocked on my door only to run away before I could answer. Isn’t it obvious, you drunk? I told myself. She heard you stumbling around in here and she got scared.
     
    The stream of ideas came and went, fading in and out during the day. It was what Sarah would have called a Wasted Day — one of those days when you do absolutely nothing. It’s a waste of time, a lurid sort of nothingness.
     
    Somehow, night came. I sort of recalled eating lunch, and I know I had a dinner of god-awful mac and cheese. I had considered heading to the pub, but I hadn’t drunk anything all day, and I figured what the hell? Maybe I could give my promise to Amir the old college try after all.
     
    I also know that I spent the wasted hours of that day thinking about Sarah and Tommy. I recalled the details of their case files. I had photocopies of the files in my closet (a gift that the Metropolitan Police Department didn’t know I had), and I knew I could go to them whenever I wanted. I also knew every line by heart, every gruesome heartbreaking detail. Every Photograph.
     
    The Blackened room. Sarah’s ruined body sprawled on the sofa. Tommy, face down on the floor, left hand outstretched clutching his favorite orange toy gun.
     
    There were no answers to be had there. If there were, then I was apparently not a good enough cop anymore to figure them out.
     
    I decided to head to bed early. Maybe a restful night’s sleep would help to re-orient me. A good sleep, a huge breakfast…and then perhaps the next day I would do as I had told Amir. I’d start really working on the case, interviewing their old neighbors or Sarah’s former co-workers. Then, after some real, sober police work, I might find myself with some kind of lead.
     
    As I was heading to the bathroom to brush my teeth, I caught a flicker of light outside of my grimy living room window. Someone had pulled to the side of the street to park and —
     
    I froze for a moment in front of the window. It was the car from last night — the car the woman had gotten into after retreating from my door. I saw it just enough in the scant light from the lamppost. If she was trying to be sneaky, she was doing a piss-poor job. I stood there and watched her, waiting to see if she would get out. If she did, the interior light would kick on, and I might be able to get a good look at her face.
     
    But she didn’t. In fact, I don’t think she even bothered to kill the engine. She apparently changed her mind about meeting me again. She pulled away from the curb less than thirty seconds after parking there. I watched her taillights fade away in a swirl of dazzling red that reflected from the drizzling rain.
     
    I retired to bed as I had originally planned, but sleep was a long time coming. I kept seeing those red taillights and knew that something peculiar was going on.
     
    Who was this mystery woman?
     
     

FIVE
     
    Smoke and taillights.
     
    The next day was better in a few ways. I went into the office with the files on my family and went over it all again. There was nothing new, of course. They had died from the fire at the house. Sarah had been hit over the head first. No signs of rape or much of a struggle. Cloth under Tommy’s fingernails where it is assumed he fought off an attacker. Even at the age of ten, my son had been willing to die to protect his mother.
     
    And where had I been when they had been killed right in their very own home? I knew the answer. It was one that disgusted me and that I had been living with ever since. It was the sole reason for the guilt I carried — the reason that going through these files was like having someone suffocate me as I