Little Girls Lost Read Online Free PDF Page B

years? Demoted from Investigative to Public Relations after screwing up the case here in the morgue, right? I thought he was finished as a player.”
    Ryder stepped to the door and took another check of the hall, no such thing as being too careful when discussing Squill. The bastard’s sycophantic spies were everywhere. He turned back to Peltier, his voice quieter.
    “Putting Squill in charge of PR gave him the two things a political monster covets: access and information. You saw how he turned it into a position in Internal Affairs, which gave him even more access and information. The heavy-duty kind. Rumor and innuendo, half-truths and half-lies, not necessarily the same thing. He’s used his years in IA to quietly elevate those on his side, kneecap those in his way.”
    “Like former Chief Plackett?”
    “When Plackett sent off his résumé for that chief’s position in Tampa—a feeler, like people do every day—Squill found out, then used his public-relations links to make it seem Plackett had accepted the job. Squill burned Plackett’s bridges for him, and before the poor naïve idiot knew it, he was history. Pity the job in Tampa never came through.”
    Clair Peltier shook her head. “Is everyone in the department unhappy?”
    “If Squill likes you—meaning you’re one of his yes-men robots—you’ve got it made. If he’s doesn’t like you, you’re screwed.”
    “You and Harry never got along with Squill, right? You have a bad history there?”
    “He hates me,” Ryder said. “Given all that’s happened in the last few weeks, maybe I should start looking for another job.”
    “Don’t, Carson. No. It scares me when you talk like that.”
    “I’ve got to be realistic, Clair.”
    “Things change. People, events, police departments. Just keep pushing ahead. I’ll only be gone for a couple of weeks. Hold on, for now at least.We can talk about it more when I get back, right?”
    Ryder leaned back and studied the ceiling, like some form of answer was painted there.
    “Carson?” Peltier prompted.
    He nodded. “No decisions until you get back.”
    They started to embrace, but broke off at the sound of approaching footsteps; the guard on his rounds. Peltier blew Ryder a kiss through lips bright as roses. Ryder left, buoyed by a few minutes in his girlfriend’s presence.
    But a minute later, crossing the night-dark parking lot and waving mosquitoes from his face, the buoyancy was replaced by a strange, breath-stealing feeling in his gut, as if something venomous was paralleling his path, operating just past the edge of his vision.

8
    Truman said, “She’s gone, you dumb fuck.”
    Rose stared up at the ceiling. He was lying on the floor in the same semi-fetal position Truman had found him, ten minutes after the midnight phone call.
    “Tru? Could you come over here? I think something’s wrong.”
    “You touched one, didn’t you? DIDN’T YOU?”
    “I was teaching her to dance, Tru. That’s all. She started yelling out the window. I put my hand over her mouth. Maybe I squeezed too much…”
    “Out the window? You took her out of the shelter?”
    “She stopped yelling, but she got real still. I wasn’t doing anything nasty, Tru. I swear.”
    Truman looked toward the sheet-covered form on the carpeted floor. He’d seen enough crime dramas to know the rug would be covered with the girl’s hair and fingernails and spit and god-knows-what other stuff the cops could find.
    “We’ve got to get rid of her. Now. The rug too.”
    “I’ll do it, Tru. I know exactly how.”
    “There can’t be any traces of us. You know what I mean?”
    “I know a condemned house not too far away. It’s like kindling.”
    “Jesus, Rose. LaShelle was going to the guy that bought Darla last year. I’m working on a repeat-business concept here.”
    “I’ll take care of everything. I promise.”
    “You just goddamn better. We have obligations. We’re businessmen.”
    Truman went to sit on the dark back porch.