Mischief 24/7 Read Online Free PDF Page A

dissect me, Court. I know I’m not perfect, I know I’ve got what shrinks call baggage. But it’s
my
baggage and I can live with it. And we made it work, Court. Look at Jolie, look at Jessica. Look at their successes. We made it
work.”
    “Not to belittle your achievement with your sisters, Jade, but to hell with Jess and Jolie. I’m looking at you, I’m looking at us. But there is no
us.
I never really fit in there anywhere, did I? Yet there I was, at least for a little while. Jess and Jolie grown and gone, and you still here, still mothering the bright, personable, but always needy Teddy. What was I for you, Jade? Your one stab at rebellion, at adventure—at independence?”
    “You’re wrong. It wasn’t like that between us. It couldn’t have been like that, damn it.” Her eyes shifted involuntarily to the left—according to
    Jessica, a sure sign someone is at least searching for an alternative truth—so she quickly looked at Court again. “Don’t cheapen what we had, please, or try some psychobabble explanation to explain it. I loved you.”
    “I hope so, Jade. I really hope so. I hope that, somewhere inside, you still do.” He leaned in and kissed her. On the cheek. Like they were friends, pals. Former lovers, one-time mates. “Come on, let’s do what you really want to do. Let’s get back to work.”
    Jade nodded, unable to say anything, and Court took her hand and led her back to the couch, back to the stack of files on the coffee table.
    He picked up the Vanishing Bride file and tossed it to the floor. “One down. What’s next?”
    “The Fishtown Strangler,” Jade said, willing her mind back on the cases. The cases, and solving them, clearing Teddy’s name, that’s all that was important now. Later, when the nightmare was over, when she’d fixed things—yes,
fixed
things, the way she always did—only then could she think about what Court had said to her. “This is where it all gets tricky, doesn’t it? Jess and Matt found the killer, but he denies that Tarin White was one of his victims.”
    “The man’s a terminal AIDS patient in Grater- fordPrison. His confession to Matt and Jess could almost be called a dying declaration. There’s no reason not to believe him. And no real reason for him to lie, come to think of it.”
    “I know,” Jade said, looking at the photograph of Tarin White. “Yet the MO, on the surface, is so similar, right down the line. Raped, strangled, dumped in Fishtown. The same brand of plastic wash-line cord used to bind her wrists and ankles, everything. Allegedly a prostitute, just like the other victims, and smack inside the time frame when the Fishtown Strangler was active. So what makes her different?”
    “Which of Jess’s many theories do you want to run with?” Court asked her, picking up a legal pad with Jessica’s neat notes written on the top sheet, the main points highlighted in pink. “Crazy as it sounds, I pretty much favor the one where Tarin White dovetails somewhat into the Baby in the Dumpster case.”
    “I know, me, too. Tarin as the dead baby’s mother,” Jade said, nodding. “Farfetched, but possible, especially since the infant’s body had been frozen, making time of death impossible to determine. Nobody ever claimed the child, no one reported a child that age missing. With Tarin dead, who could?” She reached for the Baby inthe Dumpster file. “Give me the date of Tarin’s murder again.”
    After a few moments Court told her the date on the medical examiner’s report. “Does that work?”
    “It’s the same year, the same summer. About three months give or take between the day of Tarin’s death and the discovery of the baby’s body. But anything else is conjecture, just another of Jessica’s theories. Let’s review what we actually know, okay?”
    Court ripped off the page of Jessica’s notes and picked up a pen, ready to start a new list. “Whenever you’re ready.”
    “In a second,” Jade said, shuffling notes