Never Alone Read Online Free PDF

back. “But the other victim wasn’t placed so … thoughtfully . Maybe the killer didn’t have time with the other vic.”
    â€œYeah, something could have rushed him, but the Lower East Side girl was a hooker. There are so many more possibilities with a vic like that,” Nappa said.
    â€œA hooker who’s murdered and still has nine hundred dollars on her was definitely not killed for lack of performance. And she wasn’t murdered by her pimp or a john wanting his money back.”
    The details of the other murder were sketchy. A young girl, probably a runaway at one time, fell into prostitution. She was found strangled in her studio apartment with no signs of a break-in. Megan knew something wasn’t right, but nothing added up. The girl was placed in the cold-case files.
    Megan smelled her surroundings again, thinking it odd there was an odor more fitting for an Entenmann’s factory than a room housing a slowly decomposing body. She looked around to see if there were scented candles nearby. There were none. “Nappa, what’s that smell?”
    â€œThat’s what else I want to show you,” he said.
    Megan followed Nappa into the kitchen.
    â€œOpen the oven.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œOpen it.”
    Inside Megan found a loaf of bread slowly warming. “It’s bread, Nappa.” She checked the stove. The oven had been set to 150 degrees. “But … baking bread wouldn’t cover the scent of a decomposing body. We both know there is nothing more putrid than that.” No human being could ever forget the first time such a pervasive smell entered their life. Megan’s first experience was investigating an odor neighbors called in on the Lower East Side. She entered the apartment to find a man, once Caucasian, now black, bloated and dead on the floor. He’d been there for five days. A fetid pile of human remains surrounded by feces and dried urine made even the toughest cop dry heave if not run for the hall to retch completely.
    Megan looked again into the stove. “It’s Irish soda bread. Mom would buy it on the weekends to have with breakfast.” Saying those words made her wince with sadness knowing her mother no longer had the memory of cooking those old-fashioned Irish family breakfasts. She glanced around the kitchen. “Awfully clean for someone who just made homemade bread.”
    â€œAnd murdered a girl before breakfast,” Nappa said glancing back at now-deceased Shannon McAllister.
    The vic let you in, you sneaky bastard , Megan thought. “Let’s go talk to the super.”
    â€œI’m not sure how much help he’s going to be.”
    Megan released a heavy sigh. “Dot the i’s, cross the t’s, right Nappa?”
    Few crime scenes sent a chill down her spine. This was the second in as many months.

four
    Megan and Nappa made their way to the basement level to speak with the building’s super, Mr. Mendoza. There were a handful of cops standing outside his office. An EMT attended to Mr. Mendoza, giving him oxygen, checking his pulse and blood pressure.
    They squeezed through the narrow entrance into his office.
    â€œMr. Mendoza, I’m Detective McGinn,” she began. “This is my partner, Detective Nappa. I think you met earlier. I know this has been a difficult morning for you, but can you tell me everything you remember from the moment you entered Ms. McAllister’s apartment?”
    Mr. Mendoza took a long drag of oxygen before pulling the mask below his chin. “Oh, that poor, poor girl. She’s the nicest girl in the building. Most tenants ignore me when they see me in the hallway, not Miss Shannon. She’s an angel, I tell you, an absolute angel.” He turned his head in Nappa’s direction, as if trying to convince him of Shannon’s saintliness. “She stop and ask how my wife and children are all the time. My wife, she had these things removed