The Butterfly Garden Read Online Free PDF

fewer and shorter breaks. The first day he’d inked along my spine and worked in the outline for the wings and the veins and the blocks of the larger patterns. After that, he’d started at the wing tips and worked his way back in toward my spine, rotating between the four quadrants of my back to keep any one area from getting unworkably raw. He was nothing if not meticulous.
    Then the hum stopped and his breaths were short and fast as he wiped away the blood and excess ink. His hands trembled at their work where before they’d been nothing but steady. Cold, slick ointment came next, rubbed carefully into every inch of skin. “You’re exquisite,” he said hoarsely. “Absolutely flawless. Truly a worthy addition to my garden. And now . . . now you must have a name.”
    His thumbs stroked along my spine, where the first ink was done and the most healed, traveling up to the nape of my neck to tangle in my pulled-up hair. Greasy ointment clung to his hands, leaving my hair matted and heavy in his wake. Without warning, he pulled me down the bench until my feet were on the floor, my upper half still on the leather. I could hear him fumbling with his belt and zipper and I screwed my eyes tightly shut.
    “Maya,” he groaned, running his hands along my sides. “You are Maya now. Mine.”

    A hard knock on the door stops her from describing what came next, and she looks both startled and grateful.
    Victor swears under his breath and lurches out of his chair to the door, jerking it open. Eddison motions him into the hallway. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he hisses. “She was actually talking.”
    “The team going through the suspect’s office found something.” He holds up a large evidence bag filled with driver’s licenses and identification cards. “Looks like he kept all of them.”
    “All of them that had one, anyway.” He takes the bag—Christ, that’s a lot of cards—and shakes it a little to see past the first layer of names and pictures. “Did you find hers?”
    Eddison hands him a different bag, a small one holding a sole piece of plastic. It’s a New York ID and he recognizes her immediately. A little younger, her face softer even if her expression isn’t. “Inara Morrissey,” he reads, but Eddison shakes his head.
    “They’ve scanned the rest and are starting to run them, but they put this one first. Inara Morrissey didn’t exist until four years ago. The Social Security number matches a two-year-old’s who died in the seventies. New York office is sending someone to the last listed place of employment, a restaurant named Evening Star. The address on the ID is a condemned building, but we called the restaurant and got the apartment address. The agent I talked to whistled when he gave it to me; apparently it’s a rough neighborhood.”
    “She told us that,” Victor says absently.
    “Yes, she’s so trustworthy and forthcoming.”
    He doesn’t answer right away, absorbed in studying the ID. He believes his partner that it’s a fake, but damn, what a fake. Under ordinary circumstances, he has to admit he’d be fooled by it. “When did she stop showing up for work?”
    “Two years ago, according to her boss. Taxes support it.”
    “Two years . . .” He hands the larger bag back and folds the plastic bag around the single ID until he can tuck it into his back pocket. “Have them run these as quickly as possible; borrow techs from other teams if they can get away with it. Identifying the girls in the hospital has to be a priority. Then get us a couple of earbuds so the techs can pass along updates from the New York office.”
    “Got it.” He scowls at the closed door. “Was she actually talking?”
    “Talking hasn’t exactly been her problem.” He chuckles. “Get married, Eddison, or better yet have teenage daughters. She’s better than most, but the patterns are there. You just have to parse through the information for what’s significant. Listen to what isn’t being