The Dirty Secrets Club Read Online Free PDF

the curbs didn't leave me much room to maneuver. She came at me, tires spinning. I thought, she's going to ram me." He swallowed. "I yanked it onto the left side of the road to avoid her. But I didn't need to. She laid on the brakes. Slammed 'em, must have pulled the hand brake, too. She stopped it on a dime, right next to my passenger-side window. At that point I was reaching for my weapon. But she ..."
    He looked up at the wrecked bridge railing. The muscles in his jaw bulged.
    "Officer?"
    He shook his head. "It makes no sense. She drove through the railing on purpose, I have no doubt."
    "What happened when she stopped next to your patrol car?"
    He continued gazing up at the railing. Jo didn't see a need to push him, not at this stage. It was okay to let everything come out—his narrative, his impressions, his emotions, even if it was all a jumble right now.
    "I saw her face, clear as day. She was—I mean, she was a beautiful woman, I saw that. And she was desperate."
    She was ninety seconds from death. Desperate, yeah, that about covered it. "What did she do?"
    "She slapped her hand against her window and yelled to me. I heard it. I saw the words on her lips." Again he looked at the bridge. "I have no doubt she did it on purpose." He glanced at her sharply, as though she had just disputed his assessment. "Come on, I'll show you why."
    Cruz took her to the stairwell that led up to Bush Street. His shoulders filled the dark blue uniform shirt. The heel of his hand rode his nightstick. He seemed more than uncomfortable. Something was bothering him, and it wasn't the sleeping bags of the homeless in the stairwell.
    Something was bothering her, too. She felt a scratch at the base of her brain. The feeling that the scene was askew returned.
    "What's on your mind, Officer?" she said.
    He slid her a glance over his shoulder. "Little late to talk the driver down off the ledge, isn't it?"
    "That's not why I'm here."
    They headed up the stairs. What was scratching at her? What was aggravating Cruz?
    His mouth was a taut line. "You gonna ask me how I feel?"
    Was that it? "I'm not here to give you trauma counseling, or to evaluate your mental stability as a witness."
    His glance was sharp. "So who are you?"
    "I'm the deadshrinker."
    He slowed. "What?"
    "I don't shrink heads. I shrink souls." Her footsteps echoed in the stairwell. "I'm a forensic psychiatrist."
    His shoulders inched down. He looked at her with fresh curiosity. "Exactly what is it you do?"
    "I perform psychological autopsies to determine whether equivocal deaths are natural, accident, suicide, or homicide," she said. "I figure out why the deceased got dead."
    Relief seeped across his face, and the beginnings of a smile. "You have trouble getting DBs to pay?"
    "Just zombies. I charge them up front, before they wander away moaning."
    They reached the top of the stairs. "And you don't do your voodoo in a nice warm office?"
    She saw why Cruz thought Harding had crashed deliberately. Her voice went quiet. "Not when the juju's this bad."
    Stockton Street dead-ended at the Bush Street Bridge. Each end of the bridge had a staircase leading up from the street below. At the top, the staircases pointed toward the center of the bridge. They were guarded with metal railings. Jo ran her hand along one. It was cold and solid. The vertical pole that held up the end of the railing was striped with black paint and deformed from the force of the BMW striking it as it went past.
    Jo estimated that there was no more than eight feet between the two sets of stairs.
    Either/or. Callie Harding had either suffered unfathomably bad luck, or done a damned precise piece of driving.
    Uphill on Stockton two police officers were walking the road with a pedometer, measuring. A camera flashed, somebody photographing the pavement.
    "Skid marks?" she said.
    "They're looking."
    She walked to the curb. It was heavily scored where the BMW had hit it. Across the street, under a streetlight, she saw fresh