The Secret Friend Read Online Free PDF Page A

said. ‘Her pubic hair is also trimmed.’
    ‘So her killer allowed her to shave before she died?’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘You think the perp might have done it? I ask because there was this case not so long ago, in Philly, where this guy washed his victims in his bathtub after he raped and strangled them. He shaved their legs, arms, even their heads.’
    ‘To remove evidence,’ Darby said.
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘A true psychopath doesn’t have empathy for his victims. They’re objects, a means to fuelling a fantasy that’s often based on sadism. Women who are used as sexual objects are tossed like trash. They’re not allowed to shave their legs and put on nail polish. He cared for this woman.’
    ‘If you say so,’ Coop said.
    Darby fitted a headset equipped with a magnifier lens and light and examined the body for any trace evidence. What she found was mostly silt and twigs.
    ‘Darby?’
    She looked up from the body.
    ‘Twelve-point match,’ Coop said. ‘It’s Judith Chen.’
    Darby felt a hot, tearing sensation work its way through her chest as she went back to work.
    Like Emma Hale, Judith Chen had disappeared for weeks, being held somewhere until her captor decided to put a bullet in the back of her head. Like Emma Hale, Judith Chen had been dumped in the water dressed in the same clothes she was last seen wearing, a small statue of the Virgin Mary sewn into one of her pockets.
    ‘I’ll tell Bryson,’ Darby said.

7
    Darby found Detective Tim Bryson standing in the hallway, talking on his cell phone and looking magazine-cover slick in a camel wool topcoat buttoned over a sharp navy blue suit. Clothing aside, it was impossible not to take notice of him.
    The majority of men she knew in their early fifties had gone to seed – big beer bellies and jowls; greying, receding hairlines. Bryson had a sharp jaw line and a youthful face that gave him the look of a man somewhere south of forty. She had seen him at the police gym on more than one occasion. Like Coop, he was a health nut with an amazing body – lean and muscular. In addition to the gym routine and running, she had heard Bryson did yoga once a week at a studio in Cambridge.
    Bryson saw her. ‘I’ll call you back,’ he told the caller and hung up.
    ‘It’s Judith Chen.’
    Bryson nodded and stared at the floor for a long moment. He seemed disappointed, as though he had been holding out hope.
    ‘I think we should check for any recent abductions or missing persons involving female college students,’ Darby said. ‘It also wouldn’t hurt to warn the local colleges.’
    ‘That’s the commissioner’s call.’
    ‘I’ll talk to her about it.’
    Bryson took a long breath through his nose. Times may have changed in terms of equal opportunities for women, but the Boston Police Department still had a frat-house mentality, and Darby knew her new role would rankle many of the boys. She wondered if Bryson felt that way. Time to find out.
    ‘You have a problem with me being appointed to your unit?’
    ‘It wasn’t my call,’ Bryson said.
    ‘So that would be a yes.’
    ‘Everyone says you’re one hell of a lab rat.’
    The term was meant as an indirect slap. Bryson was saying she belonged to the lab.
    ‘I’m not interested in playing the whole alpha-dog game,’ Darby said. ‘It’s boring and counterproductive.’
    ‘Excuse me?’
    ‘Save the swinging dick routine for the locker room.’
    ‘You talk to your boyfriend like this?’
    ‘I’m not as polite. I’m trying to be more sensitive to your male sensibilities.’
    Darby moved closer, invading his personal space, and saw the fine web of lines around his eyes. ‘I know the papers have been pissing all over you for not finding Emma Hale. For the record, I think they’re wrong.’ She kept her voice calm. ‘When we find this asshole, if you want to be the poster boy for the department and smile and wave to the cameras and get the credit, be my guest. Until that moment comes, we need to