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Authors: Ker Dukey,K. Webster

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Pretty Stolen Dolls (4 page)

BOOK: Pretty Stolen Dolls
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“I will,” I say, though neither of us believe that lie.

Instead of going home, I find myself back at the precinct doing paperwork. My cell dings with a text message.

Detective Douche: $100 says you’re working…

My partner likes to taunt me on weekends when I should be at home, but instead work old cases and go through old paperwork to make sure nothing was missed the first time around. He’s an asshole. I type back with a smirk playing on my lips.

Me: I could use a new handbag.

I go to drop my phone back on the desk when it lights up again.

Detective Douche: HA! You carry your cash in your bra. I’ve never seen you with a handbag.

Dick.

Me: That’s why I need one.

Ding.

Detective Douche: I’ll be collecting my money Monday morning, Phillips.

Double dick.

“Phillips,” Chief Stanton barks, startling me. Clicking my phone off and placing it in my desk, I give him my attention. It’s late; I didn’t realize just how late until I looked up from the computer. It’s dark outside and my stomach grumbles for food.

“Chief,” I nod.

He stops by my desk and leans into it. “Isn’t today your day off?”

His white bushy eyebrows pinch together and he folds his arms over his chest, emphasizing the beer belly he has going on.

“I just wanted to make a few tweaks to a couple reports,” I lie.
Always lying.

He already knows how much time I spend here, so he must be bored if he’s standing here breaking my non-existent balls.

“Here,” he says, digging into his slacks and pulling out a twenty. He spends a couple seconds ironing out the creases between his fingers before offering it to me. “I can hear your hunger from here. Go get us some sandwiches from Benny’s.”

Benny.

Thud.

“What?” I breathe, a tremor rattling through my body.

“Jenny’s Subs, across the street,” he grunts and then frowns. “Why do you look so pale? She passed that last health code inspection. It was just hearsay about the rat.” He shakes his head and waves his hand to dismiss me.

Jenny’s not Benny’s. Fuck. I hate how he still affects me.

“Actually, Chief, a homicide just came in. I could use her if that’s cool with you,” Detective Marcus says, walking past my desk.

Reaching over, Stanton snatches the twenty back and nods his head, gesturing for me to go with Marcus.

Charming.
Tight ass.

“Why do you need me?” I ask as we pull up to a residential block. None of the detectives in the department like me that much, so him asking me to come along is unusual, to say the least.

“You’ll see,” he smirks.

My brows dip and I bite the inside of my cheek as I follow him past the buzzing of other residents in the building.

“We been tellin’ you pigs for weeks he would kill her in the end and you didn’t fuckin’ listen,” a woman yells, waving her hands around her head like she’s swatting a wasp.

Pointing to the open door behind her, Marcus barks, “Get inside.”

She “pffts” at him and remains parked where she can watch what we’re up to.

Uniformed officers stand at the entrance to the scene of the crime.

“Get these people back in their homes and tell them we’ll be around to take statements in due course,” I tell the uniform who looks like he’s going to vomit all over his sparkly black shoes.
Rookie.

Pushing inside, there’s noise and movement to my left where a kitchen is situated.

Two uniforms sit with a strong, built man in cuffs. He’s shirtless with blood splatter all over his chest and face, demanding to be let go and shouting how it was an accident. His eyes clash with mine and I imagine steam coming from his nostrils as he breathes heavy and deep. In him, I see the same darkness Benny always had in his eyes—no remorse, lacking empathy.

My feet carry me into the living space where a naked woman lays on her back. I skim over her exposed flesh, logging everything that stands out. Contusions to her wrists, blue in color. She was tied up recently. New and old bruises on her inner thighs. Signs of rough sex or rape. Bruising around the throat shows signs of strangulation. Coloration suggests ante mortem and more than likely the cause of death. There is an injury to her head from blunt force trauma, supposedly from the fireplace, but the spray over the suspect in the other room and the little blood and lack of inflammation tells me this was caused after death.

Rolling my head on my shoulders, I pull a pair of latex gloves from my jacket pocket and snap them into place before making my way back through the small apartment to the kitchen. The suspect glares at me and chin lifts his head.

“It was an accident. She fell,” he grits out.

“And the bruises?” I question, darting my eyes over him to study the splatter on his chest.

“We like to fuck,” he says with a shrug. “Rough. She fucking loved it. I bet you would too.” He licks his lips and smacks them at me before crinkling his nose. “Unless you’re a fucking dike.”

Because I’m a detective and don’t walk around in girly shit? That’s a new one.
Dick.

“What did you use?” I ask, and his right eye twitches. “To smash her head in?” I clarify.

“She fell on the fireplace,” he barks, his tone defensive.

A bitter laugh escapes me as I motion to the blood on his chest and face.

“I held her after,” he counters.

“You’re an idiot.”

His body tenses at my insult.

“You’re a woman beating, raping, piece of shit who strangled his girlfriend to death and then panicked. You waited while your peanut-sized brain could come up with a plan, found something to cave her head in with, and then left her by the fireplace.”

I poke him in the chest and he heaves.

“The autopsy will show cause of death, idiot. But in the meantime, let me educate you. Blood doesn’t clot after death, so it sprays differently, and without the body pushing it through the veins, it just sits in there instead of pumping out.” Reaching for the back of his head, I use all my weight and force his face into the table, relishing the pop of his nose breaking.

“Motherfucking bitch, I’ll kill you!” he shouts as blood gushes from his nose.

“You tripped, and you’ll bleed more than she did.” I smirk, waltzing back through to Marcus.

“She assaulted me. She assaulted me,” he bellows.

“You tripped,” both uniforms say in unison.

“There will be an object hidden somewhere he used after death,” I bark out. “Maybe a heavy ornament or the bottom of a trophy. The throttling caused her death. I’m going to get a ride home.”

Marcus knew I’d be volatile with the suspect, that’s why he wanted me to come. He knows I hate violence against women more than anything else, but I wasn’t their entertainment. I could do his freaking job for him; I wasn’t sticking around for the cleanup.

Climbing into bed, I cuddle up to my boyfriend, Bo.

Bo Adams—the literal boy next door. When I was rescued and finally reunited with my folks, it was Bo who came to my emotional aid. My parents knew nothing of how to deal with my rage. I was furious we couldn’t find her. Furious at myself. Furious with the police. Furious with my parents.

It was Bo who showed me how to channel that aggression.

He took me to my first self-defense class only three months after I came home. My head was still fucked and I was weak, but eventually, I became obsessed. Not only did I learn how to defend myself, I learned how to seriously beat some ass if it ever came to it after taking other classes like kickboxing.

He taught me how to shoot. First just soda cans out the back of his dad’s old flatbed, but then we moved on to hunting and every kill became Benny in my eyes. Every squeeze of that trigger, the resistance, and then the kickback was gratifying. Each time, I fantasized about it penetrating his skin, blood, bone.

Bo let me channel that aggression, that hate, and what started as a friendship between he and I evolved into something more. Once I made the move to the city, Bo followed, getting a position here at the local college, and we’ve been living together ever since. He hates it when I work late and on weekends because this is all the time we get together and he isn’t even conscious for it.

I’m a terrible girlfriend, but he simply can’t see that.

Rolling onto my back, I stare up at the ceiling and will sleep to come, praying, just like every night, Benny will leave me the fuck alone.

Of course, my prayers fall on deaf ears.

He’ll be with me the moment I close my eyes.

 


M
ISSING PERSON.
W
HITE FEMALE.
F
OURTEEN
years old. Last seen at Woodland Hills mall at three-thirty yesterday afternoon. Phillips? You ready to go?”

White female. Fourteen years old.
His words
echo in my mind, causing the hairs to rise on my neck.

“What are you? Twelve?”

“I’m fourteen, and I’m not a little kid!”

“Yeah,” I bark, squeezing my eyes shut, “calm your shit, Scott.” The age of the vic makes me shudder. It’s a stark reminder of how I too was taken at that age. Forcing the memory back into the recesses of my mind, I give him a raised brow and a one-finger salute.

BOOK: Pretty Stolen Dolls
6.14Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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