Craving Read Online Free Page A

dear life, seeing everything in slow motion.
    Unger looked at the woman over my shoulder. “Was she here yesterday, Cynthia?”
    Cynthia shook her head in amazement.
    “I didn’t see her,” one of the detectives volunteered.
    Unger frowned even deeper and crooked his fingers under his chin. He was staring at me as if he wanted to believe me and that gave me enough courage to plead with my gaze.
    “Anyone else see her?”
    Glances were exchanged. I took a deep breath and glowered at them defiantly.
    “We got a call,” said a second detective quietly. “We were gone.”
    I had lost my patience. “Look, I don’t get what you’re trying to pull, but I want to know where my sister is! I want her body back, right now!”
    The woman from the desk was closing in. I could hear her squeaky ergonomic shoes. She put what was supposed to be a comforting hand on my shoulder. “What’s your sister’s name, dear?”
    “Eva Pierce! I visited her in the morgue yesterday!”
    “And how did she pass, dear?”
    “She jumped off the Old River Motel!” I nearly shrieked. “I already said that!”
    Everyone stood still, giving me space. The hand recoiled from me, but ever so slowly came to rest on my shoulder again.
    “I’ll check the records for you, dear. I’m sure we have not misplaced her. I’ll call right now, see?” She reached for the phone, a look in her face and a tone in her voice that was the tried and true recourse of a baffled grief counselor. It was the tone my ex-husband used when he had already worked me into a frenzy, the one that said “By talking this way to you, I’m demonstrating superiority.”
    She dialed an extension and spoke in an almost-silent whisper. “Doctor, we have a situation here. Have you . . .”
    “Ms. Pierce,” Unger said, reaching out. “Won’t you sit down while we sort this out?”
    I glared at him, smoothed back my hair, and glanced away haughtily. “I’m fine standing, thanks.”
    After a few minutes, Cynthia hung up the phone. The click echoed into a long silence.
    “Well?” I barked.
    “Did you receive a call from someone, dear?”
    “My name is Lilith Pierce. Call me ‘dear’ one more time, I dare you. Where is my sister!”
    “Calm down,” Unger soothed, and for it nearly received a black eye. “How did you find out that your sister passed away?”
    “I didn’t fly all the way from California for my health!”
    “I understand that, ma’am,” he said, trying not to shout at me. He turned a dark eye on Cynthia instead. “What did he say?”
    “She was brought in this morning.”
    “What!” we all said at once.
    “The clerk said she was brought in two hours ago, suspected suicide. They were just going to call . . . her next of kin.”
    My heart stopped beating. In that one instant, not only was I free, I was free-falling. My mind lost the faculty of forming the simplest of queries. This was impossible. This was unacceptable.
    They were experiencing something similar, but for them it was an odd clerical error and I was a basket case.
    I think it was my knees that went, but when people say that, what they really mean is that the whole leg sort of slackens, like I was instantly a paraplegic. They caught me, inexpertly, and I fell without a complaint. Sitting on the hard ground, I looked at their shiny shoes and wondered what was going on.
    “Who’s the lead on it?” he asked around.
    “Mitchell and Thomas. They dropped by on their way to lunch, but it was a pretty definite suicide. Apparently, there were witnesses. I can call them now if you want and have Thomas email . . .”
    “God damn it, yes! Tell them I’ll take over and figure out what the hell is going on.”
    Had it all been a dream? Was I so mentally overwhelmed that I had mixed up the ride from the airport with the ride from her house that had happened two days later?
    Then I thought of the plane ticket. Opening my bag without a moment’s hesitation, I rummaged for it, and produced it. Unger