Justice for None: Texas Justice Book #1 Read Online Free

were dark with settled blood. And the smell got worse.
    Much worse.
    Victoria swallowed hard, biting back the gag reflex that threatened to hurl her bacon and eggs breakfast straight back up her throat. Bastrop fished a dirty handkerchief from his jacket pocket and pressed it over his nose, but Birch didn’t seem to notice the stench.
    Weeds and dust clung to the wounds that littered the young woman’s breasts and stomach, but her face was almost unmarked, though gray and bloated from decomposition. Still, it was a face that all three of them recognized.
    “What the hell?” Bastrop said through the handkerchief, “That’s Abby Sutton.”
    Too stunned for words, Victoria continued to stare at Abby’s distorted features. The girl had been beaten badly, but there was no doubt that it was her. Lamar and Lemuel Sutton’s baby sister. Victoria’s eyes jumped to the overturned wheelchair. The sunlight blasting off the chrome wheels was dazzlingly bright.
    Jesus Christ.
    Birch stood. “Bag everything in sight,” he said and Dizzy nodded.
    “That does it then,” Bastrop said, deflated, “It ain’t him. Abby was a murdering bitch, but she wasn’t a whore.” Neither Birch nor Victoria acknowledged Bastrop. They watched silently as Dizzy zipped Abby inside the bag.
    “Last I heard Abby was running her Daddy’s old motorcycle gang, the Condom Syndicate.” Bastrop laughed at his own joke, though neither Jack nor Victoria joined in. The Confederate Syndicate MC was no laughing matter; the gang was a violent clique of drug dealers with a penchant for automatic weapons and car bombs. And Abby Sutton had been a full patch member.
    “Probably a dope deal gone bad,” Bastrop added. “Real bad.”
    What Jack said next jarred Victoria out of her reverie.
    “I’m going to have to talk to Valentine about this,” he said almost apologetically. “Considering his and Abby’s past history, he’ll be at the top of our suspect list.” Jack didn’t mention the court case or the deaths of the Sutton brothers, Lamar and Lemuel, but he didn’t have to, Bastrop did it for him.
    “Valentine should have killed Abby four years ago when he gunned down her brothers,” Phil said. “Would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.”
    Victoria ignored Bastrop and nodded numbly at Jack. She knew how that meeting would go: very, very badly. The Suttons were not a subject Val was willing to discuss with anyone. And she had mentioned them only this morning…was that coincidence or premonition?
    Victoria shook her head and forced herself to refocus.
    “How do you think the killer got past the surveillance?” she asked as Birch climbed back up the slope. The levee’s access roads were still under heavy patrol despite Rusk’s capture. The theory that Rusk had a partner had necessitated it. Cops were cruising the fences at twenty minute intervals. A killer would have had to be damned fast to avoid them. Or familiar with the cops’ schedule.
    Birch shook his head. “Trying to figure that out myself. We’ll check with the guys who were on duty once we get a time of death.”
    “Probably getting their dicks waxed down on Riverfront Boulevard,” Bastrop interjected.
    Victoria, Jack and Bastrop were silent after that. They watched the coroner’s men cart Abby’s body up the hill and stow it in the back of their van before slamming the doors closed with a cold finality that made Victoria wince. Even after fifteen years of prosecuting violent offenders outrage still came easy. It was retribution for the victims that was hard to come by. And it didn’t matter that she thought Abby was a murderer and a thief; no one deserved to die like that. No one.
    The van backed around in a tight U-turn and drove off down the levee, stirring up a cloud of dust from the gravel that settled over Victoria’s suit like ashes.
    The van jounced over the uneven terrain at a funeral procession pace until it reached the junction with the road that climbed the