Murder 42 - A Thriller (Sarah King Mysteries Book 2) Read Online Free

standing on the side of the road.
    She was actually going to walk right past him. He didn’t look out of place, other than the fact that he was standing on the curb just staring out into the street. But then she noticed his legs. They were mangled and bloody, the black blood long since crusted onto the flesh, the cloth torn away in huge patches from his jeans. The boy’s skin looked like chalk, and even from behind, she could see the massive dark circles that engulfed his face and neck.
    She stopped and closed her eyes. Opening them again, he was still there.
    Sarah approached him. Some of them didn’t acknowledge her, some attacked, some spoke, and some didn’t. It seemed random, and she wondered if there was a pattern there somewhere that she wasn’t seeing.
    A frail body accompanied the bruised and battered face. Sarah stood next to him quietly and watched the cars as they passed. One minivan full of children rode by, the occupants staring at her but none of their eyes going down to the boy, and then she was certain that they didn’t see him.
    “I want to go home,” the boy said softly.
    Sarah swallowed and turned to him. “Where is home?”
    “I want to go home,” he said again in the same tone.
    She bent down to eye level with him. “Sweetie, where is home?”
    The boy didn’t respond. From the tattered clothing and the limbs that seemed bent at odd angles, she knew he’d been killed in a car crash.
    “Were you hurt right here on this road?”
    “I want to go home.”
    Sarah tried to touch him but didn’t feel anything except a slight coolness as her hand passed through. She sighed and rose. What could she do for him? Nothing… except maybe try to let him know he wasn’t alone.
    First the headache came, then a stream of blood ran from one nostril. She felt it as a tickle and wiped at it with the napkins she always had to carry in her back pocket. When the bleeding stopped, she sat down on the curb next to him and watched the cars in silence.

5
     
     
     
     
    The precinct had emptied by late evening. Stefan waited in a coffee shop across the street. Something about the fall of night made him think people were more willing to open up about the darkness inside them—the part they wouldn’t share with anyone else during the day.
    The barista wore a beret, and he remembered when, briefly, he’d worn one as an undergraduate. Majoring in French philosophy could do that to people. What he planned to do with that degree he couldn’t say now, but at the time it seemed like a good idea. That and a law degree led him to the Bureau, so it must’ve been a good choice.
    Once the sun set and it was nearly dark, he finished his coffee and rose. The people in the shop were mostly college students, young and debating ideas—something that didn’t seem to happen once people got out into the working world.
    The temperature had lowered but not to anything near what someone outside of Arizona would consider cool. His first week at the Phoenix office, Stefan had experienced temperatures over one hundred twenty degrees. He remembered wearing shorts on a Saturday and burning his thighs on the leather seats of his car.
    Crossing the street quickly, he had to remind himself to slow down. That was something his TAs—training agents—were always telling him: slow down and take your time. Think things through. But the excitement was too much, sometimes. It worried him that he might make mistakes because of it.
    The precinct was quiet. He passed reception and found Lunds still on his computer. The guy had put in a twelve-hour day and looked exhausted. His sleeves were rolled up, and on the underside of his forearm was a tattoo of a skull with a knife through the eye and an inscription above it.
    “That’s pretty wild,” Stefan said, leaning down for a closer look.
    Lunds rolled his sleeves back down. “Just youthful indiscretion. You ready?”
    “Yeah.”
    Lunds stood up, stretched, and led Stefan to the back