State of Decay Read Online Free Page A

way my joints cracked as I stood and stretched. Since the tenant below had moved out, the floor was always freezing and I had gooseflesh head to toe in seconds. I snapped on the carnival glass lamp next to the bed, found my slippers, and shrugged on my robe, pulling it tightly around me. The floor squeaked under my feet as I made my way in a haze into the kitchen.
    I’d spent the previous night comparing everything I knew about the victims, trying to find some kind of thread that tied them together, but so far I had come up pretty much empty. The murders had a ritualistic quality that made me think the selection of the victims should be significant, but none of them appeared to have anything in common at all, except their first- tier status, which wasn’t much to go on.
    I poured a small glass of water from the filter and set it in the microwave, then took a single sugar cube from the little jar on the table. Using a dropper from the bottle next to it, I squeezed two amber drops onto the cube and watched the liquid bleed through the white granules. I was still staring at it when my phone rang again.
    “Hello?”
    “Dasalia, it’s me.”
    “Shanks,” I said. The microwave dinged, and I winced as I reached in and pulled out the steaming glass.
    “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    “Nothing.”
    “They found another one,” he said.
    Your partner will find her first. . . .
    “Female?” I asked.
    “Yeah. How’d you know that?”
    I plopped down at the kitchen table, put the sugar cube on my tongue, and tipped back the glass. The cube dissolved as the hot water scalded my mouth, and I swallowed the bittersweet liquid in one hard gulp.
    “We’re being watched,” I told him, blowing out a hot sigh. “I just got a call announcing the new victim.”
    “The killer?”
    “He implied he was. Have the officers look around; the call came literally less than five minutes ago. He could be watching you now.”
    “On it.”
    “Who’s the lucky girl?”
    “Her name was Mae Zhu,” he said. “She was found in her car when they went to tow it. Same wound. Same chemical signature.”
    Those were the only two constants in each of the murders, and the only two links we had to the killer. One was the unique shape of the wound pattern, and the other was a faint chemical trace that indicated he either worked with explosives or carried them somewhere on him.
    “Send me the address.”
    My phone beeped and I checked the incoming message; this murder had happened right in the middle of the shopping district.
    “Any witnesses?” I asked.
    “No one saw a thing.”
    “I’ll see if any security cameras picked anything up,” I said. “I’m leaving now; I’ll meet you over there.”
    “Okay,” he said. “Sorry to wake you.”
    “I was up.”
    “Your eval is today. Don’t forget.”
    I sighed. I’d forgotten about the psych evaluation. I didn’t have time for that. There wasn’t enough time as it was.
    “I’ll meet you over there,” I said.
    I hung up and leaned back in the chair, feeling the warm, tingly feeling spread down my arms and legs as the stimulant kicked in. It was a sorry substitute for sleep, but it was better than nothing.
    Try to wake up.
    Pressing my palms over my eyelids, I felt my eyes aching behind them. That wasn’t my problem; I spent my whole life awake, it seemed. If it wasn’t for the sedatives, I’d never sleep at all.
    My foot had started tapping as a surplus of energy surged through me, cutting through the fog and bringing me back to life. I had to get moving.
    I’d showered the night before, so that was going to have to do. I brushed my teeth, bundled up, and grabbed my maglev chit off the countertop. When I made my way outside, it was still dark and bitterly cold. Sometime during the four hours or so I’d been in bed, it had snowed, leaving a thin white blanket over everything.
    I pulled my coat tighter around me and started making the arrangements to have the security footage piped