Without Malice (The Without Series Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

have the police looking for a skilled person.
    He bent over the dead body, reached for another weapon. First, a vicious blow to the head, shattering bone and cartilage. After pausing only a moment, he finished the job, each blow of the stick a determined strike, each knife slash to the cooling flesh a shameful thrill of pleasure.
    While it was harder work than he’d imagined, he felt more alive than ever before.
    Long minutes later, finished with the task, he toed the body until it sank beneath the creek’s shallow water. How long now before someone would stumble on it? A neighbor? A jogger? The police?
    There’d be shock, of course, some outrage, but in the end no one really cared about a hobo.

 
     
    Chapter 8
     
    Searching for Dickey Hinchey, Santiago Cruz walked toward Washington Street Church, which offered breakfast to the homeless every week day. The regulars had already left, so he made his way back to Jesus Saves – a nonprofit organization which provided shelter at night and always had a group of parolees looking for a place to hang, chill or sleep.
    About a third of Cruz’s parolees had no permanent residences. To save time and work for himself, Cruz could round up a bunch of them here, pee test them on the spot, and fill out his reports.
    Although the organization ran a daily bus up to the county seat in Placer Hills where the parole office was located, most parolees couldn’t wrap their brains around details like bus schedules. Alcohol, drugs and mental illness had messed with too many of them.
    Cruz passed back by the convenience store located directly in front of the Jesus Saves building, noting Officer Rawley – the responding officer – had already left with his teenage thief. On Sheldon Street he turned right toward the shelter . Although Dickey Hinchey had paroled two weeks ago, he’d never reported in. Missing parole check-in was a big deal.
    Dickey was heading for three strikes and this violation could send him straight back to prison. Cruz shook his head in disgust. Some of them never learned – hell, most of them. Dickey probably wasted his discharge cash on booze, drugs and a cheap hooker.
    As he rounded the corner of the building, a tall bony man with bright green eyes, nearly knocked him down. Not an easy thing to do, for Cruz was a dark and mean-looking man.
    He reached automatically for his weapon, heard his handcuffs jangle at his waist, and steadied the Russian man. Sergei Petrovich, not one of Cruz’s parolees, but he’d noticed him around the railroad tracks and made a point to learn his name.
    “Hold on there, man.” Cruz grabbed Sergei’s arm. “What’s your hurry?”
    “Oh, man, you no hear ‘bout Dickey?” Sergei jabbered with his heavy eastern European accent. “Is one of yours, right?”
    “Dickey Hinchey? What about him?”
    “Is bad, man, real bad.” Sergei continued, babbling in an unintelligible mixture of English, Russian and street Spanish.
    Cruz grabbed the other arm and shook him, raising his voice. “Cut it out, Sergei. Slow down. English. Now!”
    A small crowd of homeless men and a few women had gathered around them, sullen and silent. Curious, but not wanting to get too close in case they got jammed up.
    “Any of you know what he’s talking about? Something about Dickey Hinchey?”
    Their eyes slid away, feet shuffled, but no one answered.
    Dragging Sergei down the sidewalk and through the incongruous white picket fence that surrounded the Jesus Saves building, Cruz pulled him through the doorway. He shoved Sergei onto a worn Naugahyde sofa and looked for Angie Hunt, the woman in charge.
    “Stay there,” he growled, and turned left to the office.
    Angie, a recovering addict herself, looked fifty although Cruz knew she was only in her late thirties, not much older than him. She tugged on her long dreadlocks and eyed him cautiously. “Anything new?” she asked.
    “What?” Cruz felt stupid, as if he was the last person in a game of