Anthology To Serve and Protect

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stressed about yesterday but he didn't want to lie, not to
Leo. "Can we talk about it later?"
"Sure. I'll meet you at the gym in twenty, okay?"
"Okay. Thanks, Leo."
"No problem, man."
Mitch grabbed an orange juice and a muffin at the nearest
coffee place, avoiding the actual coffee because if he had
caffeine before he worked out it gave him heartburn. He'd
only been on the treadmill for five minutes when Leo came in.
Leo was wearing a worn t-shirt and sweatpants so thin they
were practically see-through, and Mitch couldn't help but
wonder what kind of looks Leo would get wearing something
like that in public. Interested ones, probably.
"Hey," Leo said. "You didn't have coffee, did you?"
Mitch grinned. "No. All other evidence aside, I don't
actually want to be miserable."
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To Serve and Protect
by Chris Owen, Tory Temple, CB Potts
Leo got onto the treadmill next to Mitch's and started it up.
"Are you?" he asked after a minute. "Miserable?"
That took a little thinking about. "I don't know," Mitch said.
"Maybe sometimes."
"That sucks," Leo said, glancing at him. "You should fix
that."
"I would," Mitch said. "If I could figure out what was
wrong."
They ran in companionable silence for a minute before Leo
suggested, "You could talk to someone."
"I'm talking to you," Mitch said.
Leo frowned at him. "Which is fine," he said. "But I'm not a
professional."
"Sure you are," Mitch said.
"I'm not a professional therapist," Leo clarified.
"Look," Mitch said. He'd been running long enough that
keeping his sentences short was now necessary instead of
just fun. "I don't want to talk to anyone. I'm no good at that.
Talking to you ... that's the best I can do."
"Okay, fine," Leo said. "Talk to me. Just don't get mad if it
doesn't end up being all that helpful."
"I don't talk to you because I think ... you're going to do a
good job analyzing me," Mitch said, panting for air now. "In
fact ... I might talk to you ... because you don't."
"Stop talking and run," Leo said severely, so Mitch, glad
for the order even though he had five months longer on the
force than Leo, did.
* * * *
262
To Serve and Protect
by Chris Owen, Tory Temple, CB Potts
Just before noon, the body that Mitch and Leo had found in
Meeker Park was identified as that of sixteen-year-old Paige
Sadler, who'd been reported missing two days before. That
was the good news; good only, of course, because it meant
that her family wouldn't have to wait years wondering if she
were alive or dead.
The other good news was that Mitch and Leo didn't have to
go tell her family it was something Mitch hated doing, and
for the most part he managed to pass the job off onto
someone else. Witnessing that kind of shock and grief
definitely wasn't why he'd become a cop.
The bad news and there was always bad news in their
line of work, of one type or another was that they had no
leads on who might have dumped the body in the park. None
at all. They knew it was murder; the cause of death had been
a blow to the head, but there was also evidence of severe
bruising around the throat, and the girl had been sexually
violated both vaginally and anally. But there wasn't anything
to go on. There were no fingerprints of any kind nearby, what
with none of the surfaces lending themselves toward holding
them. The rapist and murderer had worn a condom, and there
was nothing but soil and bits of leaf under the dead girl's
nails. The only hairs they'd found on her and in the area had
been identified as her own. They had nothing. No semen, no
blood, no skin, no hair.
According to Paige's family, she'd been a loner. No real
friends, no boyfriend. At a loss for better people to question,
Mitch and Leo went to Paige's high school to talk to some of
her teachers and classmates.
263
To Serve and Protect
by Chris Owen, Tory Temple, CB Potts
The principal at Paige's school hadn't known her personally
other than to see her in the hallways; he pulled her file and
the three of them looked over it together.
"She didn't get in much trouble," Mitch said. It was an
understatement; her record was completely clean, her grades
unremarkable.
"If she had, I'd have known her," Principal Weinburg said
wryly. He was a small man with thinning hair and a friendly, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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