Rogue Read online

  Rogue

  Izzy Gomez

  Copyright © 2019 by Izzy Gomez

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Also by Izzy Gomez

  Chapter 1

  The body lay face-down in the grass. Dozens of stab wounds covered the woman’s back and legs, some shallow, others deep.

  Squatting next to the dead woman, Detective Amanda Schreiber squinted against the over-bright floodlights. She preferred the natural light of daytime crime scenes, but she didn’t get much choice about when someone found a body.

  “Any guess on time of death?” She balanced her notepad on her knee, pen poised to write. This was a brutal one. Some of the cuts had started to scab over, others were still fresh. The victim had been tortured over a few days. This was no random attack or robbery gone wrong.

  “Probably sometime mid-day,” Carla Russell, a deputy coroner, said. “Obviously I can’t make the final call yet, but I’d say there’s a good chance she died from one of these.” She gestured to the two worst, deep gouges just over the victim’s kidneys.

  “She wasn’t cut here, though.” Amanda indicated the dry grass beneath the body. “There’s almost no blood.”

  “I noticed that,” Carla said. “She was probably dumped here after dark. Otherwise someone would have seen it sooner.”

  Sunset had been a little after six, just a few hours ago.

  The breeze kicked up, whipping both women’s hair around their faces. Amanda pushed back a blond strand and tried not to inhale the stench wafting up from the White River. It smelled like someone put rotten oysters in a diaper pail and left it out in the sun. The stink even managed to overwhelm the usual odor of death. She swallowed hard against a gag and focused on breathing through her mouth.

  “Whatcha got, Schreiber?”

  Amanda rose from her squat, her knees protesting. Thirty-three was too young to have so many creeks and pops and aches. “It’s not sexual,” she told her partner, Al Voegler. They’d been partners four years and worked well together. Al had ten more years experience; Amanda played better with others.

  “Why do you say that?” Al frowned, the garish light emphasizing the creases in his forehead. “She’s practically naked.”

  Amanda turned to the body. “He cut off most of her clothes, but the essentials are covered, top and bottom.”

  “So what're you thinking?”

  “It’s someone who knew her. Someone who respected her.”

  “Family.” Al studied the body with his usual intensity. He tended to take every case a little too personally.

  Before she could answer, a crime tech named Blake jogged over. “We found something you might want to see on the steps.”

  They followed Blake to the foot of the hill leading up to the Waterfront Pavilion. Crime scene techs searched the area along the White River Trail for any minute piece of evidence. They worked quickly, everyone trying to beat the storm predicted to start any minute. Amanda could feel the coming rain in the cool air and the crisp breeze.

  Blake led them to the brick path at the base of the stairs climbing the incline to the pavilion. He pointed to the bottom step. “This.”

  There lay two pieces of bloody pink flesh, one in a ring shape, the other a lump. Amanda’s stomach quivered. She’d seen plenty of gore but this was extreme. What the hell was it?

  Al squatted, leaning in closer. “What the hell is it?”

  “Took the words out of my mouth.” She crouched next to him and pointed to the side of the lump that was raw and exposed. “Looks like it was cut off here.”

  “But what is it?”

  “No clue.” She didn’t care to inspect it too closely.

  Instead she looked up at Carla, who shook her head. “I don’t even have a guess. We’ll have to wait until I get a chance to examine it more closely. Or we could roll the body, see if we can find where it came from.”

  Al rose and nodded to Blake to finish collecting the evidence. Amanda ignored the crack in her knee as she stood. It popped again as they walked back to the victim, drawing a raised eyebrow from Al. “You should get that checked out.”

  “It’s nothing.” Just her old high school running injury.

  “Tell me it’s nothing in five years when you’re having a knee replacement and I don’t have a partner while you’re laid up recovering.”

  “It’s always about you, isn’t it?” she teased, hoping to get off the subject of her knee. “Never mind me and my knees. But don’t inconvenience you.”

  Al flashed a rare grin. “Damn straight it’s about me. What, you think I give a rat’s ass about your health?”

  Chuckling, Amanda rolled her eyes.

  “So you want me to roll her?” Carla asked as they reached the body. “See what the front looks like?”

  Al looked toward the crime scene techs. “They get all the pictures they need?”

  Carla nodded. “Roundy said he’d come back to shoot her front after he gets the rest of the area.”

  “Then do it.”

  Carla squatted, reached across the body, gripped the shoulder and pulled. The body rolled into position with a thump.

  For a moment, Amanda could only stare. At the cold, unseeing blue eyes.

  At the mangled lower face.

  At the nearly flawless skin marred by dried blood.

  The long, square nose.

  The diamond studs in her ears.

  The appendectomy scar.

  The perfect feet, nails painted a cheerful coral.

  “Holy fuck.” Al bent down for a closer look. “He cut off her mouth. That’s what that shit on the stairs was. What the hell does that mean?”

  Amanda knew exactly what it meant.

  She hiccuped, mouth flooding with saliva. Even knowing what would come next, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but stare as a calm sickness moved through her. The kind that brought hysteria. She almost laughed at the symbolism of the missing tongue.

  She hiccuped again. Her rational mind kicked in, telling her she better move before she destroyed evidence. She turned and ran as far as possible from Al and Carla and...

  Her.

  Amanda dropped to her knees on the concrete, leaning on her hands as she retched into the grass next to the trail. Closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see her own vomit. Instead saw that gruesome face. That ugly, horrid face. The source of so much pain in her life.

  “Schreiber?”

  She heard Al’s footsteps behind her. She could keep going until she did nothing more than gag on bile. Instead she steeled herself against the rolling inside, sat back on her heels and leaned against a nearby railing to regain her equilibrium.

&n
bsp; “Jesus, Amanda. Are you alright?” Al hovered over her. She’d never heard so much concern in his normally detached voice. “You’ve never gotten sick at a scene before. You eat something bad? Fuck. You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  She almost laughed. Didn’t she wish. That problem had an easy solution. But she hadn’t engaged in the prerequisite in months.

  “I’m not pregnant.” Her voice sounded hollow in her head.

  “Then get up and let’s finish this. What’s the deal here?”

  She spit out some of the nasty remaining in her mouth. What was she supposed to think? How was she supposed to answer Al? What was the deal?

  “She’s my stepmother.”

  Chapter 2

  “Go home, Amanda.”

  Arm around her shoulder, Al practically carried her. She suddenly felt so tired she could sleep for at least a week. But she was a professional. Family or not, this was a murder investigation and she had a job to do.

  She owed it to her father. Her half-siblings, Emily and Hank.

  Maybe even to herself.

  “I can’t. We need to finish here.” She stepped out of Al’s awkward embrace and started toward Carla.

  Al followed. “We’re almost done here. I’ll finish up, fill you in tomorrow.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You know you can’t keep working this case. Not when it’s a family member.”

  “The Captain can reassign me if she wants. Until then, I’m doing my job.”

  Al sighed and scrubbed his hand through his salt and pepper hair, a sure sign he was frustrated. “Go home, Schreiber. You look like shit.”

  Amanda snorted. “Gee, when you put it that way.”

  “He’s right, Amanda,” Carla said. “You’ve had a shock. Go home, get some rest.”

  “See.” Al folded his arms over his wide chest, looking smug. “A medical opinion.”

  Amanda glared first at Al, then at Carla. Exhaustion pulled at her, compromising her ability to form a decent argument. She badly wanted to do as they said.

  But now wasn’t the time to give in to emotions. There’d be plenty of time for that in the next few weeks.

  A familiar voice drew her attention down the trail. She turned to see Greg Cole heading toward them. Ever since he’d joined the Homicide Section a month ago, he’d become an itch she couldn’t scratch. She thought far too much about him, things she had no business thinking about a colleague.

  Tonight she did not have the energy to deal with Detective Cole and the way he made her feel.

  “All right. I’ll go.” She put on her hardest expression. Stared at Al. Glanced over at Carla, then back to Al. Looked anywhere but at Greg. “But I’m telling my dad.”

  “Are you sure?” Al's voice actually sounded concerned. Gruff though he pretended to be, when push came to shove, Al cared. He was the protective older brother she’d never had. Her own older brother was loyal, but too nerdy to be overly protective.

  No. In the space of a second, she’d become unsure of everything in her life. Funny how quickly it could all turn upside down.

  “I have to.”

  Greg ducked under the yellow crime scene tape and flashed his detective shield at the patrol officer standing guard. Vans from all the local news stations lined up along the curb. The hum of Chopper 13 circled overhead.

  In a big city like Indianapolis, a dead body didn’t usually garner this much attention. But they must’ve gotten wind this wasn’t the run-of-the-mill robbery gone wrong or domestic assault taken too far. This wasn’t a gang member dead in a bad neighborhood.

  This was a white woman in a city park in a nice neighborhood. This was A Story. The kind that drew excitement like free beer at Victory Field.

  Once they’d identified the victim, the Chief would have to hold a press conference and the real circus would begin. Greg hated press conferences.

  Farther up the trail the lead detectives on the case stood with a woman he didn’t know. Probably the new assistant ME. He recognized Voegler and Schreiber right away. Hell, he’d know Amanda Schreiber anywhere.

  Voegler had his arm around Amanda’s shoulder and she leaned into him. What was that about?

  Greg tried to ignore his twinge of jealousy, because he knew there was nothing between her and Voegler. Amanda was too smart to get involved with her partner, even if he could bench 315 and had the muscles to show for it. But the guy seemed extremely emotionally unavailable. What woman would go for that?

  Greg couldn't ignore his attraction to Amanda much longer. Not when it got stronger every day. And it started out pretty damn strong when he met her a month ago.

  Now wasn’t the time to think about it. He'd spent most of the day in court, then had to go in and sift through evidence on another case. He’d been about to head home when Captain Brown called and told to get his ass to this crime scene. She wanted extra detectives there so the media would see they took it seriously.

  So here he was, losing out on sleep, all for good PR. He hated this part of being a cop. One of the few things he missed about his old job with the Gang Task Force: the media didn’t care. Gangs and drugs in Indianapolis were old news.

  “Go home, Schreiber. You look like shit,” Voegler said as Greg approached.

  So much for jealousy. If that’s how Voegler talked to his partner, Greg had nothing to worry about.

  However, Voegler wasn’t wrong. Amanda’s face looked grey in the harsh light, eyes dull and stunned. Not the usual fatigue that came with the badge.

  “All right, I’ll go,” Amanda said. “But I’m telling my dad.”

  Her dad?

  “Are you sure?” Voegler asked. Everything about him – his voice, his expression, the way he leaned into Amanda – spoke of concern, which surprised Greg. Voegler was usually devoid of any expression. Clearly something else was going on.

  Amanda looked up at Voegler with a sadness that wrenched Greg’s heart. He recognized that despair. He’d seen it far too many times in his parents’ eyes.

  Amanda knew the dead woman.

  “I have to.”

  Voegler nodded.

  Amanda gave Voegler a smile that didn’t come close to looking real. Without making eye contact, she nodded to Greg, then walked away.

  Voegler glanced over and his bushy eyebrows crept up his forehead.

  “Brown sent me and O’Donnell to keep up appearances,” Greg explained.

  Voegler nodded vaguely, his gaze returning to Amanda as she walked to her car.

  “I take it she knows the victim?” Maybe he was fishing a little for information about Amanda. But it was relevant to the case.

  Voegler’s jaw clenched. “It’s her stepmom.”

  Her stepmom.

  It felt like someone cracked him over the head with a two-by-four. For a second he was nineteen years old, back on that Chicago sidewalk in sun so bright it blinded him. He smelled the humidity in the air and heard the chaos whirling around him.

  Just as quickly, the memory disappeared. He was back outside the zoo in Indianapolis, at night, the fall breeze seeping through the sleeves of his Oxford shirt. At his feet lay a dead woman who was part of Amanda’s family.

  Family.

  He ached to follow Amanda. Tell her he understood. Let her lean on him. Hold her against him and take on some of the weight of her tragedy.

  “She insisted on being the one to tell her dad,” Voegler said.

  “That…sucks,” Greg said. Sucks. What a wholly inadequate word. But what else could he say?

  Voegler laughed without humor. “Yeah. It definitely sucks.” He was silent a moment, then straightened his shoulders. “Let's get to work.”

  “What do you need me to do?” Greg felt the same flood of urgency he could see flicker in Voegler’s eyes.

  One of their own had been hurt. Now they had to make things right.

  Finally alone, Amanda slid into her ten-year-old Jetta, locked her doors and leaned back on the headrest.

  She close
d her eyes and pictured Karen’s mutilated face. The wicked lips and cruel tongue gone. She would never say a spiteful word again.

  How many times had Amanda and her older brother Todd wished Karen dead? A few times Todd even said it to Karen’s face.

  But they hadn’t really meant it. They’d been angry teenagers. They didn’t want her dead. They simply wanted her to go away.

  No need to follow that particular branch of memory lane. Amanda started the car and headed for her father’s house in Carmel, an upscale suburb of Indianapolis.

  As she drove, she pulled out her cell phone and called Todd.

  “What’s up?” he answered on the third ring.

  “Are you busy?” How the hell did she do this? She should probably wait and tell Dad first, but she couldn’t. She needed to talk to Todd, gather a little courage before she dealt with Dad’s inevitable grief.

  “Uh oh. What happened? You don’t sound good.”

  She could practically hear Todd’s frown. See the creases on his forehead as his eyes narrowed behind his glasses. Amazing how he could tell how upset she was from three words.

  “It’s, uh, it’s my latest case.” Stopped at a red light, Amanda rubbed her hand over her eyes. Notifying families was one of the worst parts of her job. At least it could never get more difficult than tonight.

  “Oooooh-kay,” Todd said cautiously.

  “The victim is...”

  She couldn’t say it. Couldn’t force her mouth to form the word.

  Karen. Simple enough word. Yet it wouldn’t come.

  “Who?”

  “Karen,” she whispered.

  “I can’t hear you.”