Blood Music (33 page)

Authors: Jessie Prichard Hunter

“I'm on my way there now,” Grout said. “For all we know, the car's clean, and she's just off banging a boyfriend or crashed at a girlfriend's. Or something. I got Sonja Test headed there, on her own time, giving up her Saturday training to bumper-to-bumper it best she can
in situ.
That itself is against protocol without probable. But Chief Barrons is out three more days fishing the Bahamas, andâ”

“That bastard,” Rath said. Barrons had been Rath's senior the three years Rath was a state-police detective in the 1990s. Barrons was an exceptional cop and an even better fisherman. Rath wasn't sure for which trait he resented and envied Barrons more.

“So,” Grout said, “I'm taking liberties as it is without leaving my entire nutsack hanging out for Barrons to lop off and brine when he gets back. This girl is, technically, family; if it looks like I'm playing favorites or expending resources without due cause, and the girl just strolls in, my ass is in a sling, right when it's looking like the budget might open up, and there's a shot at a promotion. At the same timeâ”

“Fuck protocol,” Rath said. The hard consonants felt good to bite off and spit out.
But, what promotion?
If Grout wanted to excel in law enforcement, he should have taken Rath's advice several years back and gone to the staties. And he shouldn't have been calling Rath for help. Grout needed to take the helm himself, damn the repercussions: Protocol never outweighed doing what was right. Rath knew that if he wanted to help Grout and his career, he should force Grout to see this through on his own and be either tempered or turned to ash by the heat he'd feel from Barrons.

But there was a missing girl. That came before any career.

“I could use your help,” Grout said. “Even if it becomes official, it's still just an MP, a low priority unless it becomes something else.”

Something else.

The sun glared on the skin of snow that had fallen overnight, melting fast, water dripping from the barn roof to tick on a sheet of rusted tin that had been leaning against the barn since the Pleistocene ice age.

Rath lit a cigarette and drew in the smoke. All he got from it was trembling fingertips and a numb nose. He needed to go back to dipping.

His cell-phone screen glowed with an incoming call: Stan La roche. Rath let it go.

“Where's the car?” Rath asked Grout.

Grout told him, and Rath tossed his cigarette into a rag of snow, where it settled with a paling hiss. He ended the call and looked back at the dead deer on the barn floor.

“Not today, pal.”

He yanked shut the barn door, to keep out the coyotes that skulked around the place at night; he had a draining feeling that he'd be occupied until long after dark.

About the Author

J
ESSIE
P
RICHARD
H
UNTER
is the author of
The Green Muse
, also available from Witness Impulse. She currently resides in New York's Hudson Valley with her husband and two children.

www.witnessimpulse.com

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Also by Jessie Prichard Hunter

One Two Buckle My Shoe

The Green Muse

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This book was originally published by Random House in 1993.

Excerpt from
The Green Muse
copyright Â© 2015 by Jessie Prichard Hunter.

Excerpt from
The Silent Girls
copyright Â© 2014 by Eric Rickstad.

BLOOD MUSIC
. Copyright Â© 1993 by Jessie Prichard Hunter. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition FEBRUARY 2015 ISBN: 9780062389282

Print Edition ISBN: 9780062389275

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