by Adan Ramie
Lee wiggled up to a sitting position, and stared into his eyes as she spit out a large chunk of his cheek. The ghost of a grin spread on her face as blood trickled down her chin. Ruby, spurred by her lover's action, lunged from the bed and kicked Eddie in the jaw as she ran toward the open door. "HELP!"
He lunged at Ruby from the floor, and Lee scrabbled onto her feet to go after him. She wrapped her zip-tied wrists around his neck just as he tried to stand and gave a hard yank. He gurgled for a moment before he turned around, wrapped his hands around her throat, and started to bang her head onto the concrete floor.
"Get off her!" Ruby cried, and ran back inside to defend Lee. She beat and kicked Eddie in the face, head, and neck, but he wouldn't loosen his hold on Lee, whose face had turned an awful purple.
"You disgusting dykes, I'm going to kill you both," he said through gritted teeth, and slammed Lee's head into the blood-soaked floor again.
More blood ran from Lee's mouth, and Ruby realized with horror that it wasn't Eddie's. She looked around, feverishly searching for a weapon, and her eyes landed on the bulge in his back pocket. She leaned forward into his back and caught him off balance just enough to slide her small hand into his pocket and pull out the knife. She flipped it open and sunk it into his back.
He let out a cry of pain and dropped Lee, then whirled on Ruby. He lunged for her, but she dodged him and ran back outside with an ear-piercing shriek. He pursued her as she ran across the rocks toward the lights of the highway.
CHAPTER 34
The scream caught both detectives off guard. Harry sent Cal a signal that she would go around back, and he should catch the front. He nodded and the two ran toward the sound with their guns ready. Harry thought she saw a man on top of a smaller figure, probably a woman, with his hands at her throat.
"Police! Let me see your hands!" she yelled, and as she got closer, she could tell that the figure on the ground was a woman. When the man didn't move, she cocked her gun. "I said get off her now!"
He turned his face to look at her, his hands on the woman's throat, and Harry recognized her suspect, Eddie Bishop. He smiled, raised one hand, and brought it down to Ruby's face in a punch that sprayed blood all over him. Harry squeezed the trigger. The bullet caught him in the shoulder and knocked him off Ruby.
As Cal ran to subdue Eddie, Harry rushed up to the naked Ruby, who had dissolved into sobs. Harry pulled off her shirt and draped it over the traumatized woman after she had checked for any free bleeding.
"Ma'am, you're going to be all right," Harry said as she pulled her phone from her pocket to dial 9-1-1.
"She okay?" Cal called out to Harry from where he stood over the handcuffed Eddie. Harry nodded and put her phone to her face. He looked at Eddie. "You are a piece of garbage; you know that? This has got to be one of the most disgusting things a man can do."
Eddie spat blood onto the rocks and grinned up at the detective. He waggled his eyebrows. "You should have seen what I did to that cow before you got here."
A chill crawled up Cal's back as something moved in his peripheral vision. He turned, gun drawn, just in time to see a bloody figure in the doorway of the nearest storage unit. The person raised a gun to point in his direction. He squeezed the trigger on impulse, and Lee dropped to the ground.
"NO!" Ruby tried to push herself up from the rocks.
Harry turned at the same instant and watched in slow motion as Lee hit the ground, her hands still stretched out to shoot Eddie, who laughed and spit blood in her direction as her eyes flared open in fury, then fluttered shut. Cal took a knee, his gun trained on Eddie, and stretched across the rocks. His free hand groped for a pulse in Lee's neck. Harry watched as he pulled away, turned to her, and shook his head. She was gone.
"WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS to me?"
Captain Blanca Briggs sat with head forward, hands up, and mashed her fingers into her temples. Detectives Harry Thresher and Cal Gafferty sat sullen in chairs in front of her oppressively large desk. Neither answered the rhetorical question.
"You left your jurisdiction. You crossed state lines without authorization. Your prime suspect is dead."
Harry took it all in. It was true, all of it, just like it had been on her last case before moving back to Jefferson County. She had screwed up again, and, just like before, taken down a good cop with her. She glanced at Cal out of the corner of her eye and found him doing the same. She mouthed her apologies, and he shrugged.
"Are you listening to me, Detectives? You could lose your badges. You might even be brought up on charges. I could lose my livelihood over this, we all could, and all you two can do is make eyes at each other like teenagers?" She slammed her fist down on the desk. "What do you have to say for yourselves?"
Harry didn't have anything to say, and Cal wasn't talking, either. The Captain stared them down for a tense minute before she deflated back into her chair. She pushed a stray hair back into its bun.
"On a positive note, I have word from the hospital that Mrs. Isles is recovering from surgery. She lost a lot of blood, and she's going to need a lifetime of therapy, but she's going to make it." Her face went soft, almost proud, and her voice dropped an octave. "You saved her life."
Cal cleared his throat and pulled himself upright in the chair. "I'm glad to hear that, Captain. She was the reason we did all this. Harry and I might be pains in your ass, but you know we were just doing our jobs." He looked over at Harry. "That girl was in danger."
"She was," the Captain agreed, and looked down at the paperwork on her desk. "At this point, we have Eddie Bishop and Truman Isles in custody on charges of kidnapping, rape, assault, attempted murder, and solicitation of murder. I understand that they aren't cooperating, but the amount of evidence piled against them is particularly damning."
She closed the file and looked up at the two detectives. "This isn't just going to go away. You're both on administrative leave pending the Internal Affairs and criminal investigations."
"Understood." Harry got to her feet. "May I go? I have some bad news to deliver in person."
ON HER WAY TO THE DINER, Cal’s reputation was on Harry’s mind. She knew she had a bad habit of ruining people; hell, she had ruined investigators before, and this situation was not much different than the last partner she brought through the mud with her. But for some reason, she had thought Cal was tougher, more resilient. She had thought wrong.
She had been in the middle of a slump when the Chief called her a year ago almost to the day. The deep, soft voice had sent ice shooting through her veins, and Harry sat up, her vague intoxication forgotten. She cleared her throat.
“Yes, sir. What can I do for you, Chief?”
She had spoken to the man only a handful of times in the seven years she had served in his department. Each conversation was as memorable as the last.
“I wanted to let you know that your moving papers are in. You’re being transferred.”
Relief slid through her. She would finally be out from under the shadow of her ex-girlfriend, Gabby, her own transgressions, and the hot-and-cold reputation she had earned as the cop who wouldn’t play by the rules.
“Thank you, sir. I’ll send you a postcard from California just as soon as I arrive.”
Harry stood up too fast, and all the beer rushed to her head. She stumbled and caught herself just as she was about to fall.
“No, you won’t,” he said.
His words were as lifeless and controlled as Gabby’s had been so many weeks before. Harry sucked in a breath and held it. It was the only way she could stop the roar of fury that was building in her chest.
“What do you mean, sir?” she asked, knowing exactly what he meant.
She heard muffled cough, as if he had covered the receiver a moment too late, came through the line. He was silent for another several beats before he finally let out a breath that made him sound like the old man he was. Harry could practically picture him in her mind. He would be sitting at his orderly desk, one meaty fist propping
up an even meatier head, and eyes that were ringed with dark smudges. He slept little, and expected almost as much from those who served under him.
“You’re not being transferred to California. You’re going to Texas.”
As the word slipped off his tongue, Harry knew this was her punishment for the hell she had put on Gabby, the chief, and everyone else she had marred in the past fourteen years.
“Jefferson County?” Harry asked, her voice caught on an emotion that clogged her throat and threatened to constrict her breathing. Her pulse pounded a dent into the side of her skull. Anywhere else, she plead with him silently. Anywhere.
His grunt of assent and the instructions that followed cascaded over her brain like water over a riverbed. She was going back to ground zero, and this time, someone was sure to die. Harry just hoped it wouldn’t be her.
And it hadn’t been. It had been Malena Barsten. Barsten hadn’t been woman of the year, hadn’t left behind a great legacy or good deeds, but she had been a person who had people who loved her. Now she was dead because Harry was too stubborn to wait for backup, and the blood was on Cal’s hands. Somehow, that hurt worse than if she had been the one to pull the trigger herself.
The sky outside was brighter than it should have been as she pulled into the parking lot of the diner. Old Town was beautiful in winter: historic signs were freshly polished, windows were decorated with festive scenes, and the even the street lights themselves were strung with holly and shimmering garlands. She stepped out of her car, closed the door more quietly than her mood should have allowed, and walked inside with her head down.
This part of the town had been chosen for preservation by a loyal group of conservationists. The jolly troop had worked to have it declared Historic Downtown, and though it was close in proximity to the depravity of the grimy filth of downtown as Harry knew it, that darkness never touched it.
She watched shoppers mill around outside and bask in the glow of the early afternoon sun while she waited inside the little diner and nursed a cup of bitter, black coffee. She couldn't say she felt any of their holiday cheer. Her visit today would be nothing short of gut-wrenching; this was the part of her job she hated the most. It had been over a week since the shoot-out, and this was the last thread she herself had left untied.
The bell over the door jangled, and Harry looked up from her third cup of black coffee. She balked; it was like looking into the grave. The woman who strode purposefully toward her was a perfect match for the dead woman, minus the dark smudges around her eyes and tattered clothes. Harry halfway stood and held up a hand, and Lee Barsten’s twin sister walked toward her.
"You must be Aisling," Harry said, and shook her hand.
The woman nodded, shook her hand, and sat down across from Harry. A waitress came up to their table and both women ordered black coffee. When the waitress had gone, Aisling studied Harry's face.
"I called you here because I have some news," Harry said. She didn't want to beat around the bush; she just wanted to get it out there in the open, so this woman could do with it what she wanted.
Aisling nodded. She took the coffee the waitress brought over, then waited for her to leave to finally speak. "I know. It's all over the news already."
Harry swore. "No one is supposed to be reporting on this until the department has a grip on it."
Aisling sipped her coffee. "When a CEO is arrested on grounds that he hired a hitman to kidnap and murder his wife and her girlfriend, it makes news whether you want it to or not."
"I'm sorry that this didn’t turn out better for you... for both of you.”
Aisling slipped off her gloves and put them in her lap, then wrapped her hands around the big, thick coffee mug to warm them. "Part of me knew that I was unlikely to ever meet her. We were separated so young, and the paper trail is so convoluted, it's amazing you even connected the two of us. Imagine: we lived on opposite ends of the same state for the past five years and never knew the other existed until your partner contacted me.”
Harry took a drink of coffee. The warmth steeled her for what she assumed would come next: the questions. She didn't want to answer, couldn't answer in some respects, but she was determined to give this woman closure.
Aisling took Harry off guard when she smiled. "It's beautiful here, isn't it? I know the rest of your fair city isn't so quaint, but this feels like something out of an old movie." She ran her fingers across the meticulously-restored chrome that rimmed the table. "She would have liked it, maybe."
"Maybe," Harry agreed.
Who knew what Lee Barsten's life would have been like if she had been given the same advantages as her twin sister? Their lives could not have been more different. In that way, Harry felt a kinship with Lee, and a connection with Lee's surviving sibling—the same vague feeling of similarity she had with her own estranged brother. She shook her head to clear it.
"So, tell me, Aisling. Would you be interested in meeting with your sister's girlfriend?"
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WITHOUT A LOT OF HELP, time, and patience, this universe and the characters who inhabit it would only exist in my head. Thank you to Mark and Gaelle. Your friendship and professional courtesy won’t soon be forgotten. And special thanks to my family, without whom none of this would be possible.
THANK YOU FOR READING Maladaptation!
I appreciate you for taking a chance on my work, and want to ask you for a quick favor. Could you leave a review on Goodreads or the retailer where you bought this book? Books like mine live and die by reader ratings. Thanks! I’d love to connect with you, so feel free to email me at [email protected].
– Adan
ADAN RAMIE IS A TEXAS native who lives with her wife and children in a town not unlike Andy Griffith’s Mayberry. She loves coffee, cats, and binge-watching Netflix.
People in my Constant Readers group get to stay in the loop on when I publish new books, launch giveaways, or discount my previous works. Join in and grab your free goodies today!
Sneak peek of the next book in the series, Cluster B:
CHAPTER 1
HARRY CUT THE LIGHTS at the edge of the lot, and eased the car into park behind the darkened office. A red dot screamed at her from the GPS in her partner’s hand. He mumbled something she couldn’t hear through the steady thump of blood in her head as he checked that his gun’s safety was off, then swiped at his forehead with his sleeve. Harry chambered a round, eyes on the red dot, as his words finally registered in her head.
“He owes me a favor,” she said. “We have the element of surprise on our side...”
Cal puffed out a hard breath and tapped his weapon on his knee. “Yeah, but we don’t know who we’re going to find.”
Harry waved his words out of the air and let her eyes sweep the dark lot for any sign of the people they were looking for. “All we know is that the phone is in one of these buildings, and we have to find it to find her.”
She checked one last time to make sure the dome light in the car was switched to OFF, then signaled him with her gun. They opened their doors at the same time, slid out, and let the doors fall nearly closed with a nearly simultaneous double click. Cal crunched toward her through the rocks with a grimace as she surveyed the scene.
“Does this feel really screwed up to you?”
He leaned in until their heads almost touched. “Something is going down here tonight... You take this side, I’ll take the other.” She heard a round click into place. “Anything funny -”
“And we blow the scumbag away,” she answered. “Happy hunting.”
As they made their way through the lot, guns at the ready, Harry’s mind flashed images through her head. Two women and two men were missing, and she knew they weren’t on a couples’ party cruise. Before Harry and Cal had a chance to lose sight of each other, a scream ripped through the silence. They split and started running toward the sound.
“Police! Let me see your hands!” she yelled as two figures came into her line of sight.
The larger straddled the smaller, hands at the throat, in a position that could only mean death for the weaker. She drew closer. The man raised one fist and brought it down in a crushing blow across the face of the woman pinned beneath him. Harry squeezed the trigger, and the man let out a bellow as he fell out of his power position.
Cal rounded the other corner of the building, and ran full tilt toward them; he tackled the injured man, twisted his arms behind his back, and slapped cuffs on him while the suspect howled in pain.
Harry rushed to the naked woman, tore off her own shirt, and covered her bleeding, traumatized body. “Ma’am, you’re going to be all right.” She pulled her phone from her pocket, hit the GPS, and dialed 9-1-1.
Cal wrestled with the man as Harry spoke to the emergency operator and cradled the barely recognizable woman in her arms. When the shot rang out, Harry’s whole body seized, waiting for the pain to set in, but it never did.
“NO!” screamed the woman, and tried to push herself away from Harry, as Harry turned in time to see another woman fall to the ground.
Everything went deadly silent in Harry’s head. Their mouths moved, but she couldn’t hear anything. She watched Cal stretch out and feel for a pulse, then shake his head; she could feel the woman in her arms struggling to get free, clawing at her to gain some purchase in a world that had caused her so much grief and put her through such torment.
Harry zeroed in on the face of the dead woman. Her mouth had been contorted in a snarl as she went down; the bullet had ripped a hole through her chest, and her death had been almost instant. As Harry met those glassy, dead eyes, everything else faded away until she was left alone in a dark hole, playing a staring game with a corpse that was starting to bloat. A maggot crawled from the woman’s mouth and fell into nothingness.
