Sitting up, she threw back the sheet and got out of bed. Her sudden movement caused her hand to knock against the picture frame and it fell to the ground. She picked it up. It was her favorite family photo and all she had left to remember them by. She clung to it fiercely as if it was her security blanket. Her eyes scanned the picture, taking in every detail. She saw her mother smiling happily as her green eyes gazed lovingly at her father. Her arms were wrapped around him tightly, as if saying, you’re mine and only mine. Her father was also smiling and held her no less tightly, protecting her from the entire world. He was a strict father, but at the same time kind and tender.
Returning the picture to its place on her nightstand, she walked across the cool tile toward the bathroom. She could hear the soft patter of rain on the roof. On such a rainy day she wished she could stay in her pajamas and watch old movies. But the demands of her job beckoned. As one dedicated to the fight against crime, she had serious responsibilities, and those who committed these violent acts never seemed to take a holiday.
After splashing some cold water on her face, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her black hair tumbled untidily onto her shoulders, and her dark eyes looked back at her, fiercely. She had her mother’s delicate features but her father’s stern look. Growing up, she was told that she appeared intimidating at times, without meaning to look that way. As a woman, she hated being described that way, yet at the same time, it was helpful on the job.
Leaving the bathroom, she grabbed her phone before going out into the sparsely furnished living room. Furnished with only the bare essentials—a three piece sofa, a coffee table, a TV which she hardly had time to watch and two huge bookshelves, heavily laden with her favorite stories. Even when she had leisure time she spent it reading murder mysteries. She liked them because she gained knowledge and insight into people, criminals as well as ordinary citizens, and the way their minds worked. Her partner, Pierce Carson, had been trying to figure her out for the last six years. She knew he was still guessing because she talked very little about her personal life. She, on the other hand, could pretty much read him like a book.
In the kitchen, she started perking the coffee and went to look in the fridge. It was almost bare, with only milk and eggs. She took out the milk, closed the door and reached for the huge box of cereal. She needed to pay a visit to the supermarket soon or she would have nothing to eat. Not that she ate much, but she would be in quite a spot where food was concerned, if someone dropped by for a visit.
The ping of the percolator let her know the coffee was ready. Thank God for coffee. It kept her sane. She got the habit from her father while she was still a child because her mother hated the stuff and kept on telling her it would stunt her growth. Mom was wrong about that, since she stood nearly five foot ten. Of course, her mom would not know that now.
She returned to the living room where she balanced her cereal on the arm of the couch and carefully set her coffee on the table within easy reach. It was then that the house phone rang, shattering her peace and quiet.
Quickly, she picked it up, thinking it might be a call from the office. She glanced quickly at the caller ID but the number did not show. No one other than her co-workers had this number, and those numbers were never blocked.
She hesitated to answer. In the silence, a strange sounding voice began to speak.
“Hello there, Chelsea Marie Preston. Did you honestly think you could hide from me forever? Changing your last name to Madden did not work seeing that I still managed to find you.”
The voice was obviously distorted so as not to be recognized.
Fear gripped her as she asked, “Who is this?”
“You will eventually know, but for now it is best that you don’t. You’ve been busy lately. Stealing that file on your parents’ murder and all. I should let you know now, you are wasting your time.”
“How do you know that?” she asked, trying to mask her fear.
“I know a lot of things. You are turning out just the way your parents would have wanted you to. But don’t make the same mistake they did or you know what will happen. I’ll be watching you.”
Then there was a click.
Chelsea sat frozen, unable to move or think straight. Who was this caller? How did he know about her parents? And the files she had taken? A million questions swirled around in her head. She had told no one. The cases were closed and the files were not active. No one could possibly know, that after waiting years for an answer, Chelsea had decided to carry out her own investigation into the unsolved murder of her parents.
Re-gaining her composure a bit, she went across to one of the bookshelves and pulled out the file she had hidden behind a row of books. She had scattered the contents in several places so no one could easily retrieve them. One had to be extra careful, there was no knowing what might happen.
As she thumbed through the file she read the report, not that she didn’t know it by heart already. Her parents were murdered on the twenty-seventh of November when she was only eleven years old. She had slept through the entire event even though she was in the house at the time. When she stumbled across their bodies the next morning, a small part of her had died. The police suspected she had been drugged, which meant whoever murdered her parents either had access to the house or an accomplice working from the inside prior to the event.
She knew her parents had a party at the house that night but try as she may, she couldn’t remember who were there. She generally didn’t meet the attendees of the social events hosted by her parents, because she was always relegated to her room for the evening.
The investigating officer assigned to the case was a woman named Marge Drake who had retired three years ago. Over all these years, Chelsea would check in and see if anything new had surfaced, and nothing ever did. The case went cold fairly early on and she felt responsible in a way, since she couldn’t remember anything significant about that awful night.
She was jarred back to reality by the phone ringing again, only this time it was Pierce Carson, one of her partners.
“Madden here,” she answered, somewhat shakily.
“Hey Chelsea, sorry for the early call, but can you come down to Jesse Owens Park on the double? We have a body.”
“Certainly, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
The park was not too far from where she lived.
Ending the call, she quickly grabbed all the papers on the floor and placed them on the bookshelf. When she got back she would sort them out and hide them away again. Her own concerns were pushed to the back of her mind for the moment—her job was now the priority.
Collecting her gun from the drawer, she put it in the holster and checked to be sure she had her shield. All the while she mentally prepared, wondered who the victim was and the circumstances of her death. Grabbing her keys off the hook she unlocked the door and hurried down the corridor. On her way out she came across her neighbor, Dorothy, smoking on the stairwell, her greasy black hair brushed back in a tight ponytail.
“Hello Chelsea. Are you going to work already?”
“Yes,” she said in a clipped voice, hoping to avoid being trapped in an unwanted conversation. Dorothy tended to ramble on for a long time and Chelsea didn’t know how to disengage herself without being seen as rude. Luckily for her, Dorothy went back right back to smoking, so she managed to slip away.
Her sleepless night had left her fatigued, but she would have to make it through the rest of the day anyway. It wasn’t a first by any means so she knew that she could do it, but many cups of coffee would be required.
The rain started falling softly as she got into the car. No one else seemed to be out this early, not unusual on Sunday. Backing out, she knew it would only take her a few minutes to get to the park. When she arrived at the entrance, she noted that several police vehicles had already blocked off the area. She saw Pierce Carson looking around for clues. His short cropped salt and pepper hair made him easily identifiable
. Next to him was Dean Weston, a new recruit, scribbling in his blue notebook. He was only assigned to Homicide a few months ago, so he was still trying to prove himself to Pierce, which was not an easy thing to do.
Getting out of the car, she headed over to where everyone was gathered around the body. The victim seemed to be a young woman in her early twenties. She was lying on her back covered in blood. It appeared that she had several stab wounds and her lifeless blue eyes were staring into the beyond. After photos were taken, one of the officers thankfully closed them. Her hair was in total disarray and Chelsea noted that her jogging shoes were the expensive kind, which most likely meant she was a serious runner.
“Do we know who she is?”
“No,” said Pierce, “there is nothing on her.”
Chelsea looked around her quickly. There were several houses nearby and some had their lights on as people were waking up. News of this murder so close to their homes would have parents in the area afraid to let children play in the park unsupervised. She wondered if anyone from these houses had seen any suspicious action or heard anything like a scream.
“Who discovered the body?” she asked.
“A man called it in roughly an hour ago,” Weston said. “He didn’t identify himself but said he had stumbled across the body, and so we came down. Nobody here when we arrived.”
“Have we established an estimated time of death?”
“I’d give it about two hours, maybe slightly less,” said Cara. She was the medical examiner and was currently kneeling by the body. Her face was tightly drawn as she silently carried out an on-the-spot examination.
Cara continued. “From the abrasions on the body, it is obvious she put up a bit of a struggle, and it looks as if the attack came from behind. This means she had little time to react to what was happening.”
“It could be something personal, or she just happened to be a random victim in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Weston slipped his blue notebook into his pocket.
“So how do you want us to proceed?” he asked, turning to Pierce.
“First we’ll have to try and ID her…checking her prints and missing person’s reports.” Pierce said.
“What about putting her picture on the news?” Dean asked.
“No way. Not until we have identified her and notified her next of kin. You’re in Homicide now, we operate a bit differently than in the Drug Unit,” Pierce reminded him. “We can mention the crime on the news and see if anyone comes forward with any information, but that’s about it. No photos.”
Weston fell silent while Pierce moved away as he took out his cell phone. Chelsea knew that his wife was a reporter for the local news so she would be able to get this on air quickly. This was normal procedure when the police had a Jane Doe on their hands.
“Is he always that… brusque?” Weston asked in a peeved voice.
Chelsea smiled, “Brusque? Yeah, Pierce is pretty much an asshole to everyone this early in the morning. He’ll warm up, eventually. Hang in there.”
“Well, I guess I’ll go help work the neighborhood. Who knows, maybe somebody saw or heard something. We might just get lucky.”
As Weston walked away, Cara looked up briefly from the body, her brown eyes peering over her glasses as she looked Chelsea full in the face.
“You look like hell… not sleeping at night, huh?”
That was just like Cara, abrupt and straight to the point. Then she turned her attention back to making notes on her clipboard while her assistant continued to photograph the scene.
“What makes you think that?” Chelsea asked, a bit taken aback by the sudden and unsolicited comment.
Cara barely looked up. “I’m a doctor, remember? So, I know the signs of sleep deprivation pretty well, not to mention it can be pretty common in your profession. You should be taking those pills. They’d help.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t want to have to rely on medicine. When my body wants to sleep, it will.”
Cara ordered her team to remove the body before responding.
“Chelsea, you know what’s happening to you is not healthy. Plus, you aren’t the only one who has found it hard to fall asleep at times. It comes with the territory of doing this work. Listen, if you have something else bothering you and you want to talk, just give me a call… anytime.”
“Thank you, Cara. Really. I’ll remember that.”
Then on the spur of the moment, as if she had just had a brilliant idea, Cara went on. “You know something, Chelsea? I know just the cure for you. You need to find yourself a good man, let loose, have a good time, then I’m sure you’ll have no trouble at all falling asleep.”
A reluctant smile lit up Chelsea’s face, if only briefly. Find a good man? That was not on her agenda at all. She trusted no one and never would. She had room for only one burning desire, and it fully occupied her mind at this time—finding the person or persons who killed her parents. This left no room for romance or anything else for that matter.
She did not answer but turned to watch as they loaded the woman’s body into the vehicle. Something fell and Chelsea bent down and picked it up after putting on a glove.
“Did you find a necklace on her?”
“No,” Cara said.
She handed the locket to Cara who carefully placed it in an evidence bag. As the medical examiner left, Pierce walked over to Chelsea.
“It will make the morning news. In the meantime, I need to go back home for a bit. Can you take care of Weston for a while? It’s apparently our turn so he’s shadowing us for the time being, and he can learn a lot from you. Plus, I think I scare him.”
“Okay, I can manage that.”
“Good.” As he was about to step off, he lowered his voice and asked her in a confidential tone, “Is something bothering you, Chelsea?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Because you really look rough around the edges, especially this morning.”
“Nothing’s wrong... just lack of sleep. Go on home to your wife and kids, and stop worrying about me.”
“All right, if you insist. If you change your mind let me know. I will give you a call if I hear anything.”
Hearing the same thing from two of her colleagues upset her a little. She was unsure if it was with herself or with them. It seemed as if she was wearing her troubles on her sleeve today for them to have both noticed so quickly. What it told her was that she had to resolve her problems soon or they might spill over into her workplace, and that would not be good. She had to get back to reading that file she had taken from the archives. There had to be some clues in there somewhere.
She watched as Pierce left to go home to his family. She couldn’t help wondering how he was able to function so capably at work when he had a wife and a pair of six month-old twins to cope with at home. His wife must worry about his safety on the job, and making their marriage work must take some serious juggling and understanding by both of them.
“Hey, Chelsea, where is Pierce off to now?” Dean called out, as he approached her.
“He went home for a bit. In the meantime, you’ll stay with me.”
He couldn’t help smiling. “Is that all right with you? I mean, having to babysit me.”
“It’s fine by me.”
“All right. So what do we do now?”
“Right now I need to go back to my place, grab something to eat and pick up something I forgot in my hurry to get here this morning. Then we’ll head to the office and start doing some paper work on this case.”
“Are you sure it’s all right? I don’t want to impose on you. I could meet you at the office or something.”
“It’s no problem, while you’re there we can talk about the case and maybe come up with some angles to work.”
She seemed to have convinced him that it was okay to accompany her home and so together they got into her car. For a moment they drove in silence since Chelsea was not the talking type. S
he turned on some music to cover the silence.
Thankfully, it started raining by the bucketful, just after a flash of lightning and a loud clap of thunder which made it difficult to carry on a conversation. She watched as the water rushed down the street, sweeping away all the debris in its path. If only her problems could be washed away that simply. How different life would be! She sighed heavily.
“Are you all right?” Weston asked.
His question jerked her back into reality. “Me? Yes, I’m fine. I am just a bit tired. Didn’t sleep too well last night.”
“Happens to me too sometimes. Makes you edgy the next day.”
She nodded in agreement.
The silence returned. She was beginning to feel nervous. She was not used to having male company at her place, and worse, a colleague. Maybe she should have let him meet her at the station as he had suggested.
He noticed her discomfiture. “Is something wrong?”
“No, not at all,” she lied.
She swung the car into the apartment complex. But they could not get out for a while due to another heavy downpour of rain. To break the silence that was becoming oppressive, Dean spoke.
“How long have you been in Homicide?”
“Oh let me see, six years now.”
“Is there a reason you wanted to be in Homicide?”
Should she be honest and tell him the truth? Maybe not. She didn’t yet know if he could be trusted.
“From when I was a child I always liked murder mysteries. That interest led to my decision to become a detective when I grew up.” At least that was half of the truth.
“A childhood dream, huh,” was all he said.
It was her turn now to ask, “So why did you become a homicide detective? I mean the Drug Unit must have been exciting.”
He chuckled awkwardly, but his body tensed, and she knew she had hit a nerve somewhere. This was not something he necessarily wanted to talk about.
“I loved my work in the Drug Unit. It was mostly undercover. I had relatives who were connected to the drug scene which allowed me to infiltrate the group without being detected. No one knew I was a cop until about seven months ago when my cover was blown. I had to get out in a hurry, and ended up in Homicide.”
Promised Box Set Page 42
