ITP
Copyright © 2006, 2019 by Danielle Girard. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions
Fifth Print Edition: June 2019
Cover and Formatting: Damonza
Dead Center
ISBN-10: 0996308946
ISBN-13: 978-0996308946
One Clean Shot
ISBN-10 0996308954
ISBN-13: 978-0996308953
Dark Passage
ISBN-10: 0996308962
ISBN-13: 978-0996308960
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Contents
Dead Center
One Clean Shot
Dark Passage
The Rookie Club Cast, in order of appearance:
Jamie Vail, Sex Crimes Inspector (Featured in Everything to Lose; also in One Clean Shot, Dark Passage, and Grave Danger)
Sydney Blanchard, Senior Criminalist, Crime Scene Unit (also in One Clean Shot and Grave Danger)
Hailey Wyatt, Homicide Inspector (Featured in One Clean Shot; also in Dark Passage, Grave Danger, and Everything to Lose)
Cameron Cruz, Special Ops Team/Sharpshooter (Featured in Dark Passage; also in Grave Danger)
Hal Harris, Homicide Inspector, partner to Hailey Wyatt (Also in One Clean Shot, Dark Passage, Grave Danger, Everything to Lose and the Dr. Schwartzman Series)
Roger Sampers, Head Criminalist, Crime Scene Unit (Also in One Clean Shot, Grave Danger, and Everything to Lose)
Chapter 1
Emily Osbourne stepped out of the darkened sex crimes department and closed the door behind her. The station was deserted, everyone already at the awards ceremony. Truly the last place she wanted to go. She’d been up since five a.m., in the lab for fourteen hours. Cases were so backlogged that evidence in even the most time sensitive ones was taking up to three months.
Any crime less serious than murder was backed up six months or more.
At least she’d finally finished the initial findings on Jamie Vail’s serial rapist case. It was more than six months old and Vail had been pressuring her to finish. Now all Emily had to do was stay awake for two or three hours of department acceptance speeches and she’d be able to catch a few hours of sleep.
In the bright hallway, Emily blinked away the spots. Her eyes burned as she punched the down arrow on the elevator. Propped against the wall, she could have fallen asleep. Forcing herself up, she jabbed the button again. Nothing. If she took the stairs, the walk might wake her up a bit. She pushed open the stairwell door, which let out an angry creak, and began to descend.
The cold, steel handrail stuck to her clammy hand and the soles of her boots scraped against the cement stairs. She passed the fourth floor. Three more. As she reached the landing, a door creaked open above her.
She looked up, but saw no one, and took a breath. She’d never liked the police station. She preferred the bright open space of the crime lab at Hunters Point. She picked up her pace, almost out.
Footsteps clunked above her. At the second floor landing, she eyed the door. She could duck out… No, she was almost there. One more floor. The footsteps neared, and she hesitated. She glanced back at the empty hallway, listening to the steps. So someone else was there. That wasn’t surprising. People worked all hours in the department. Calm down, Emily.
Adrenaline coursed a hot trail through her veins. A door opened, then shut. The footsteps were gone and she was alone again. She exhaled, blowing out the fear. It was too much. The hours, the lack of sleep.
Forget the awards. She was going home.
With a deep breath, she began down the final flight of stairs. She imagined her bed. The down comforter that was like sleeping beneath warm air. The soft cotton sheets that her mother had picked out for her new apartment.
She was twenty-six, too young to be working this hard.
She was going home. And tomorrow, she was calling in sick.
She jogged the last steps, reaching for the door. The cool metal grazed her fingertips when the strap of her purse yanked her backwards. Caught on something, she turned back.
Something struck the side of her head.
She stumbled into the wall. Hands out, she tried to brace herself against the impact.
Her face smacked plaster.
Hands gripped her shoulders, swinging her around. The room raced across her vision. She couldn’t focus.
A man pushed her down and she landed hard against the cement floor. Her wrist collapsed and red pain rocked through her. She tried to lift herself, but he slammed her down on her back. His head was covered in a white hood that was cinched around his neck.
She gasped. “No.”
Jagged eyeholes and a larger mouth were cut in the fabric.
Rape.
She screamed.
He covered her mouth.
“Not a word,” he hissed. “I’ve got a knife.”
He jabbed the point into her side. She winced as the blade struck a rib. The warm blood oozed down her side. She closed her eyes. Fought to breathe. She didn’t want to die. Fear gripped her throat. Cloth covered her face. She opened her eyes to blackness as panic filled her lungs like water. She coughed and choked, reared her head.
Fight. Her father’s voice. Someone tries to take you, fight like hell, Emmy. But the knife. She kicked out, rolled onto her belly. Pushed herself up.
The knife dug into her side. A searing pain. More blood.
“On the ground.”
He shoved and she stumbled. Fell hard. Tried to crawl away, but his weight pressed down on her. Fight like hell, Emmy. A sob choked through her lips. She was too afraid.
The blade was at her neck. Its tip a warning at her throat. He flipped her onto her back. Pinned her hands together then bound them.
Why didn’t someone come? Where was everyone?
The shearing sound of clothes. A cool touch, then a vicious probe. She cried out, shaking her head. Squeezed her eyes against the assault. Why didn’t she fight?
Instead, she did nothing—nothing. She turned her head into her arm and cried. Silently. Shamefully. Listened to the click, click, click of the building’s old heating system.
She pushed her mind away. Imagined a beach, sand, and ocean. God, drowning. She tried to inhale the water, to make this stop. Anywhere but here. She wasn’t here. This wasn’t happening. Not to her.
Then it was over.
His face was beside hers. Terrified, she turned away, squeezed her eyes closed. The next blow didn’t come.
“Tell the inspector hello for me.”
She didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Inspector?
A hundred thoughts fl
ashed through her mind.
Jamie Vail came first—Jamie Vail of Sex Crimes.
Oh God. She trembled, shudders rocking through her.
She heard him stand. Held her breath. His shoes squeaked against the cement as he walked. The door whined open, hissed closed, and clicked as the lock engaged.
She waited. Counted to three. Then waited some more.
Shaking, she pulled the hood off and sat up. She blinked hard. Her focus was blurred. She couldn’t separate her hands. Held them both to her face and ran her fingers across her skin. She felt the swollen mass of her left eye.
A single drop of blood struck her shirt. She watched as the white fibers drank in the red.
Collapsing into a ball, she sobbed.
Chapter 2
From the far corner of the convention center ballroom, Jamie Vail cupped a perspiring glass of Coke. Shifting from one foot to the other against the wall, she tugged at the waist of her dress pants, adjusting them across her flat, bony hips. She couldn’t get comfortable.
Under the pants, her nylons pulled the fabric in strange places when she moved. Did women wear nylons anymore? Did they call them nylons? She adjusted her jacket, and then realized nothing would help.
The problem wasn’t the suit or the nylons or the pants—the problem was her.
She took a tentative sip of soda and watched the officers mingle.
Natasha Devlin stood talking to Bruce Daniels of Internal Affairs. Devlin did that thing where she tossed her hair over one shoulder and kicked her head back to laugh at a joke.
Devlin. One little “n” away from Devil. An appropriate name for her.
Daniels looked enamored. Jamie felt ill. She would never see Natasha Devlin without imagining her in Jamie’s bed with Jamie’s husband. She forced herself to look away. What remained was loneliness and, when she was honest, a pit of insecurity.
She imagined her own hair, the blunt cut above her shoulders. Her brown strands had no rich color, no blond highlights, no sexy curls. All she had was a weird wave she could never quite control, so she wore it up in a ponytail like a grade school girl, which was also how she was built. Her green eyes were dull and pale, faded against her light skin and hair. She’d had people tell her she could accentuate them with makeup.
Someone touched her elbow. Her ex-husband. They avoided making eye contact, kept their distance. Why did he bother to come over?
Tim clinked his glass to hers. “You okay?”
“Great,” she lied.
“Good.”
They stood awkwardly. She made no effort to fill the air. Why would she try? What did she possibly owe him? Why had he come up to her? She should never have come to this stupid thing anyway.
His attention was piqued by something more interesting, his eyes focused across the room.
More likely it was someone.
Probably Natasha, though Jamie no longer saw her. Where had that snake slithered off to? Breaking up some other marriage, probably.
“See you, J,” Tim said, walking away from the wall.
She didn’t answer. Screw this, she thought, and turned for the door. She’d gone ten steps when she saw the group sitting at a small table.
Women she couldn’t walk by—original members of the Rookie Club.
Fifteen years ago, when Jamie was a rookie cop in her early twenties, a group of women had bonded. It began as a drunken night in the days when Jamie drank.
Coming off a nasty crime spree that had them all working mandatory overtime, the women had ended up at the station one night at about the same time. Six or seven of them.
Someone decided they needed to blow off some steam. Someone else was craving nachos. Margaritas sounded about right, so instead of going to O’Farrell’s Sports Bar, the local police hangout, the women opted for Tommy’s Mexican down on Geary.
When a dozen women in uniform walked through the door, the staff and patrons at Tommy’s went nuts. Several men started chanting “strip, strip, strip.”
Jamie had pulled out her badge and flashed her gun.
The manager quieted the rowdies, and found the women a table at the rear of the restaurant. Tommy’s famous margaritas appeared by the pitcher all night long. Jamie was pretty sure they didn’t pay for a single one.
That first night, the women spent hours bitching about the assholes that held them back because of their gender. After years of being isolated in the predominantly male department, they suddenly had a network of women. Not to mention an instant fan base for one another. The idea that they could call on a woman in another department counted for a lot.
The dinner was so refreshing that it became a ritual.
Once a month at Tommy’s, always seven days after the captain’s office made its “monthly” statement to the press. Because the timing of the press statement was incredibly inconsistent, so was the Rookie Club dinner. It might be on a Monday or a Saturday, two weeks apart, or seven. The women’s schedules differed too much to pick a specific day of the week or month.
Instead, they let the captain’s inconsistency rule the date.
That was four captains ago.
The Rookie Club continued, although Jamie had heard the dinners were more consistent now. She hadn’t been in almost two years. Not after finding Natasha in bed with her husband. Because Natasha Devlin was part of the Rookie Club too. Natasha’s affair with Tim had split the group in two, but Jamie couldn’t face any of them. She didn’t want to see the pity in their eyes or hear the comments from Devlin’s crew about what Jamie had done to drive Tim away.
Jamie missed that group of women.
But she missed a lot of things about that life.
The Rookie Club, being married, drinking…
As she approached, several of the women glanced up. Sydney Blanchard, a Senior Criminalist in the Crime Scene Investigation Unit (CSU) and co-manager of the crime lab, waved her over. Sydney was a few years younger than Jamie—maybe thirty-six—but her reddish blond hair and freckles made her look like a woman barely into her thirties. She was trim and athletic, a soccer player.
Sydney was one of the ones who had remained close to Natasha. They were both single women who dated briefly, and often. Jamie had often been envious of that kind of freedom. She had been raised to believe in monogamy, fidelity, and marriage.
Her husband had failed at the first two and both had failed at the third.
If Sydney disapproved of Natasha’s sleeping with a married man—a man married to one of her colleagues, no less—Jamie never heard about it.
Now, she was stuck.
Jamie took the seat between Inspector Hailey Wyatt, of Homicide, and Sydney.
“I haven’t seen you in ages,” Sydney said.
Been avoiding you for eighteen months. “I’ve been buried.”
“I heard about the latest. Did Emily get you the results?” Sydney asked, all business.
“She said she’d drop them off before she came here.” Jamie searched the room for Emily’s blond head. “I haven’t seen her yet.”
“Me neither.”
“You know the results?”
“No swimmers, no cells,” Sydney said.
Jamie slumped in the chair. It was the same as the last one. “Damn.”
Two percent of the male population naturally produced semen without sperm. A vasectomy produced the same results. It was rare, but it wasn’t that unusual. This rapist produced no semen—and that was unusual. Even without ejaculating, a man normally released some semen.
A condom would explain it, but there was no evidence of latex to suggest condom use. No semen meant no DNA. And no DNA meant there was no way to match the rapist with the FBI’S Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).
Hailey Wyatt touched her arm. “Sorry.”
Jamie assumed the homicide inspector was referring to the case, but when she glanced up, Natasha Devlin was sauntering toward them.
An inspector with the Crimes Against Persons Department, Natasha wore a black pantsuit that
hugged curvy hips and fell straight down over long, thin legs. Her jacket was cropped, and when she raised her hand to touch her thick dark hair, a tiny strip of navel showed. Tan, with all the little ab muscles in perfect lines, of course.
What Jamie would have paid to see some love handles there.
When Natasha returned her hand to her wineglass, cleavage hefted out of her top. Somehow, though, it was never quite enough to be obscene.
“I’ll find Emily,” Sydney said, standing.
Jamie steered her gaze from Natasha, who walked right toward them. Great.
Sydney crossed directly to Natasha. The two stood several feet away, speaking in whispered voices, as Jamie fought the urge to stand and leave. She wouldn’t give Natasha the satisfaction.
Natasha laughed at something Sydney had said. Every man in the vicinity halted to watch as she walked away from Sydney and sauntered toward them.
“Hi, ladies,” Natasha said, then nodded in her direction. “Vail.”
“Slut,” Jamie said, loud enough to be heard.
Natasha’s eyes narrowed. “You say something, Vail?”
“Nothing newsworthy.”
“Sit down, Natasha,” Cameron Cruz said.
Cameron was one of the good ones. A sharpshooter with Special Ops, she was one of the rookies who had reached out to Jamie after her split with Tim.
Jamie never reached back.
Natasha sat.
Hailey Wyatt leaned in and whispered, “You know she does it to get your goat.”
Hailey had been one of those women Jamie avoided at first. Truth be told, Jamie had avoided all of them, but some more than others. The sexy ones, in particular, made her feel uncomfortable and awkward.
Like Natasha, Hailey looked too perfect to be real, and certainly too attractive to be someone Jamie would want to be around.
Women shaped like Hailey Wyatt used their assets to gain favors, tossed their hips and winked to make things happen. Certainly Natasha Devlin was that way. The way she used to toss her dark hair over one shoulder. The little pout of her lips.
The Rookie Club Thriller series Box Set Page 1
