Prologue

PROLOGUE

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

Hot vomit rocketed up the back of Officer Josie Quinn’s throat. Her hands trembled as she tore off her blood-slick vinyl gloves, clutching them in her fist. She clamped her other palm over her mouth and ran out the front door of the large Victorian house in Denton’s central district. Sour bile, coffee, and chunks of undigested food spurted through her fingers just as she threw her upper body over the porch railing. Bending at the waist was a challenge with her bulky bulletproof vest strapped around her torso like a steel casing. Eyes watering, she heaved the contents of her stomach onto the grass below. Acid seared the back of her throat.

A large hand clapped her back. Her field training officer, Artie Peluso said, “Come on, kid. Get it together.”

Her insides spasmed each time the images from the inside of the house flashed across her mind. Blood was streaked up her forearms and soaked into the knees of her pants. The gloves had been useless. She tried to breathe through the dry heaves, but more undigested food clotted in her throat.

“Kid,” Peluso said, more urgency in his voice. “Pull your shit together or go back to the car.”

Josie straightened up, sucking air in through her nose, and wiped her slimy hand on her pants. There was no point in asking for a tissue or paper towel. There weren’t any and Peluso was not about to find one for her. Only babies get coddled, he always told her.

She used her sleeve to wipe the rest of the throw-up from her mouth and turned to look up at him. His expression was inscrutable. “I’m fine,” she said.

Then she made the mistake of turning her head. On the sidewalk, at least a dozen neighbors had gathered, their wide eyes locked on her as they murmured to one another. Several marked Denton PD vehicles clustered behind them in the street. Some of the officers were already canvassing to see if anyone had seen anything, while others lingered, keeping the crowd away from the house. The call that had brought Peluso and Josie here was from a neighbor who’d heard screaming. A few of her colleagues smirked or laughed as they glanced her way. One of them muttered, “Fucking rookie” loud enough for her to hear. Her cheeks flamed. At least Officer Dusty Branson, standing at the bottom of the steps, had the courtesy to avert his eyes. He was her husband Ray’s best friend. He had a year on her and Ray, but he was still new.

“Kid,” Peluso said, his tone softening. “Look at me.”

Josie tore her eyes from the crowd that had just witnessed her humiliation. She stuffed the bloody gloves into her pocket.

“You did good in there. All that blood, what happened to those poor people—well, I would still be puking if I saw that my first year on the job.”

So. Much. Blood. Peluso’s words sparked the images back to life. It was everywhere. Dripping from the ceilings. It was almost impossible to walk in there without stepping in it, slipping in it. Then there were the bodies. The shredded flesh, the insides spilling out, the mutilation. In the six months she’d been a Denton PD officer, she’d seen a body that fell from a roof, a body smashed inside a car that had been pulverized by a semi-truck, a few bodies ravaged by drugs, killed by overdoses, and one body riddled with gunshots.

None of that prepared her for what they walked in on today.

Peluso slapped her shoulder. “Hey, you held out till the very end, that’s what matters.”

She had been fine. Mostly. Not really, but she’d been able to stow her emotional and physical responses to the horror, pushing them down deep into the place where the bad things lived. That was until she was kneeling next to a girl so tiny she looked like a doll, and her hands were trying to push the flayed skin of her little chest back together.

“Why did you leave me with the girl?” Josie choked, the foul taste of bile stinging her tongue. “You could’ve…you have more experience rendering aid. I wasn’t?—”

Peluso leaned down, invading her personal space, his face inches from hers. A muscle flexed in his jaw. “You think we get to pick and choose on this job, Quinn?”

She tried to step back but the railing bit into her lower back. “No, I?—”

His voice was low and menacing. “You signed up for this shitshow. Whatever you get is what you deal with, what you live with. You don’t get to walk out. You don’t get to decide it’s too hard. If you can’t handle it, then go be a fucking librarian.”

Swallowing, Josie thrust her chin up at him. The truth was that she wasn’t sure she could handle it. All her life she’d wanted to be a police officer. She’d wanted to have the power to arrest people like her mother. Cruel, evil, ruthless people who bartered with innocent lives and crushed them without remorse. She’d wanted to be part of a team that fought to make people’s lives better. Except that this job was an endless procession of depravity and tragedy, punctuated by long hours of paperwork. No one gave a shit if her intentions were pure or if she wanted to protect people. Other than Peluso, the team she had hoped to join was made up of a bunch of middle-aged men who thought she would be better off shaking her ass for tips at the local strip club or serving them drinks at the bar after their long shifts.

Even the damn uniforms weren’t made for women. She had to wear men’s shirts and pants, which made her look like a little girl playing dress-up in her daddy’s work clothes. For the first time ever, she cursed her slender frame and tiny waist. Fitting all of her equipment onto her duty belt was a pain in the ass, and hauling twenty pounds’ worth of gear around on her person for hours at a time was exhausting. Not to mention her back hurt constantly, and most of the time, her hips were completely numb.

And now she knew what it felt like to press her hands against a tiny girl’s sternum, bone visible under her fingertips, as her heartbeat faded.

Maybe she should become a librarian. Maybe she couldn’t handle this.

But she’d be damned if she let anyone know that, especially her field training officer. She sure as hell wasn’t going to show any more weakness to the assholes on the sidewalk laughing at her. Mustering as much attitude as she possibly could, she said, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Peluso narrowed his eyes, staring until Josie knew he was waiting for her to break. She held eye contact. He was a decent guy but if he thought she was backing down from his challenge, he could go fuck himself.

They were interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps. Hugh Weaver, one of the Denton PD crime scene techs, trudged up the porch steps, swinging a heavy case. The faint smell of whiskey trailed behind him.

Peluso put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him from entering the house. “Where’s the rest of your team?”

Hugh shrugged. “Hell if I know, but I’m not waiting all damn day for them.”

Peluso didn’t let him pass. “There’s a man out back but no one else goes inside until I say.”

Hugh grumbled but Peluso ignored him, turning back to Josie. “Quinn, go get the clipboard. You’ll be posted here at the door. You’ll be responsible for logging in every person who enters and exits the house.”

Wordlessly, Josie sprinted down the steps and muscled her way through the throngs of onlookers and Denton PD patrol officers until she reached her cruiser. A few officers quietly jeered her as she returned to the porch, but she ignored them. She was just happy that Peluso let her stay and gave her some responsibility. She quickly signed Weaver in while Peluso went around to check on things at the back of the house.

Her back ached as she stood sentry, watching the crowd of neighbors thin out until only a dozen people remained. From the bottom of the steps, Dusty said, “You know who caught this case, don’t you?”

“I don’t care,” Josie said. “All the detectives are dickheads.”

Dusty chuckled. “This guy is the king of dickheads.”

“Great,” she mumbled. Just what she needed. The perfect topping on this shit sundae of a shift.

As promised, Jimmy “Frisk” Lampson showed up fifteen minutes later. He’d gotten his nickname because he routinely pulled over teenage girls for bogus reasons and then made them get out of their vehicles so he could “frisk” them. In high school, several girls had had encounters with him. He was a pervert and a pedophile. Josie always wondered if he’d done more than grope his victims, but no one ever came forward. He was a police officer, and he was very good at intimidating teenage girls. One girl in Josie’s class had tried to report him for touching her inappropriately during a traffic stop and she’d ended up in a juvenile detention center for three months. It was a lesson for all of them: Don’t fuck with Frisk Lampson.

Now he sauntered down the sidewalk like he had all day, grinning like he was coming to a backyard barbecue and not a crime scene where multiple people had been savagely slaughtered. He stopped to chat with a couple of the uniformed officers, joking and laughing. Ignoring the male neighbors, he zeroed in on the females, mostly older women. Not his type. Eventually, he spotted a group of teenage girls clustered along the edge of the pavement. Their cheeks were stained with tears, and they held themselves, arms wrapped tightly around their torsos.

Was he really going to pull his bullshit right here? In broad daylight, in front of a bunch of people? At a crime scene?

Josie let out a sigh of relief as he continued to chat with the girls, keeping his distance, jotting down notes on a pad as they talked. Minutes ticked by. A woman in her late thirties approached, joining the group. She curled an arm around one of the girls. Her daughter, probably. They turned to leave and two of the other girls went with them. Only one girl remained.

Scanning the street, Josie realized that the rest of the onlookers had migrated several feet away from Lampson and the girl. Separating the weak from the herd. Lampson subtly moved in on the girl until her back was pressed against a police car. There was a whispered discussion between them, Lampson gesturing toward the other vehicles. The girl shook her head.

“Dusty,” said Josie.

“I’m not getting involved.”

Josie still couldn’t figure out why the hell Ray was friends with him.

“Just go over there. Ask him something.”

“I’m not getting involved.”

The girl’s mouth formed the word no. Lampson stepped closer, dropping his lips to her ear and saying something that made her recoil. Josie took a step forward, the movement drawing the girl’s attention. Their eyes locked. Josie knew the “rescue me” look. She was a woman, after all.

Rage ignited inside her, blazing through her veins. Her heart thrashed inside her rib cage. She could barely hear over the roar inside her own head. Through gritted teeth, she said, “ Dusty .”

He must have recognized the change in her tone because he turned and looked at her. “Aww, shit,” he said. “The Chief already talked to you about your temper. How many times now?”

“Only twice.” Josie held out the clipboard. “Come up here and take this. You’re on the door.”

“It’s not worth it.”

The anger was white-hot now, blistering her insides. “I didn’t ask for your opinion, Dusty. Get up here and take this. You’re on the door.”

With a heavy sigh, he tromped up the steps and took the clipboard. “You’re gonna regret this.”