A Declaration of War (God and Satan's Talks Book 1) by Matthew Paisley

Author:Matthew Paisley [Paisley, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-01-03T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

Esther stood straight and walked down the steps again, quickly collecting the mobile from her coat pocket. She stamped down on the tension pooling in her stomach at having to see a dead body so close. She knew no good could come from being emotional about the situation.

She was pushing her fear away as quickly as it had arrived.

“We should step back. This whole area is a crime scene now,” she urged the security guard to take a few steps back, keeping her tone business-like.

Now her fears had been realised, she couldn’t do anything more to prevent it, only abide by the official route for the ensuing murder investigation.

The security guard’s hands were trembling as she returned the torch to his grasp.

She pulled out the post-it note from her other pocket and quickly dialled Dakota’s number. She didn’t answer the first call, leaving Esther to curse under her breath and walk around in a small circle.

She sent Dakota a quick text:

Answer my call. It is urgent.

She dialled the number again, relieved when Dakota finally answered on the second ring.

“Dakota speaking, who is this?”

“It’s Esther Zhi again.” Esther grinded her teeth together, determined to drop her use of ‘ma’am’ forever more now.

“Right, what do you want?” Dakota’s voice was formal, clearly already irritated at being disturbed for a second time during her evening out.

Esther imagined it was some ridiculously fancy party Dakota was attending, something she would mock Esther about the next day, wondering why she didn’t have more of a social life.

Esther’s eyes found the dead body again—it was not the time to think of such petty disagreements.

“I found where the riddle pointed to.”

“Why didn’t you text it to me?” Dakota’s voice moved up a notch on the irritation scale.

“There wasn’t time.” Esther kept her eyes on the shadowy figure laying across the step. The unnatural way it did not move or breathe sent a coldness through her. She pushed the thought away, determined to return to a formal manner. “It was the Roman Baths. I’m here now.”

“What? You disobeyed—”

“It’s not that simple. There’s a body here,” Esther spoke over her boss, aware it would only cause more problems, but desperate to get out the words as quickly as possible.

Dakota’s voice disappeared from the other end of the phone. Beyond her silence, there was the gentle murmur of a bar or restaurant still in the background. People were laughing, there was a clinking of glasses too… lots of alcohol undoubtedly.

“Okay, not a prank call then.”

“No. I told you it wasn’t,” Esther hissed through her teeth.

“Now is not the time to assign blame.” There was a kerfuffle on the phone, possibly Dakota collecting her things. “I’m down the road at a bar, I’ll be there in ten minutes. I’ll call the pathologist and forensics. Stay there. You’re not going to disobey this order now, are you?”

“No, but I’m still glad I disobeyed the first.”

“We’ll talk about that later. Don’t touch anything.” Dakota hung up the phone, leaving Esther just as angry as before.

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