Thunder by Kirkham

Author:Kirkham [Kirkham]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781990746192
Publisher: A.G. Kirkham
Published: 2023-10-24T18:30:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

Face the Day

THUNDER

I drag myself away from Rosie, leaving her curled up in my bed, and head back down the stairs. Orion is in the office we’ve set up with every possible gadget a computer guy would want. Orion’s the best there is. The only one comparable is Dante Viale. He’s Reno’s younger brother, and between the two of them, I’m hoping we’ll find the connection between the dead woman and the bastard terrorizing Rose.

Guard and Ghost are already there, along with Saint and Risk.

“Is Rose all right?” Saint asks as soon as he sees me.

“Shaken up, for sure, but she’s hanging in there.”

“Yeah, well, it ain’t every day a body goes flying out of a car directly in front of your store,” Risk says. “She’s tougher than she looks.” I have to agree with him. Anyone else would have crumbled by now.

Orion looks up from his screen. “I did a reconstruction of the woman’s face, and I’m running it through a recognition program. It may take a while. The morgue has Jane Doe slotted for autopsy tomorrow morning. I’ll be checking periodically for the final report.”

“She died from a gunshot to the heart. What’s curious is that she was beaten first,” Saint says. “If she was an out-of-line whore, why bother beating her if you were going to kill her anyway? And why kill her at all if she was making you money? A pimp’s goal is to use these women for cash. Why kill your revenue stream?”

“She could have been causing drama,” Guard adds.

“Then you slap her around and set her straight,” Ghost responds, shaking his head.

I’m inclined to agree with him on that. “Nah, there’s a connection. A message. They dumped her in front of Rose’s shop. It’s a message for her.”

Orion says, “Thunder’s right. We need to get a handle on who’s pulling the strings. I get the idea that the pimp, Harvey, was taking orders from someone higher up. Once we know who he is, then we’ll have a trail of breadcrumbs to follow.”

There’s a dinging sound from the computer, and a face flashes onto the screen. Pretty blonde-haired girl about sixteen or seventeen years old. Looks like she belongs in the cornfields of Iowa, all fresh-faced and smiling.

“Cora Davis went missing five years ago. Parents reported her disappearance. Police deemed her a runaway,” Orion says. He types rapidly into the keyboard and pulls up the information from her file. “Parents insist she was kidnapped. They’re offering their own reward for any information about their daughter and her safe return. They most recently petitioned to have the case reopened with a witness who said they saw their daughter in the city. The request was denied.”

“It could be the woman from today,” Ghost murmurs. The woman was so badly beaten that the best form of identification would be fingerprints and dental records, and they won’t be available to us until tomorrow. All we have to work with are the photos taken at the time, and Orion’s facial reconstruction software.

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