Unseen #1 - The Burning by Holder Nancy & Mariotte Jeff

Author:Holder, Nancy & Mariotte, Jeff [Holder, Nancy & Mariotte, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Tad Barlowe was beyond tense, and it took a lot to freak Tad Barlowe out. He was a uniformed cop who guarded the prisoners at the 77th Street Police building, and he’d seen a lot of bad stuff, including a guy who had hanged himself in his own cell.

But this was worse.

Part of the 77th was a temporary detention facility, a holding area for people awaiting trial. As such, it was not Casa de Hardened Criminals particularly; most of the guys inside quickly figured out that it didn’t make a lot of sense to act up, because it would just make things go worse in court.

Two days ago, his own pen had gone berserk and stabbed him in the arm. Just flew up from the desk, spun around like that kid’s head in the movie, and stabbed him. He had tried on all sorts of explanations for size, and none had fit.

So he’d told himself that it was an isolated incident, a one-time freak of physics. That didn’t freak him out much less, but it was something to hang onto. Just one of those weirdo things that happens in life.

But then it turned out not to be so isolated after all. In fact, weirdo things were happening all over the cell block. Not in the rest of the building—so the cops in other sections of the 77th didn’t quite understand why those in the jail were so on edge. Last night in a bar, a couple of them had tied a string around a pencil and tossed it onto the table of some jail guards, then had made it dance around the table, hooting with laughter.

One of them ended the evening with a broken jaw, and three cops were on suspension today for fighting in public.

Tad almost called in sick. He could have done it—the wound in his arm would have given him a good enough excuse for a day or two. But as bad as going into the 77th was, it still wasn’t quite as bad as staying home, with his wife, Penny, hovering over him as if he were on his deathbed. So he pulled on his uniform and went in.

Only to find that the mood today was, if anything, worse than it had been the day before. Not only were the guards on edge, so were the inmates.

“Stuff’s been flyin’ around all day,” Henry Murson told him. Henry was getting off shift just as Tad was coming on. “A cot pinned one guy up against the wall of his own cell. Clothes, pillows, shoes.

Everybody’s so uptight, it’s like the entire population’s standin’ on the edge of a razor blade waitin’ for someone else to slip.”

Great, Tad thought. A recipe for disaster. Should’ve stayed home after all. Murson went on to tell him that tempers were frayed, that if he looked sideways at someone—officer or prisoner—he was likely to find himself in a shouting match, or worse.

“All I can say, buddy, is I’m glad I’m headin’ home,” Murson continued.

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