Strong, Sleek and Sinful - By Lorie O'Clare Page 0,49
me.” Then glancing at Rad, Perry decided to suggest, since he hadn’t heard that anyone had done it yet. “I’ll interview the family and her friends.”
Rad studied him with shrewd gray eyes. There was something more in Rad’s attentive stare than what Perry normally saw. It almost looked like hesitation or lack of trust. He was a pretty good judge of character but knew he was as tired as Rad probably was. And what Perry saw could be the exhaustion, mental and physical, that he felt as well. “O-kay,” Rad said slowly, drawing out the one word. Rad seriously hesitated, but he gave his consent.
Perry didn’t blink. Hiding his surprise wasn’t easy. Rad hadn’t been himself the past day or two. But having a rapist in town was enough to wear on anyone’s convictions. And one preying on teenage girls made the situation even more draining. They couldn’t waste one moment. Perry’s girls moved in the same circles as the victims who had been abducted, beaten and tortured, and then killed had moved in. No one would touch his nieces. No one!
“I’ll contact the family tonight for a list of her friends.” Turning to his car, he parted ways with the Chief without saying good-bye. Whatever had crawled up Rad’s ass, Perry wouldn’t challenge it. Not tonight. He had Rad’s permission to pursue the investigation and that was what Perry would do.
When he headed across town half an hour later, after visiting with the Longs, the list of numbers he needed to contact was already on his clipboard next to him. Ramos had headed home to have dinner with his mother. A cop didn’t get to do that enough and Perry would give his partner the next hour or so before calling him. Rad was all over them all of a sudden to work together. As well, the new policy about logging in with passwords every time they used a computer so that everyone’s actions online would be kept track of bugged Perry, too. It appeared there was suspicion in the department over something, which would also explain the wariness Perry was certain he saw in Rad’s eyes earlier.
There was something else that annoyed the crap out of Perry and had since he saw Kathleen Long lying crumpled behind the Dumpster earlier this afternoon. He wasn’t sure if she was one of his nieces’ friends, but the young girl looked familiar. Her parents had shown him pictures of a very pretty girl, who was in the same grade as Dani.
The image of the child, and yes, damn it, a fifteen-year-old girl was a child, lying on the ground, abused to the point of death, curdled his stomach. It also pissed him off. That teenage girl would never know the wonders of life, of adulthood, of falling in love, going to college, getting married, having a family and a good job. All of that was robbed from her by a motherfucker Perry couldn’t wait to get his hands on.
He turned onto the street where Kylie lived and slowed in front of her house. Parking, he bounded up the sidewalk toward her house, trying to put the case out of his mind for a few minutes at least while he spoke to Kylie.
He walked past her green hybrid and touched her hood. It was warm. She hadn’t been home long. He wondered where she’d been as he climbed the one step and then stood at her front door, rapping his knuckles against it.
Kylie was quickly making a habit of not answering her door right away when he knocked. It could be that she did it on purpose to get under his skin. Something told him that she didn’t think about him enough for that. He stepped away from the front door, glancing both ways at the front of the house, and then headed away from the drive, taking in the outside of her home and the windows.
Blinds were closed over each window. The white siding was slightly dirty but in good shape. The small bushes along the house had been trimmed back, probably a landlord’s doing before she moved in. She hadn’t said, but he put money on the fact that she hadn’t lived here long at all. Her house barely looked lived in and wasn’t homey. Kylie struck him as the kind of woman who would make a place her own given time. It was part of her need to feel in charge of her life.