bolted up the hall. He heard footsteps pounding behind him and knew it was that bastard Trent. Michael didn’t care. He threw open the back door and ran into the yard, stopping so fast that Trent bumped into him from behind.
Michael saw the white first, the skimpy robe, the see-through camisole. She was on her stomach, feet tangled up in the broken chain-link fence. Six or seven men stood around her.
Michael managed to walk toward her, his knees giving out when he reached the body. The mole on her shoulder, the birthmark on the back of her arm. He pressed his fingers into the palm of her small hand.
Somebody warned, “Sir, don’t touch her.”
Michael didn’t care. He stroked her soft palm, tears streaming down his face, whispering, “Jesus. Oh, Jesus.”
Trent was making noises to the group of cops, words Michael couldn’t understand. He could only look at the back of Cynthia’s head, see the long strands of her silky blonde hair draping around her shoulders like a scarf. He pulled the robe down, covering her bare bottom, trying to give her some dignity.
“Detective,” Trent said. His hand was tucked under Michael’s arm, and Trent easily pulled him up to his feet. “You shouldn’t touch her.”
“It’s not her,” Michael insisted, trying to kneel back down, wanting to see her face. It was some kind of trick. It couldn’t be Cynthia. She was at the mall spending Phil’s money, hanging out with her friends.
“I want to see her,” Michael said. His body was shaking like he was cold. His knees didn’t want to work again, but Trent supported him, keeping him up so he didn’t fall back down. “I want to see her face.”
One of the men, obviously the medical examiner, said, “I was just about to flip her anyway.”
With help from another cop, the doctor gripped her by the shoulders and turned her so that she was facing up.
Cynthia’s mouth gaped open, blood spilling out and dribbling down her neck like a slow leak from a faucet. Her beautiful face was marked by a deep cut slashing across her temple. Vacant green eyes stared up at the open sky. Strands of hair were stuck to her face, and he tried to lean down to brush them back but Trent wouldn’t let him.
Michael felt hot tears stinging his eyes. Somebody should cover her. She shouldn’t be exposed like this for everybody to see.
The medical examiner leaned down, pressing her jaw open, peering into her empty mouth. He said, “Her tongue is gone.”
“Christ,” one of the cops whispered. “She’s just a kid.”
Michael swallowed, feeling like he was choking on his grief. “Fifteen,” he said. She’d just had a birthday last week. He’d bought her a stuffed giraffe.
“She’s fifteen.”
PART II
CHAPTER SEVEN
OCTOBER 2, 2005
John Shelley wanted a television. He had been working the same crappy job for the last two months, showing up every day on time, making sure he was the last to leave, doing every nitpicking shit job his boss assigned, and to him it wasn’t just a matter of wanting, but deserving a television. Nothing fancy for him, just something in color, something with a remote control and something that would pick up the college games.
He wanted to watch his teams play. He wanted to hold the remote in his hand and if Georgia was playing bad, which was highly likely, he wanted to be able to turn the channel and watch Florida getting its ass kicked. He wanted to watch the cheesy halftime shows, hear the stupid commentators, see Tulane at Southern Mississippi, Texas A&M at LSU, Army-freakin’-Navy. Come Thanksgiving, he wanted an orgy of bowl games and then he’d switch to the big dogs: the Patriots, the Raiders, the Eagles, all leading up to that magic moment come February when John Shelley would sit in his crap room in his crap boardinghouse and watch the freaking Super Bowl all alone for the first time in his life.
Six days a week for the last two months, he had looked out the bus window and stared longingly at the Atlanta City Rent-All. The sign in the window promised “your job is your credit,” but the asterisk, so tiny it could be a squished bug, told otherwise. Thank God he had been too nervous to walk right into the store and make a fool of himself. John had stood outside the front door, his heart shaking in his chest like a dog shitting peach pits, when he noticed the fine print on the