Kingdom Come Read Free Page A

surprise—between ten the previous morning and four in the afternoon, depending on how long she’d been in the cold water. And we knew she’d been moved to the barn most likely between midnight and two A.M. , giving her clothes and hair a chance to mostly dry before Jacob found her at five.
    It was still dark outside, but there were rousing sounds of life in the sparkling new facility that was the Lancaster City Bureau of Police. I saw Grady in my peripheral vision. Like me, he’d gone home after midnight and was back before dawn. He wheeled over a roller chair and planted himself next to me, a mug of joe in his hands. He yawned hugely, making no attempt to cover it up. I smiled to myself. I appreciated the fact that Grady treated me like one of the guys. And I liked his wife, Sharon. The wife of the last partner I’d had in New York had hated me at first glance and was always going into jealous rants on the phone when we had to work late. But Sharon was a petite, redheaded spitfire whose passion was the LGBT youth center in Lancaster. She and Grady had three boys and they were solid. They’d had me over for dinner a few times. Sharon didn’t find me a threat.
    Detective Lieutenant Mike Grady wasn’t my type anyway, even if I’d been into home wrecking—which I wasn’t—even if I’d had any interest in sex at all since Terry died—which I didn’t.Grady ran the Violent Crimes Department for the Lancaster City Bureau of Police. He was in his late thirties and, like many Pennsylvania men, he was big—six foot two and at least two hundred fifty pounds. He’d probably played football or wrestled in high school. He had short, curly brown hair, beefy hands and shoulders, and a reddish complexion. A lot of years behind the desk and serious home cooking had given him a belly and bulky heft all over. Grady was a nice guy. Then again, most people who lived here were.
    I was from here originally too, but my “nice” had been hammered down by ten years of being a police officer for the NYPD. I had to be tough because a) I was a woman and b) I had a tall but somewhat fragile build and a pretty face to overcome. Everyone thought I was crazy when I decided to join the police academy. I’d never been a natural jock. But I liked that—liked the fact that it was something that really challenged me, that I was going against type. I loved being sweaty and tough. I’d worked my ass off, trained hard then—and still did. No perp was going to take advantage of me, and no fellow police officer either. I wore my dark hair pulled back in a bun and little makeup to work. That didn’t keep men from being, well,
male
, but most of them knew better than to treat me like a dumping ground for their hormones. At least they did after the first time they tried it.
    â€œNo matches in missing persons,” Grady said by way of greeting. “Today I’m sending Hernandez and Smith out to talk to all the high school principals in the area, show them her picture. And we’ll send out a missing persons bulletin to all the Mid-Atlantic precincts. If we don’t get an ID on her today, I’ll have to do a press alert.”
    I hummed. I knew a press alert was the last thing we needed.I was surprised the story had been kept quiet so far. We’d been lucky that the area where the farm was located was well off the beaten track.
    â€œI want to interview everyone at those farms today,” I said, nodding at the map.
    Grady sighed. He was silent for a good while as we both regarded the layout. “Talk to me, Harris,” he said in a tone that acknowledged that he wouldn’t like what I had to say. “What are you thinking?”
    I stood up and drew my finger down six lines I’d drawn with a brown pencil. Each one ran from the creek—which we’d since learned was called Rockvale Creek—to the farms. The lines were on the