Naked Addiction Read Free

could expect a second call from his sergeant in Narcotics, telling him to get his lazy ass in gear on the paperwork. When he looked up again, something small and brown had come out of nowhere. His van was almost on top of it before he could tell what it was—one of those damned rat-dogs. He swerved to avoid it and practically put his foot through the floorboard trying to stop.
    “Stupid dog,” Goode yelled as his van careened toward a row of black trash bins and a young guy who was crouched down, examining something between the cans.
    Goode’s brakes screeched as he came to a halt just a few feet short of him. He was a stocky guy in his early twenties, a little heavyset and not all that tall, with short dark hair and big dark eyes, wearing a baseball cap backwards. His face conveyed a whole spectrum of emotions, only one of which was relief that he hadn’t been flattened by a VW van. Goode guessed that he was probably of Italian or Greek origin.
    A little shaken by the close call, Goode sat for a minute, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. He’d almost killed a guy, trying to avoid a damn dog. He was shaking his head when he noticed a pair of ivory feet with red toenails sticking out from between the bins next to the kid’s checkerboard-patterned Vans shoe.
    Is that a mannequin . . . or a body?
    “Hey, sorry. Are you okay?” Goode asked as he hopped out of his van and walked toward the kid, who wore a curiously inscrutable expression.
    “I thought you were going to run me over,” the kid replied, smiling a little as he squinted up at Goode, who had the sun behind him. “My life flashed before my eyes, the whole deal. I was cruising down the alley when I found her,” he said, nodding at his skateboard, lying wheels-up nearby.
    Goode’s eyes followed the ivory feet up a pair of long legs to see it was not a mannequin, but the crumpled body of a raven-haired young woman, stunning even in death. Goode kneeled down to take a closer look. She didn’t smell very fresh, but it was hard to tell with the heat. She was wearing a man’s shirt, white with red pinstripes. And nothing else.
    Her lower abdomen was marked with purple blotches, as if two hands had grabbed her and squeezed. Her neck was bruised and patches of skin were ripped away, as if she’d been strangled. The red fingernails on her right hand were ragged at the ends, as if they’d been broken off during a struggle. But this was no skanky tweaker. He could tell by her hair, nails and skin that she ate well and had recently had a mani-pedi. Her build was athletic and well toned, her hair looked highlighted and styled, and her shirt was a Ralph Lauren. Clearly she came from money and likely attracted men of the same ilk.
    But there was something familiar about this girl. Goode felt one of those jolts where a memory creased his consciousness and then dissipated like the trails of a fireworks display. Only he couldn’t get it back. Something was blocking the image.
    The alley was quiet and still for a moment. Time seemed to stop. With the sun beating down on his head, he felt dizzy again, just like he had on the bridge.
    The kid reached out to touch the girl’s shirt, but Goode grabbed his sweaty wrist before he could make contact.
    “Don’t touch anything,” Goode said. “This is a crime scene now.”
    A puzzled expression crossed the kid’s flushed face, as if the cylinders in his head were running but he didn’t quite know what to say.
    “What?” Goode asked. “You touched her already?”
    The kid nodded, reluctantly. “Yeah, I don’t know, I’ve never seen a dead person before. It was weird. Her cheek felt like a cold peach. Then I got freaked out by her eyes. They were this amazing turquoise blue, staring at nothing. So I closed them.”
    Goode stood up and pulled the kid to his feet, up and away from the body. “Let’s talk over here,” he said. “I’m a police detective.”
    The kid came willingly. When they reached the other