Naked Addiction Read Free Page A

side of the alley, about fifteen feet from the body, he still had that confused look on his face, but he looked a little more scared now than he had initially.
    “I’m not in any trouble, am I?” he asked.
    It was too soon to tell. Goode didn’t get a killer vibe off him, but since he’d been right there with the body, he was a natural suspect. And Goode had learned long ago that murderers often came with no identifiable marks. You had to go deeper. Pretty much everyone he met on the case for the next couple of days would be a suspect.
    “You tell me,” Goode said, staring into his eyes. The kid, who had regained his composure, stared back. Then he started smiling, which Goode found to be an odd response given the circumstances. “What’s so amusing?”
    “So, you’re a cop?” he replied, shaking his head as if the notion didn’t make sense.
    Goode duly noted that the kid had answered his question with a question, a useful deflection technique if the other person doesn’t notice.
    “Yes, I am. Appearances can be deceiving.”
    “No joke,” the kid retorted.
    “What’s your name?” Goode asked.
    “Jake Lancaster.”
    “You have any ID on you, Jake Lancaster?”
    Jake pulled a canvas wallet out of his back pocket and ripped open the Velcro flap to reveal his driver’s license, which said he was twenty-three. Goode saw a student ID card in the wallet, from the University of California, San Diego. So he was no dummy. UCSD was a tough school. Goode had gone there a couple of quarters before transferring to UCLA.
    “What are you studying up there?”  Goode asked, hoping Jake would show his true colors.
    Jake said he was in the biochemistry master’s program. He’d applied to medical school but had been rejected, so he was going for a little “extra credit” to juice up his next round of applications.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” Jake said, grinning mischievously and pointing at his shoes. “Appearances can be deceiving.”
    “You Italian?”
    “Yeah, on my mother’s side,” Jake said, grinning again. “How’d you know?”
    “Just a feeling.”
    Goode was trying to make a subtle point that being a good detective meant he could sense things based on gut instinct, with little or no information. He only hoped that Jake was as smart as he seemed, and would pick up on that. Not wanting the kid to disappear while he was on the phone, Goode told Jake to wait while he notified the Homicide unit, then started walking toward his van.
    “We’re going to need to get a statement from you, Mr. Lancaster,” he said in the most suspicion-free tone he could manage. Then he turned, paused for a moment, and said, “By the way, did you know her?”
    Jake looked him straight in the eye, as if he knew he needed to show he was honest and sincere or he might end up as a case of wrong place, wrong time. Maybe he got Goode’s point after all.
    “Not really,” he said. “I’d just found her when you found me.”
    “Don’t go anywhere,” Goode said again, as he got into his van and rolled up the window so Jake couldn’t hear his conversation. He didn’t want the kid to know that he was still a relief homicide detective, without a whole lot of pull. As Goode rummaged around on the passenger seat for his cell phone, he looked back over at those red toenails and flashed on the girl’s beautiful face. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-four, about the same age as Jake.
    What a waste .
    After punching in Sergeant Rusty Stone’s number on his cell, he glanced over his shoulder and around the alley. He didn’t want anyone or anything else to contaminate the crime scene.
    Stone was an old surfing buddy, who had been telling Goode for the past decade what a great homicide detective he’d make. He’d helped Goode land the prestigious relief job, then tried to grease the way for him to get the experience he needed to get transferred from Narcotics.
    “It’s showtime, buddy,” Goode told Stone, who