Night Eyes (The Detective Temeke Crime Series Book 2) Read Free

attributed to Hispanic roots, she could easily pass for twenty-five.
    As she ran through the parking lot, through seams of amber light cast by the restaurant windows, all she could hear was the steady crunch of her running shoes on snow. Eleven-thirty on a Sunday night and a thin mist meandered listlessly between the trees, three strands of it like thick bellied serpents floating on air and close enough to touch.
    She thought about the Ringmaster, a name the Press had given to the killer of eleven young boys missing since 2001. Boys ranging from six years old to thirteen, all snatched from a skateboarding ramp where teenagers gathered after school to blow off steam. It was thought the killer had lured them into his car with a promise of a ride home and a bottle of alcohol.
    They were found tied to trees and arranged in a circle two hundred miles away in Gila National Forest. The bodies bore evidence of high levels of drugs and alcohol in the blood system, rendering them insensate before being killed. The trail had gone cold after 2011, a dead end. No evidence. Nada.
    Then a phone call came in a week ago, a deep voice that sounded genuine. “There’s a boy,” it said, “or what’s left of him… tied to a tree… must have been there for years.”
    They found Evan Trader, the last victim in a circle of trees, wrists and ankles bound. Dr. Vasillion had reported extensive blunt force trauma to the head and death by asphyxiation, probably within five to six hours of the kidnap. Twelve years old. Missing for two years. They cut him away from a pale coated aspen still pink with dried blood. Just like the trees she saw now. It made her sick if she thought about it, played tricks on her mind as if she could see it happening in real time.
    She could hear the rhythm of each breath and the distant sound of friendly chatter from the street. After twenty minutes the track became a concrete roadway, winding behind a strip mall into a parking lot. She stopped to catch her breath, looking up at steely clouds in a dark sky.
    The snow came down hard now and she could hear cars racing through slush. There were two servers sitting at a table in the café kicking back at the end of their shift. She could see them through the window. Kissing, laughing, touching.
    It had been three long months since she last saw Sargent Hollister in New Jersey, the one man she could really call a boyfriend. Three long weeks since she saw him on Heartfree.com, the only dating website worth joining. He invited her to chat, reminded her of the good times, said he’d keep in touch.
    She hadn’t dared talk to him again, not after making such a fool of herself. Begging was a fool’s game. You never tell someone you love them online. Never… never… never. And the same fool couldn’t wait another three long weeks for a reply.
    She’d sent a photo this time. A selfie leaning against a tree, hair mussed by the wind and eyes staring off into the distance. An Hispanic model with perfect skin and a few touchups here and there. If he asked, she would tell him it had been taken by Detective Temeke down by the Bosque five weeks ago. Let Hollister figure out why they had been there in the first place.
    What’s the point, she thought. Hollister made himself available with a bunch of other single men desperately seeking who knows who. There was no avatar. He was too smart for that. And she wondered if he would ever reply.
    She glanced at her watch, aware of her wheezing breaths and the sound of a throbbing heartbeat. A scuffling sound a few yards to her left. Something ran along the top of the wall behind the houses. Instinct told her to look back along that track, through a milky haze where a shape darted into the shadows and out of sight.
    She was too close to the road to be gripped in some paralytic terror only to find a coyote, the most skillful of impostors, prowling among the trees. She stood there on the sidewalk wondering why the creature was comfortable in such