One of Them (Vigil #2) Read Free Page B

to make me uncomfortable. To counteract that move, I had these newfangled things called eyelids, which I occasionally closed. Following that brilliant maneuver, they began piping in loud music—the middle-of-the-road, heavy metal crap that I hated. That could be ignored as well, all you had to do is think about something else. My thoughts centered around what I was going to do once I got out of there, and who was going to die first.
    In between attempts to prod me into cooperation, the voice would return and slip in various new questions. All of these inquiries had something to do with my overall health. They asked me about my sleeping patterns. I said nothing. They asked me about my bowel movements. I pointed at the corner. They asked questions about my strength. Were my muscles hurting? They didn’t get as much as a shrug.
    When they finally decided to get personal, I was lying on my side on the bed, having just reawakened, my paper gown barely held together in strips and tatters.
    The voice said to me, “It’s not as if you don’t have any loved ones, you know.”
    There was a different source behind this voice, a different speaker. There had been several different speakers, but the voice always came out sounding the same, overmodulated and cliché. It was easy to tell the speakers apart, though. None of them were interested in any of the same subjects, and not a single one formed sentences or thoughts in a similar manner. As an example, the most recent dipshit asked no question, he just started off with his threat. This is what made him a he. The males of the world like to bandy about all tough, whipping their dicks out as if they were the most impressive tools in their arsenal.
    “Officer Kimble, you have not been a model guest, now have you? What we have been asking from you has not been that much.” He made a tsk-tsking sound with his tongue. “I now regret to inform you that significant actions have been taken. Your former partner, one Angela Chen, has been removed from the force and arrested. There have been questions raised about the relationship between the two of you and Chen’s involvement in your subsequent disappearance. The charges involve the alteration of the crime scene at the Las Rosas complex and her complicity in the cannibalistic murder of Kara Manning. The District Attorney’s theory goes as this: the two of you arrived on the scene and had a confrontation with Manning—who was not being raped, and with whom you personally had a run-in before. You, Kimble, being of the notoriously violent sort, beat her to a pulp in anger. The coroner believes Manning was still alive when, to cover your crime, you and Chen proceeded to create the illusion of a mysterious assailant. The suspicion is that you yourself chopped away at the victim with some undiscovered blade you had no doubt been carrying on your person illegally—that was the kind of cop you were, after all. The bite marks on Manning’s body remain a mystery. Did you do that or did Chen? Good money is on Chen. She’s suspected of coming up with the cannibal story without the aid of her less intelligent partner. Any way you cut it, your pal is in a whole lot of trouble, particularly after naked photographs of you were found in her apartment. Chen’s personal proclivities were never public knowledge until now. To be frank, it has all become a raging scandal on television. The world believes you and Chen were lovers who covered up a crime with an even larger crime, and then you hightailed it out of town and left your girlfriend holding the proverbial bag. A large manhunt is underway at the moment, focusing on you. Most believe you will never be found. After all that fibbing that you did, you never were a normal cop, now were you? You were a liar from the beginning, changing your name the way you did. It makes one suspicious. Not me, of course—I know you did it because of your Daddy and his interfering ways. The bubbleheads on the tube believe