Savage Echoes (The Nickie Savage Series, Short Story Prequel) Read Free

was a lab. It says the teacher didn't show."
    His fingers started working again. So, she waited—anxiously, but she waited.
    He shook his head. "I remember this. The professor for that lab has been out. He's had a sub."
    "I'd like the names of both teachers."
    He looked at her through the corner of his eyes.
    "There's a missing girl, sir. I can come back with a warrant. Shall I share with you the falling probability of finding her the longer I sit here?"
    Pushing away from his desk, he pulled open a drawer. He removed an index card and pencil and wrote down the names.
    "Addresses and phone numbers, too," she added.
    He did it, but not without heavy sighs. "Good luck, Detective."
    They shook hands when her phone rang. She pocketed the index card and answered as she left the office. "Savage."
    "We got another call." It was the captain. "Same deal. He's baiting us. Used a prepaid. We couldn't get a trace."
    "Bastard." She growled and picked up the pace to her car.
    * * *
    Duncan sat behind the expansive desk his uncle had made for him. The cherry wood had darkened in the sun from the south window. He liked big, and he liked the best. The biggest and the best took up a lot of room.
    Hacking into the Northridge Police Department's database wasn't difficult. He'd been doing that for months now. Locating the 9-1-1 recording was even easier.
    Nickie wouldn't have asked if she didn't need him. She held a great pride for her department and their abilities. And although she hated hunches, she was thorough and made it a habit to check out any leads that crossed her path.
    Rarely did she bring up his secret.
    A smile beckoned at the corners of his mouth as he remembered the day she tricked him into revealing his memory. He'd kept it hidden for thirty years. She figured it out in two weeks. She was one damned smart, incredible woman.
    He closed his eyes as he listened.
    "9-1-1 dispatch. What is your emergency?"
    He played it again and again, each time adjusting the sound features until the majority of what he heard was the water. He took a deep breath, listening, hearing, imagining. Swirls of memories flooded his mind. Memories of fishing as a child in the lake that spilled into Black Creek. Of catching crawfish under the bridge that ran over his street. Warm memories mixed with nightmares.
    There was an echo. A metallic or concrete echo. The water ran consistently. Not a pour or a rush, but a steady stream of water. The echo was large.
    He opened his eyes and woke his monitor. How far of an area should he search? He would start small. The weather had been dry lately. Where in the immediate Northridge area was there a large, round casing with water that ran freely?
    * * *
    Serena's parents lived in a small bungalow on the southeast side of town. The neighborhood was older with a mixture of run-down homes as well as ones that had been maintained nicely. Overgrown yards next to ones with tasteful yellow and maroon fall-blooming flowers. Serena Flats' parents' home fell somewhere between the run-down and the maintained.
    Nickie knocked quickly and waited. Mrs. Flats wore a housecoat and dirty slippers and was quite possibly stoned. Holding up her badge, Nickie reintroduced herself. "Mrs. Flats, I don't know if you remember me." She must not have because she squinted as she looked closer at the badge. "I'm Detective Nickie Savage. I was in the room during your visit with Captain Nolan. May I ask you a few questions about your daughter?"
    Mrs. Flats stepped out of the way grumbling, "Oh, for crying out loud. If you knew Serena, you wouldn't be wasting your time. I spent the last two decades doing that. I learned."
    She would wait to tell her about the latest 9-1-1 call and about the registered sex offender who lived two blocks from them. "Regardless, we'd like to find her."
    She walked in and looked around. It smelled sweaty. The place was a mess but not enough to make an episode of Hoarders. Nickie sighed, thinking of her townhouse and