Stripped Read Free Page A

the cop with the goatee, who was still hovering nearby, mutter something foul under his breath. Stride glanced back in time to see a yellow Maserati Spyder peel off toward the Strip.
    “Who’s the tough-ass chick?” Elonda asked, looking over Stride’s shoulder.
    The Spyder had dropped off a woman who now stood with her arms folded over a large chest and one leg bent, with her foot on the curb. Her hair was short and spiky, dirty blond with black streaks. She was tall, probably only three inches short of Stride’s own six-foot-one, and she looked strong and full-figured, with arms that filled out the sleeves of her tight white T-shirt. Her right arm sported a wolf’s head tattoo. A gold police shield hung from the belt loop of her blue jeans.
    “Don’t worry about it,” Stride told Elonda. “Right now, I want you to close your eyes. Just relax and think back to when you first spotted your customer.”
    “You trying to hypnotize me?” Elonda asked. “Can you make me stop biting my nails?”
    Stride smiled. “No, I just want you to remember. Picture it in your head, okay? You just saw your mark. You’re crossing the street. Is the other man already waiting at the bus stop?”
    Elonda started humming. Her head bobbed back and forth, following a rhythm. Then, abruptly, her eyes snapped open. “No, he wasn’t there! Hey, this is cool.”
    “Close your eyes again. Keep replaying it.”
    “Yeah, now the guy’s behind him at the bus stop. I see him. Where the fuck did he come from?”
    “What’s he doing?”
    “Checking his watch. Looking up and down the street. Real cool.”
    “What’s he wearing?” Stride asked. He thought about a way to trigger her memory and added, “When he checks his watch, can you see his bare arm?”
    Elonda pursed her lips, as if she were puckering for a kiss. Her brow furrowed. “A coat!” she said happily. “He’s got a windbreaker—tan, I think. And tan pants, too, khakis maybe.”
    “You’re doing great. Is he a big guy?”
    “He ain’t so tall. Not real big either. But he looks, I don’t know, tough. Mean dude.”
    “How about hair color?”
    “Dark,” Elonda said. “Cut short. A beard, too. He’s got a beard.”
    “Elonda, you’re beautiful,” Stride said, and he watched the girl beam with pride. He spent another ten minutes playing out the rest of the scene, but the closer she got to the murder, the more her mind blacked it out. When he was done, he called over the goateed cop and told him in a whispered voice what to do.
    “Harrah’s?” the cop asked in disbelief. “You’re kidding me. Sawhill will flip if I put this in for reimbursement.”
    Stride shoved a hand into his pocket and fished two twenties out of his wallet. “Here, take this, and get yourself something, too. You’re looking too thin.”
    The cop rubbed his oversized neck and smiled. “Whatever you say.”
    “But hands off the girl,” Stride added.
     
     
    When Elonda was safely in the back of a patrol car, Stride sought out his new partner.
    It was odd, working the street again, a detective on the case. He had been the lieutenant in Duluth, a big fish in a small pond, and now he was just another investigator on the Metro Homicide Detail in Las Vegas. The closest thing he had ever had to a partner back home was Maggie Bei, the senior sergeant in his detective division. Stride and Maggie had worked together for more than a decade, and the tiny Chinese cop with the sharp, sarcastic tongue had become his best friend. Now Maggie was still in Minnesota, married and off the force, a baby on the way. Stride was in Sin City, the last place he could have imagined being.
    Thanks to Serena.
    He had met Serena Dial over the summer, while the two of them investigated a Las Vegas murder that had its roots in a teenage girl’s disappearance in Minnesota years earlier. The investigation had upended his life in Duluth and destroyed his second marriage, which he knew had been misguided from the