The Demon King Read Free

tracks or bruising. All in all,
she might have been too skinny in the officer’s opinion, but she
looked clean enough.
    Intrigued, Rosa put down her pen, took off
her reading glasses – which were hung on a vintage pince-nez chain
and quite precious to her – and eyed the woman as she
approached.
    “ I found him in a dumpster
outside the grocery store,” said the blonde when she reached the
desk. Up close, Rosa could see the girl was beautiful in that
mysterious kind of way that was difficult to pin down. There was
something in the sleepless hollows beneath her eyes, or something
in the way she moved her head that spoke of innate grace, though
she looked to be no older than twenty, maybe
twenty-five.
    The blonde uncovered the baby’s face to
reveal eyes like the Caribbean Sea. “I didn’t know what else to do
but bring him in here.”
    Rosa stared into those blue eyes for a while
before she looked from the baby to the woman holding him. The
blonde had brown eyes, the more notable thing about them the fact
that they were a little red as if she’d been crying. There was no
immediate likeness between her and the infant, at least not that
the cop could see. Then again, she’d never been the kind of person
who could tell a baby looked like its mother or father. As far as
she was concerned, that was bullshit people fed new parents to make
them feel good. A baby looked like a baby. And a baby looked like a
squat, fleshy, pink-cheeked abomination with no teeth and eyes that
took up half its face. And don’t even get her started on what a
baby looked like just coming out of the womb! That was a wrinkled,
purple mess of a thing that looked more like Benjamin Button at the
beginning of his life than anything else. No, a human baby bore
more resemblance to a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig than it did its
mother or father.
    The officer pushed out her chair and stood
up to make her way around the desk. The blonde woman turned with
her, and for a moment, her hold on the baby seemed genuinely
protective. Perhaps motherly.
    But again, there was no
immediate proof that she was the child’s mother. Plus, Rosa had
seen women who’d just given birth before. Her sister, for instance,
had been ripped from hole to hole. Most women couldn’t walk for
hours after, if not days. Even later the same week, they moved
slow. And ninety percent of them had at least a little pregnancy weight to get rid
of, usually a lot . This young woman on the other hand seemed to be in perfect
health other than the fact that she was a waif.
    “ You say you found him in a
dumpster?” Rosa questioned calmly.
    The blonde nodded. Her brown eyes focused
steadily on the officer.
    “ Behind the grocery store?”
Rosa asked.
    “ Yes,” replied the blonde.
“Spencer’s Farm to Market. Downtown.”
    That was what she had been about to ask. She
went to the next question on her list. “How did you know he was
there?”
    “ I parked next to the
dumpster to go in and do some shopping, and I heard
crying.”
    She was fast to answer, which sent up a red
flag for the officer. The reply seemed almost rehearsed. There were
also those crying-red eyes to consider. Who went grocery shopping
just after a massive crying spell?
    Oh hell , she thought with a mental shrug. Everyone does that at some point. I
have. Life is hard .
    “ Was there anything else
with him?” she asked.
    “ No, ma’am.”
    The officer squinted a little, her gaze
narrowing. She’d noticed over the last four years, ever since she’d
earned her badge, that when people started calling her ma’am, it
sometimes meant they were getting nervous. And sometimes, not
always but sometimes, that meant they had something to hide.
    Then again… it could just have been the fact
that Rosa hated the word “ma’am.” To her, it felt that when she was
called ma’am, the word was substituted for other things. Like
“crazy lady,” or “irritating lady,” or even and most especially,
“bitch.”
    And the use of