The Stolen Ones Read Free

when she worked last-out, the eleven p.m. to seven a.m. shift.
    For the next forty minutes Jessica tried every trick she’d ever learned to regain wakefulness. Thankfully, the professor didn’t call on her again, and somehow she made it to the end of class.
     
    On the way to her car, Jessica noticed a small group of students from her class walking across the parking lot at Cecil B. Moore and Broad Street. They all looked about twenty – wide awake, happy, fully caffeinated by life. Jessica wanted to shoot them.
    ‘Hey, Jessica,’ one of them said. His name was Jason Cole, and he held the unofficial title of cutest boy in class, a class in which there was a lot of competition for that honor. ‘Nice save back there.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘For a minute there I thought you were going to wash.’
    You have no idea
, Jessica thought. ‘Not a chance,’ she said. She unlocked her car. ‘I’ve had tougher cases.’
    Jason smiled. He had braces, which somehow made him cuter. ‘We’re going to Starbucks for a study jam,’ he added. ‘Want to come with?’
    They all knew she was a police officer, of course, a homicide detective at that. They also knew she was juggling three lives – cop, mother, student – living days haphazardly constructed around a curriculum of early-morning, late-evening and weekend classes. Jessica desperately wanted to feel sorry for herself about this, but she knew it was nothing special for many people her age who were attending college. The truth was, she just wanted to go home and finish the nap she’d begun in the classroom. She couldn’t do that. In addition to the thousand other things she needed to accomplish, she was staring down the barrel of a full twelve-hour shift.
    It was her first day back after a two-week sabbatical.
    ‘Gotta go to work,’ Jessica said. ‘Maybe next time.’
    Jason gave her a thumbs-up. ‘We’ll save you a seat.’
    Jessica slipped into her car, the fatigue a living thing within her. She glanced at her law books on the seat, and not for the first time in the past eighteen months wondered how she got here.
    She was currently working in the SIU division of the homicide unit four days a week – a generous offer allowed by her captain, cleared with the inspector and, most importantly, with her husband, Vincent – and getting about five hours of sleep per night. It was one thing when you were a twenty-two-year-old grad student; quite another when you were on the osteoporosis side of thirty-five.
    Of the three divisions in the PPD Homicide Unit – the Line Squad, the Special Investigations Unit, and the Fugitive Squad – SIU was the least demanding, at least in terms of immediacy and the need for overtime. Although the physical and emotional rigors of working cold cases could be just as demanding as working fresh homicides, the days tended to be a little more structured, and the need to get the ball rolling – and hopefully make an arrest – in the first forty-eight hours were not there.
    Still, this was the path she had chosen. She recalled the moment she’d chosen it, as well. She had been thirteen, and had visited City Hall with her brother, Michael. They went to watch their father – then Sergeant Peter Giovanni – testify in Judge Liam McManus’s courtroom.
    On that day Jessica sat in the back row, watching the proceedings, observing as the two lawyers went head to head. Having grown up in a police family, she knew that there were many jobs upon which the carriage of justice depended – cops, judges, forensic specialists, medical examiners. But for some reason she was instantly drawn to this stage, this rarefied arena where, if everyone else did their job, it would all come down to the clear, clinical thinking of two people to build a case for either guilt or innocence.
    Young Jessica Giovanni was hooked, her future fully mapped by the time she and her brother and their father sat down to lunch at Frank Clements Tavern, which was then located across