Free No One Heard Her Scream by Jordan Dane

still have me."
    All she had tried to do that day was get her mother into rehab and counseling. Her drinking had gotten out of control. With the therapy, they could have taken it together. But Momma wanted no part of it.
    When her mother drank, her rage took over. First, the focus was little day-to-day stuff. But as time and grief wore on, her anger shifted to Dani's killers, the useless police investigation, with the final stages centering on herself—the kind of mother she had turned out to be. The failure.
    But eventually, Momma's rage took on a bitterness, all pointed at Becca. And that hurt the most.
    Sure she could rationalize and say her mother hadn't really meant her cruel words, but an element of truth filtered through. When she dared to look into her personal failings, Becca discovered she had no one to trust, no one to share how she felt. A harsh reality check. Her job and her ambition had always been enough, until now. Momma had a point.
    "God, I hate this. When will it ever stop?"
    Becca took a deep breath, stifling the lump wedged in her throat. The unending hurt had left her bone weary. She hadn't realized she'd been crying. Trembling fingers wiped away the tears.
    She glanced back at the clock on the far wall. Almost midnight. The sounds outside her window died down to a muffled thump, a jazz band nearing last call. And the dregs of city traffic, coming from the streets of Crockett and Presa, had been reduced to a vague notion carried on the breeze. Despite the surge of emotions welling inside her, the familiar cacophony gave her a strange comfort.
    Her home was nothing to brag about, but it had become a safe haven, of sorts. Martha Stewart wouldn't be knocking on her door looking for housekeeping tips. But her condo had been an amazing return on her investment, inheritance money from her grandmother. On a cop's salary, she couldn't touch the locale.
    For most people, the noise might have made it difficult to sleep. Yet Becca found the steady clamor of downtown to be soothing—up until Danielle first went missing. Now it didn't matter much. She and sleep had parted ways. Irreconcilable differences.
    Becca wiped her cheeks with a sleeve of her sweatshirt and stretched her back. The muscles between her shoulder blades felt stiff, and her thighs were sore, the result of her early-morning workout, self-inflicted abuse. After grabbing a fresh beer from the fridge, she walked toward her fire escape window, heading for her nightly ritual. Raising the window, Becca ducked through and stepped onto the first landing, cold beer in hand. Her skin erupted in goose bumps when her bare feet hit the cool cement.
    She made a short climb up the fire escape and over the parapet wall to her rooftop garden, an oasis she maintained to preserve her own sanity. Rather than flick on the festive white Christmas lights she had strung across the ornamental garden, tonight Becca preferred the anonymity of the dark. She pulled up a lawn chair and rested her elbows on the brick ledge, gazing to the river below. Becca took a sip of her Corona, feeling the chill rush through her. She shut her eyes and listened to the sounds of the city.
    Adrift on the cool breeze was the faint smell of the river. The earthy essence of stale humidity mixed with the lingering aroma of fajitas, a gift from the Casa Rio Restaurant. She opened her eyes to glance toward the river bend. At this hour, festive lights shimmered along the water and made a dramatic silhouette of the weeping bowers of cypress trees. From a nearby club, a muffled voice on a microphone announced last call, and the jazz band began its final short set. She knew the drill and listened to every note, letting time sift through her fingers like sand.
    But as her gaze drifted toward the music, something peculiar caught her eye, triggering her cop instincts into high gear. A lone man stood at the crest of a stone bridge over the river, his body silhouetted by a pale light. Becca craned her neck to