Free Unlovable by Sherry Gammon

the park after the stakeout…”
    “ I know, kid, I know. Look,
you had better get to the school. I’ll talk with the team and head
over to the crime scene, see if I can find anything.”
    “ I’m going with you.” I
said, burning my throat as I downed the last of my hot
chocolate.
    “ Seth, you’ll be late for
sc–”
    “ I’m not going! This murder
is part of the assignment too!”
    “ Maybe. This could be some
random killer. We don’t know for sure if he’s part of the drug
investigation.”
    “ So why are you following up
on it? Why aren’t you letting the local cops handle this?” I had
him there, and he knew it.
    “ Okay, fine,” he said,
slipping the disk into his pocket. “Once this murder hits the
school, there’s going to be lots of talk. I want you and the team
all ears for the rest of the day.”
    “ If we finish this before school ends, I’ll go. The other three
agents can keep their ears open.”
    “ Seth, don’t you think
Maggie is going to need someone to lean on when she hears about
this?”
    I hadn’t thought about how she was
going to react. She was probably going to take it hard. “Let’s get
going so I can make it back in time for class.” I jumped up,
snagged my jacket from the top of the filing cabinet and rushed for
the door.
    “ I suppose when we’re done
I’ll have to write a note for the principal explaining why little
Sethy was late for school today,” Booker said, to which I gave him
an elbow to the ribs.
    “ Oof!” He laughed, rubbing
the spot.
    I was the first one out of the car and
was taken aback by the size of the crime scene. Tammy Byrne must
have put up a good fight. Booker checked in with the lead detective
on the case.
    “ Detective Michaels,” he
said, greeting him with a handshake. My palms were sweaty so I
nodded to him instead. “I read your preliminary report. Have you
learned anything new?”
    “ Only that the victim wasn’t
raped,” Michaels said, showing Booker the preliminary autopsy. “Her
face wasn’t touched, but her body was a mess. They weren’t random
cuttings either, Captain. This guy knows his way around
anatomy.”
    “ Like a doctor, maybe?” I
asked, though I couldn’t imagine someone who’d spent years in
medical school throwing it all away to be a murderer.
    “ Not necessarily. My old man
was a farmer, and we butchered our own cows, chickens too, for that
matter. These cuttings were precise, but crude, not skillful like a
surgeon’s. Maybe the perpetrator’s a farmer, or a
butcher.”
    “ Good call. I’ll run a check
and see if there are any local farmers or butchers with a violent
record,” Booker said. “Let me know if any new leads turn up. We’re
going to look around.”
    We passed under the yellow police tape
and began searching the area, finding nothing new. I couldn’t
believe the amount of blood there was everywhere, and I prayed the
slime ball had cut the poor victim up postmortem, otherwise, Ms.
Byrne suffered tremendously.
    I tried to keep Maggie out of my
thoughts, but it was tough. It could very easily have been her
blood we were sifting through. She could have been the
one–
    “ Hey, sit down before you
pass out.” Booker took my arm, steering me over to a couple of
dented trashcans.
    “ I know you want to be here,
Seth, but I think you should head over to the school. I don’t need
you fainting onto potential evidence.” I nodded weakly.
    Wiping my damp hands off onto my
jeans, Booker arranged for a patrol car to take me back to the
station for my car. He was right. I was useless here. I needed to
be at the school, I needed to see Maggie.

5
     
    Maggie
     
     
    Stepping out of the shower, I gasped
at my naked reflection in the glass door. The bathroom scale
confirmed my fears; my body had whittled down to 90 pounds. My body
resembled a boy’s far more than it resembled a girl’s. The bones
between my breasts protruded out so effortlessly you could easily
count each rib. It was no wonder