Free Nocturnal by Scott Sigler Page A

shadow.
    Tears streamed down Rex’s cheeks, down his chin, washing through the blood that smeared his face. It
hurt
so bad. His arm … it
bent
where it wasn’t supposed to bend.
    Alex put his foot on Rex’s stomach.
    “Tell anyone about this and you’re dead,” Alex said. “I know a hundred places to hide a body in this city. You got me, you little faggot?”
    Overwhelmed with pain, humiliation and helplessness, Rex just cried. No one was coming to help him. No one ever would.
    He wanted to hurt them.
    He wanted to
kill
them.
    A size fourteen boot kicked him hard in the ribs.
    “I said, do you get me, Rex?”
    Thoughts of hatred and revenge vanished, replaced by the more-powerful and ever-present fear.
    “Yeah!” Rex screamed, a mist of blood and tears flying off his lips. “Yeah, I hear you!”
    Alex lifted his big boot. Rex had time to close his eyes before the heel hit him in the face.

Chief Zou’s Office
    W hen Bryan and Pookie entered the chief’s office, four people were already there. Chief Zou sat behind her desk, her blue uniform free of the slightest hint of a wrinkle. Assistant Chief Sean Robertson stood a little behind her and a little to her left. To the right of the desk, in chairs against the wall, sat Jesse Sharrow, the Homicide division captain, and Assistant DA Jennifer Wills. Sharrow’s perfectly pressed blues were a dark contrast to his bushy white eyebrows and slicked-back white hair. Wills had her legs crossed, making her skirt look even shorter than it was. A black pump dangled provocatively from an extended toe.
    Zou wasn’t much for decoration. A big, dark-wood desk dominated the room. Commendations hung on the walls, as did several framed pictures of Chief Zou shaking hands with various police officers and elected officials. Two of those pictures showed her with governors of California, both the current and the former. The room’s largest photo showed Zou shaking hands with a smiling Jason Collins, San Francisco’s heartthrob of a mayor. Behind Zou’s chair, on angled wooden poles, hung the U.S. flag and the dark-blue Governor’s Flag of California.
    Her desktop looked larger than it was because there was almost nothing on it other than a three-panel picture frame — a panel for each of her twin daughters and one for her husband — and a closed manila folder.
    It wasn’t the first time Bryan had been in here, staring at a folder just like that one. Zou’s office felt more ominous than he remembered, the air thick with an oppressive potential of career destruction. Maybe he was justified in the shooting of Carlos Smith — now they knew the would-be shotgun assassin’s name — but justified or not, fourteen years as a cop hung in the balance.
    Chief Zou gestured to two chairs in front of her desk.
    “Inspector Clauser, Inspector Chang, have a seat, please.”
    Bryan walked to the chair on the right, his eyes never straying from the manila folder. Its edges perfectly paralleled the edges of the desk. It couldn’t have been more dead-center if Zou had used a tape measure.
    Bryan sat. So did Pookie.
    Waves of nausea bubbled in Bryan’s stomach. He would have to stay focused. His whole body throbbed, but he could deal with that — whathe couldn’t deal with was losing his breakfast in the office of the chief of police.
    Robertson nodded at Pookie, then gave Bryan a small smile. Was that a good thing?
    Amy Zou had held the chief position for twelve years, an infinite tenure by San Francisco standards. While many,
many
in-house seminars had taught Bryan the evils of reacting to a woman’s looks, he couldn’t deny that Zou was quite attractive. By the numbers, anyway — despite being in her late fifties, Pookie said that Zou would have been officially “MILF-a-licious” if she ever learned how to smile.
    She picked up the folder, opened it for a second, then put it down again and straightened it, making sure it was perfectly centered. She already knew the results,