Free Two Graves (A Kesle City Homicide Novel) by D.A. Graystone

tortured years flooded back. The fear changed to anger. Anger became rage, rage for those wasted years. Rage for the happiness twisted into agony. Over twenty-five years later, he still felt the burning rage. Now it was a rage that could kill.
    And now, he could make them pay. He had killed. He can kill, can’t he? He can make them pay. Just like Sandra had paid.
    But it wasn’t Sandra, was it?
    Sandra’s picture was on the fourth page. He studied the picture carefully. He was sure it had been Sandra.
    Looks just like her, doesn’t it?
    Yes, everything is the same.
    What year is it, genius?
    What does that have to do with anything? It is… Oh!
    Ya, Oh! So who’s the dumb one now?
    Of course. She would be older now. He flipped back to his band picture and studied the changes. He was still himself but there were more changes than similarities. Even heavier, more lines, saggy and tighter all at the same time.
    No, that hadn’t been Sandra in the bar. It looked like her but Sandra would be older now. That woman wasn’t Sandra.
    That doesn’t really matter, does it?
    She had been laughing at me just like Sandra.
    That’s right. They’re all the same, aren’t they?
    It might not have been Sandra but she was just as bad. They all had that same look. It was the look. He’d just forgotten to account for age.
    The milk carton caught his attention. How long had it been since he saw those missing children’s pictures on milk cartons? You never saw them anymore, did you? A whole generation of kids had gone missing since they stopped putting pictures on milk cartons. Not that it mattered; it was the technology that he needed!

Chapter 13

    As Mann reached the hospital room, he could hear Davis’ stern voice all the more dangerous for the low tones. He eased through the open door but Davis didn’t even notice him.
    Davis towered over the smaller man in the hospital bed. Mann had to look twice at the kid lying in the bed before he recognized Davis’ nephew, Cliff Degget. He remembered Cliff as a fresh faced recruit in the police academy before he quit in some quiet scandal three years ago. Instead of the clean-shaven young man, Cliff had longish hair in half-assed dread locks. A scar now marred the right side of his face, running from below his eye to his jaw, making the scruffy beard Cliff now wore almost non-existent in a straight line on his right cheek.
    “All I’m saying is, you could have trusted your family. You know what your Aunt has gone through the past three years?” Davis said.
    “My trainers all drilled it into me, stay with my story all the time, mon. If I was going to be successful I had to be the guy they created for me,” Cliff answered.
    “And what the hell is with the Jamaican accent?”
    “Sorry. I’ve been speaking that way for the past three years,” Cliff said, obviously struggling to keep the accent out of his voice. “My trainers beat it into me. ‘You live your legend or you don’t live’ is what they always said.”
    Mann coughed from the doorway and both Degget and Davis looked over at him.
    “Uh, hi Cliff,” Mann said. “Don’t know if you remember me.”
    “Hi Lieutenant. Sure I remember you. How’s it going? It’s been a while.”
    Mann scanned for tubes. “You OK, kid?”
    “Ya, sure. I just wrenched my back when I fell out a window.”
    “Don’t change the subject,” Davis interrupted before Mann could respond. “Who were these trainers? It sure as hell wasn’t the Academy. I never believed that you cheated on that test. Breaking into the instructor’s office the night before a test?”
    “Of course, I didn’t cheat on any test. This is all your fault, Uncle. This hasn’t exactly been easy on me, you know. You and Auntie practically raised me. Because of you, I knew all the statutes while I was still in High School. Thanks to you, I was a better shot than most of my instructors. That’s how they picked me for this. They washed me out and finished my training in