Free Dead Center (The Rookie Club Book 1) by Danielle Girard Page A

Hailey could come to that conclusion on her own.
    "That's a hell of a risk, Jamie." Jamie didn't answer. "He's lucky you care so much about him."
    Jamie met her gaze. "I don't care about him. I trusted him to come forward."
    Hailey nodded. "It would have been better if he'd done it before he cleaned up."
    Silent, Jamie turned to leave. Her surveillance on Marchek was due to expire in a few hours, and she had no evidence to keep watching him. She knew better than to think she was going to get any attention on Emily Osbourne's case now.
    Even dead, Natasha Devlin would steal the fucking limelight.

 
     
     
    Chapter 10

     
    Crouched inside his shed, Zephenaya watched the lady through the window. When she sat on the bed, he picked up the jagged rock that he kept tucked in the small space under the cabinet. It was a good night tonight. His stomach wasn't growling and it wasn't cold like some of them. He held the rock tight in his fist and made a notch in the wood. Same as every night. He'd been watching her for thirty-nine plus ten days.
    When he got to thirty-nine, he started at one again because he couldn't remember what came after thirty-nine. He knew he used to know that number, but he'd forgotten it. He kept trying to remember, playing little games with himself. Like trying to count on his fingers to distract himself from the numbers or counting super fast, hoping the next number would spring into his head. So far no luck.
    Sometimes he doubted that he ever knew what came after thirty-nine. He'd only been in school 'til kindergarten. He had a few weeks of first grade, but it didn't seem much different than kindergarten. Then his father lost his job and they'd had to move. After that, he remembered three different houses, but maybe there were more. He'd never really gone to school in those places. Oh, they made him show up a few days. But he sat in the back and didn't listen. Now he wished he had. He could have used some more counting. His sister could count higher and she would have told him, but she wasn't there. He didn't know where she was. There was a man who told him she was dead, that she took drugs, but Zephenaya didn't believe it. That man was wearing a police uniform but he was a liar. No way Shawna would leave him.
    That's why he came here. This lady was friend's with his sister. She came to the house after Shawna's accident. Called her and stuff. She gave Shawna her home address and phone number, wrote it right down for Shawna. His sister kept that piece of paper from the lady in her top drawer. His sister's top drawer was filled with stuff like that. Notes from some of her boyfriends. Pictures like the one of him as a baby and the one of Shawna and their mother when Shawna was two or three. Her first driver's license and the certificate saying she passed her police exam. That top drawer was where she kept the things that she cared about.
    When they told him Shawna died, he got that piece of paper and came here. Found his way, to tell the truth. Took him a couple days. Someday, he was going to talk to her. Gather up the nerve to ask her about Shawna. But not yet. He kept waiting for her to be hanging around the yard or something, but she never did. And when she came home, she didn't look too happy, so he kept waiting.
    All he had to do to pass the time was watch the lady. The yard didn't have no swing set or sandbox like some of the ones around hers, but having no toys was nothing new to him. Where he came from, there weren't playgrounds or nothing. Not close by, anyway. He took pride in making fun with what he could find. Sometimes he made cool patterns from rocks or threw pebbles at a tree, counting how many times he could hit one place on it. He was getting better with that one. But then, when the lady came home, he watched her. It wasn't like he was trying to. He knew that wasn't polite, but he couldn't help it. He had to wait until he could talk to her, and the lady didn't have blinds inside her house or