Free Valley of the Lost by Vicki Delany Page A

Seattle Police’s homicide section, her long awaited dream, only one day before the Allenhart killing.
    A murder in the kitchen of one of the biggest estates in the Pacific Northwest. And after two months of an intense investigation Detective Rachel Ferguson had nothing to show.
    She stood up with a sigh, tugged at the bottom of her suit jacket to straighten the hem, and glanced at her watch. With luck the reaming out, the demands that she and her team do something , wouldn’t take too long and she’d be able to get to dinner on time.
    But the nap was probably a lost cause.
    ***
    Molly Smith left the Lizard Lounge through the door onto the alley. Thin lights from the back of the bar and the nearest intersection showed her a woman pressed up against the wall. Her shirt was shoved up around her throat, her shorts were in a puddle on the ground, and her legs were wrapped around the grunting man holding her up.
    “Take it inside,” Smith said.
    The woman screamed. The man dropped her.
    “Fuck,” he said.
    “Not here,” Smith said. “You have one minute to be out of my sight or I’m taking you in. Public indecency, we call it. Might even make tomorrow’s papers.”
    The woman scooped her pants up, but her partner was already disappearing into the night, zipping his fly as he ran.
    “That is not a gentleman,” Smith said.
    The woman was young, too young to be allowed into the bars. Her hair was long and straight, and her pants barely reached her pelvic bones. She pulled her T-shirt down over breasts not yet completely developed.
    “Dyke,” she said to Smith.
    “Go home, Lorraine. Please. You don’t need this. Why don’t you go to the support center tomorrow? You know my mom works there sometimes. You can talk to her.”
    “I do that, I’ll turn into a dyke cop. Screw you, Molly.”
    Smith watched as Lorraine walked up the alley, wiggling her hips as she struggled to fasten the zipper on her shorts. She wasn’t a hooker, just a lost girl whose neighbors were always calling the cops to come break up the battle raging in her kitchen. She was looking for a man to love her.
    Smith wanted to spit.
    Instead she kept walking. The rest of the alley was quiet. Something rustled in the hedges on one side. A cat mewed softly and she caught a flash of yellow eyes.
    She passed behind Rosemary’s Campfire Kitchen, the store next to her parents’ place, and Wolf River Books. She crossed Elm Street. The scent of the day’s baking still lingered in the air from Alphonse’s bakery. Ahead of her, she could hear laughter coming from Feuilles de Menthe , the new, expensive, highly fashionable restaurant.
    The sun was setting and the light over the back door of the restaurant was weak.
    A black shape lay in the alley. At first she thought it was a garbage bag. Then it cried out. She ran forward. It was a man, small and slight. He’d wrapped himself into a tight ball. He gripped his stomach, and moaned. She dropped to her haunches beside him and shouted into the radio at her shoulder asking for an ambulance. The scent of ripe vomit overpowered that of bread and garlic. “Hold on, buddy. Help’s on the way.”
    Round white eyes stared up at her. “No,” he whispered. “Fine.”
    “I can see that. But let’s get a second opinion, okay?”
    “No,” he said, as he passed out.
    She heard the siren of the ambulance and jumped to her feet to guide them down the alley.
    Then she saw it. A needle, lying in the gravel beside his arm.

Chapter Eight
    John Winters heard it over the chatter of the busy restaurant, the clink of good stemware, the pouring of wine, loud laughter, and the meaningless conversation of his dinner companions.
    As planned, he’d joined Eliza and her group around nine, full of apologies for his tardiness. They’d been there an hour, but the appetizers were only just arriving. Wine glasses, he suspected, had been refilled more than once. Eliza smiled her secret sexy smile as she caught sight of him making his