Rite of Wrongs Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 Mica Stone

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503935570

  ISBN-10: 1503935574

  Cover design by Cyanotype Book Architects

  To my hero,

  Frisco, Texas, Police Detective Leah Apple, recipient of the Star of Texas Award for Peace Officers Seriously Injured in the Line of Duty.

  I love you, sis.

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  PART TWO

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  PART THREE

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  FIFTY-FOUR

  FIFTY-FIVE

  FIFTY-SIX

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  FIFTY-NINE

  SIXTY

  SIXTY-ONE

  SIXTY-TWO

  SIXTY-THREE

  SIXTY-FOUR

  SIXTY-FIVE

  SIXTY-SIX

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  SIXTY-NINE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PART ONE

  ONE

  Monday, 10:00 a.m.

  Linoleum worked better as an artist’s palette than carpet or hardwood or tile. That discovery came after three trial runs. Practice had made perfect for his first human killing, and nobody near the old place really missed the yapping dogs.

  He couldn’t imagine anyone missing the neighborhood, either, if they were as lucky as the dogs to get out. Shit-hole of a place to grow up in. Shit-hole of a place to raise kids.

  First time he’d tried painting, strands of the bedroom’s braided throw rug had gotten caught in his bristles, creating dirty strokes instead of clean, straight lines.

  The test message he’d painted with the Millers’ Chihuahua, Princess, had been a clumpy disaster, full of dirt and dust and the hair he’d picked up when he’d pressed his brush into what little blood she’d given. She was his one and only Chihuahua.

  Size did matter.

  Another lesson he was slow to learn.

  Crevices between the bathroom’s dirt-crusted tiles had swallowed the fluid before he’d finished his work the second time, and the Bensens’ pug, George Orwell, dried up too fast. The hallway’s hardwood was just as thirsty, and the Harts’ rat terrier, Rambo, had been too small for more than a few words when he had so much to say.

  Stupid of him not to remember the size thing.

  The neighbors had gone on high alert the day he’d figured out the flooring issue. A waste of their time since he was done with their pets. Unfortunately, few houses still used rolled linoleum. He should’ve thought of that before starting, but as smart as he knew he was, he’d never been the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree.

  He knew that, too.

  He’d been told so his whole life, and he’d heard all the jokes: not playing with a full deck, one sandwich short of a picnic, dumber than a box of rocks. It would’ve been nice to have friends in his corner, but he was okay with who he was, and if it made people feel better about themselves to tease him, well, he had them all on his prayer list.

  Teasing was one thing.

  Dishonor was another. Disrespect. Disobedience. Discourtesy. Disregard.

  Knowing this was the Lord’s work made it easier to do what he had to. And if along the way he took a wrong step, or sinned, forgiveness was his for the asking.

  Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. Exodus 20:12.

  He wasn’t sure he could paint it all. Gina Gardner’s house had Italian marble in the entryway. In the end, he’d used a tarp to catch her blood, not knowing what type of flooring he’d find. All he was going to need were six words of the verse. Her days weren’t going to be long upon any land. Neither were the days of the others.

  The brush he’d chosen would make it easy. It hadn’t been cheap, and he’d had to settle, but gray squirrel just wasn’t in his price range. This one was flat, made of ox hair dyed to look like red sable, and was close to being two inches square.

  It was also designed specifically for lettering.

  Honor. He dipped the brush’s tip in the pool of her blood next to her waist, where he wouldn’t risk contamination by her tears or saliva, and stepped over her body to the foyer wall he’d cleared of her family photos.

  He was surprised she’d had children, three of them, even. They’d be better off this way, left to their father, though who knew what sort of fool had bred with her. She’d never shown anything resembling compassion.

  Honor thy. He dipped his brush again, noticing the gray roots at her temple. Her hair had grazed her waist when he’d known her and was always hanging in her face. Hippie hair crowned with rings of flowers. It had smelled of flowers, too. So had her skin. Roses and magnolias and lilies. Scents strong enough to make him sneeze.

  Wide-legged jeans and airy peasant blouses and the Eagles on the eight-track, singing, “One of These Nights.” Patchouli had wafted on the air through her bedroom, and she’d hung posters of mustached rock stars baring their hairy chests from their throats to their navels. They’d promised with their eyes to show her the way to heaven.

  Honor thy father. He dipped his brush once more, thinking thy a strange word and too much like thigh. Hers were toned, her legs long, spread where she’d fallen. Tight knee-length shorts—once pink, now spotted red—clung to her skin, which was spotted, too. Paint dripped from his brush, and he stood, taking in the edge of her socks in her pink-leather shoes.

  Her sports bra was also pink, as were her nipples beneath. He’d looked out of curiosity, not lust. Nothing about her stirred him anymore. He wondered how much she’d changed since she’d stripped in front of him—a joint, its tip glowing, caught between her lips—and asked him if he knew where heaven was.

  She hadn’t even honored herself.

  He supposed he should’ve given her time to
confess her sins before drawing the blade across her throat, but she’d made too many lives hell on earth for that sort of dispensation.

  Besides, he wasn’t a priest.

  She was never good for anything but slutting. And she ruined everything for everyone.

  That was the part he had to remember. There was too much at stake to let things go wrong. He had to be careful. He had to do it right.

  Honor thy father and thy mother. There. The first sacrifice. Done. He’d played the part of executioner, all on his own. And in the process, turned out to be a damn fine artist.

  Even if he was the only one who’d ever know.

  TWO

  Monday, 12:15 p.m.

  “Decaf, triple, Venti, soy, no-foam latte. Add two Sweet’N Low packets. And I’ll take a blueberry muffin. All of it to go.”

  Because, Miriam Rome mused, from her spot in line behind the customer placing the high-maintenance order, chemical sweetener and genetically modified milk replacement canceled out the muffin’s refined sugar and saturated fat.

  She took a deep breath, inhaling the aroma of fresh-brewed espresso, of creamy warm milk, and breakfast pastries . . . cinnamon and sugar and sweet, sweet fruit. The indie jazz softly piped through the speakers should have soothed her, as should have the inviting club chairs in earth tones, the minimalist fixtures in brass.

  But she wasn’t soothed. It was the last blueberry muffin. And that made it the muffin she was having for lunch. This was her day-off routine: yoga, Starbucks, a book to take her away. She’d finished the first, had come for the second, and had her Kindle in her leather crossbody bag ready to complete the threesome.

  She gave Vikram, the barista, a look.

  Worried frown. Worried pout. Desperate. Nearly pleading.

  He tightened the press of his lips and repeated to the woman in front of her, “Decaf, triple, Venti, soy, no-foam latte with two Sweet’N Lows.” Marking her cup with her order, he stepped from the register to the pastry case, picked up the muffin, then returned it to the shelf with a shake of his head. “How about a slice of banana-nut bread? Or a morning bun? Half the bottom’s fallen off the muffin.”

  The woman shook her head, her white-blonde extensions catching in the ruffled collar of her blouse and showing off her mud-colored roots. “Just charge me half price, then.”

  This time Vikram tossed the muffin beneath the counter. Miriam cringed, imagining coffee grounds and napkins damp with spilled cream, but trusting the barista with her life. Or at least with her day off. “Best I can do is discount the latte.”

  “Fine. I’ll have a . . . cheese danish.”

  “Good choice.” He picked through the selection, settling on the largest, ooziest one glistening with the most glaze. “That’ll be five twenty-eight.”

  The woman ran her card through the reader, then picked up the brown bag and pinched off a bite of the danish. Miriam’s stomach rumbled. Her impatience was wearing thin. A day off was supposed to be free of annoyances. Or she, at least, able to deal with them.

  Especially after yoga.

  Maybe it was time to switch gears, leave crimes against persons for property. Go home at the end of the day and close her eyes to pictures of smashed windows instead of smashed faces. Missing car stereos instead of missing front teeth.

  That was the thing about electronics and glass. No blood.

  By the time the woman hooked the strap of her Coach knockoff over her shoulder and turned to go, Miriam’s mouth was watering, and Vikram had stopped suppressing his deeply dimpled grin. “Large brew with room for cream,” she told him. “And I don’t care if the muffin’s in pieces by now. Just tell me it’s not in the trash.”

  “Detective Rome.” Vik bagged the completely intact muffin and keyed in her coffee order. “How was yoga this morning?”

  Miriam glanced down at the oversize T-shirt covering her sports bra and yoga pants, and hanging to midthigh. The cotton sagged with the weight of her sweat, much, she imagined, like the ponytail dripping down her nape. “Good enough that I feel no guilt over my consumption of refined sugar or saturated fat.”

  She had plenty of guilt. Just not over what she ate.

  “I keep expecting you to order vegan. Seems more in line with the yoga thing.” Vik’s dark eyes sparkled, his thick lashes sweeping down, then up. Dang, but the boy was cute.

  “Not a chance,” she said. The yoga wasn’t about her mind or her spirit. It was an effort to counter stakeouts spent with bacon cheeseburgers and stress.

  Handing her the coffee, he nodded toward her chest. Or really her T-shirt’s design. She stepped to the condiment bar to add sugar and cream to the cup. “I’ve never understood about the cat being dead or alive.”

  Le chat dans la boitê. Dr. Erwin Schrödinger. “Walk a mile in my Kevlar, and I think you’ll get it,” was all she got out before her cell buzzed with Dispatch’s tone.

  She read the text as she reseated the cup’s lid, grabbed her bagged muffin, and headed for the door. She dialed the officer on scene as she walked, calling back, “Thanks, Vik,” on her way out, then, “Detective Rome,” when the patrol sergeant answered.

  “Sorry to ruin your day off, Detective. We’ve got a suspicious death. Female.” He gave her the address in an upscale subdivision nearby. “No forced entry. No one else on scene. Husband discovered the body and called it in.”

  She was eight minutes from her house, twenty from the station. Before hitting the bank, the post office, the pharmacy, and the eleven o’clock yoga class, she’d dropped off the extra outfit she kept in her SUV for the cleaner’s in-by-nine-out-by-five service. Even if Thierry had been home to meet her halfway with a change of clothes, she’d be delayed. It was either waste time going home or work the scene dressed as she was.

  “Be there in five,” she said, tossing the muffin to the passenger seat with her crossbody and gulping down enough coffee to fuel her for the drive. Then realizing with a choking laugh as she swallowed that she hadn’t paid her bill.

  She’d definitely make it up to Vikram later.

  THREE

  Monday, 12:30 p.m.

  In reality, ten minutes passed before Miriam arrived on scene.

  She guided the Nissan Juke she’d bought last year—in Red Alert, the perfect cop color—to the curb on Pennywise Lane, and though her surroundings whispered of peace, quiet, and privilege, she braced for the worst.

  It was a habit, bracing.

  After ten years spent working crimes against persons, aka CAPERS, with the Criminal Investigations Division of the Union Park, Texas, Police Department, she’d learned face value meant very little. Even if the face value of Union Park had lured her to suburbia after four years with the Houston PD.

  Houston had been her first department out of the academy. She’d grown up in the city. She loved the city. Her parents and siblings still called it home.

  Houston was gorgeous and ugly. Slick and sleazy. Progressive and brutal and dark. Big cities showcased the best and worst of humanity. They had the numbers to do so.

  Houston, with a population just shy of two-and-a-quarter million. Fewer than thirty officers for every ten thousand residents. An untold number of crimes waiting to happen. Overworked responders hoping to get it right.

  But Union Park . . . the city was the stuff of billboards. The lush green lawns! The exemplary schools! The hybrid SUVs and designer dogs and orthodontics!

  Unfortunately, her time in Union Park had taught her that the degenerates in the suburbs were just as sick as those living the urban life. Sometimes more so.

  It was early May, and by Texas Gulf Coast standards, it was already summer, though the official calendar date loomed six weeks away. Even without the morning workout, or the very hot coffee, she would’ve sweated through her clothing by now from the humidity alone. She spent most of her work hours sweating.

  Not exactly the lifestyle her psychology degree had prepared her for.

  Her GPS directed her to a two-story colonial in the posh
Copper Acres. The lawn was sculpted within an inch of its life, and as green as a leprechaun hawking marshmallow clover. Oak branches, the trees planted at the curb on either side of the street, met in the middle to create a canopy, the roots making a mess of the communal sidewalks.

  She pulled into the last five feet of the driveway, parking half in and half out of the street, and was just exiting her SUV when her phone rang. Acorns cracked beneath her soles like tiny firecracker shots as she walked. Since dead bodies were the easiest victims to keep from going anywhere, she glanced at the caller ID and accepted the call.

  “Mom, sorry,” she said, as she answered. “I’m going to be late.” If I get there at all . . .

  There was quite the crowd in front of the house. Three patrol cars, as well as the van belonging to the scene technicians, not to mention the vehicles parked in front of hers in the homeowners’ driveway. Five bicycles sat racked inside the open garage door, two with pink-and-white streamers hanging from the handlebars. One with blue.

  Miriam sighed, tucking her traveler’s notebook close under one arm. She was surprised the local news crews weren’t already here and broadcasting. Another ten, and they would be. Especially with the crime-scene tape snapping taut between the property’s trees.

  “Late?” Her mother’s groan was exasperated. “I told you days ago what time to be here.”

  Miriam pictured the older woman in the outfit she’d said she’d be wearing so they wouldn’t clash: skinny white jeans beneath a peacock-blue tunic, chunky jewelry circling her wrists and neck, a cloud of Burberry rising around her cloud of strawberry-blonde hair, flats in the same multicolors as the bracelets.

  Yeah. Sweaty yoga clothes in black, orange, and yellow, hair a sweaty cocoa-brown tail. Miriam’s eau de sweat was clean at least. No jewelry, save for her Timex. No chance of clashing. “I know. I know. But it can’t be helped. The office is short-staffed today, what with sick leave and vacations and training classes.”

  Evelyn Rome sniffed. “Little Lori will be devastated if her favorite auntie misses her birthday party.”

  Little Lori was turning two. She didn’t know for devastated. And Miriam was her only true aunt, ergo, her favorite. “It’s work, Mom. It can’t be helped.”