Angel Fire - Lisa Unger [15]
Lydia was on hold, and she could almost see Simon Morrow rubbing his sweating middle-aged balding head unconsciously as he sat in front of his phone, trying to decide whether or not to take her call.
“Ms. Strong, how can I help you?”
“Chief Morrow, it’s good to hear your voice,” she said with mock cordiality. “Really.”
“How long have you been in town?”
“Long enough to pick up on a few things.”
“Such as?”
“I was wondering about Lucky.”
“Lucky?”
“Yeah, the dog that was found mutilated at the Church of the Holy Name. You might remember, Lucky was missing a few vital organs when he turned up.”
“Sad story. What about it?”
“Is there an ongoing investigation?”
Morrow paused for what she assumed was his attempt at dramatic effect. “Ms. Strong, you are aware that the mutilation and death of a dog, while tragic, does not warrant a murder investigation.”
On the other end of the line, Lydia was practically salivating. She was tapping her pen rapidly against the pad on her desk. She could smell it. She could taste the blood in her mouth. “I am quite aware of that. I just thought, in connection with some of the other peculiar criminal activity in the area—for example, the surgical-supply warehouse or the missing-persons cases you have open—there might be some connections to be explored.”
“I see. Thank you for your input, Ms. Strong, but I fail to see how this concerns you.” He was, she knew, attempting to sound cold, intimidating, but there was an almost imperceptible quaver to his voice that told her he was hiding something.
“Just consider me an involved citizen.”
“With an overactive imagination.”
“That’s what you said the last time we spoke, Chief. Do I have to remind you how wrong you were?”
“There’s nothing here, Ms. Strong. Nothing at all.”
“Are there photos of the location where the dog was found?” she pressed.
“No.”
“Okay, we can play it this way if you want to,” she said, her voice level and soft, “but we’ll be talking again soon. Sooner than you’d like, I bet.”
“I’ll look forward to it. Really.”
As Simon Morrow slammed down the phone he issued a string of expletives. Continuing to curse, he rose quickly, knocking over a cold, black cup of coffee.
He barely saved the photos of Lucky’s mutilated body that lay spread across his desk.
chapter six
Her run the night before had soothed Lydia’s restlessness, but only temporarily. But morning had turned to afternoon and the afternoon to early evening as Lydia had sat at her computer, and her focus was beginning to drift.
She began to think she would call Jeffrey and ask what he thought about the articles and their possible implications. But then she began to think of other things. Memories of her mother began to sear her, and her restlessness began to feel physically uncomfortable. She shut down the computer and got up to stretch. The house was silent and lonely. She had to get out.
She walked to her bedroom and entered the walk-in closet, started flipping through the rows of designer clothes that she collected with zeal.
When she let the impulse take her, it took her to extremes. Sometimes it would come on her hours or days before she acted upon it. Her conscious mind would push it away until it could no longer be ignored. Even now, as she pulled the sleeveless black Armani dress over her lean, tightly muscled body and slipped her slender feet into high-heeled Gucci black leather pumps, she barely acknowledged what she was about to do. She wrapped her lustrous blue-black hair into a loose French twist and held it in place with two red lacquer chopsticks. She applied no makeup to her pale skin except a deep-red shade of MAC lipstick, to accentuate her stormy gray eyes. It wasn’t that she didn’t take responsibility for herself and her actions. It was only that she had about