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AUTHOR’S NOTE

Hello, Constant Reader:

This book was originally released in 2016. Back then, I was eager to offer a second book to those who had read Maladaptation, the first in this series, and I pushed this book out perhaps a little earlier than it should have been released.

Since then, I’ve made a lot of changes. Most of those changes have little effect on the greater story, but all of them have made this book better. I fixed typos, corrected continuity issues, and made sure all the names were who they were supposed to be.

I also edited a scene in which someone with privilege equated the struggle of her ancestors with the current, real-world issues that face the black community in America and throughout the world. Whatever my original intent, to allow it to remain in the story would have been insensitive and in poor taste.

I hope that the changes I’ve made improve Harry’s story on the whole, and that you enjoy the series as it concludes in book 3, Eager Observer.

As the anniversary of this book’s publication draws near, I can’t help but think about the things going on in the world today. Communities are coming together to fight for their rights and the rights of others who cannot stand up to hate, fear, and living nightmares. I remember what it meant to me to have this story published. Like the first book, it was an act of bravery and rebellion.

We won’t be silenced. I won’t be silenced. They may not like our stories, but they don’t have to. They’re ours and they are important.

My best,

Adan Ramie

March 5, 2018

CHAPTER 1

Harry cut the lights at the edge of the lot, and eased the car into park behind the darkened office. A red dot screamed at her from the GPS in her partner’s hand. He mumbled something she couldn’t hear through the steady thump of blood in her head as he checked that his gun’s safety was off, then swiped at his forehead with his sleeve. Harry chambered a round, eyes on the red dot, as his words finally registered in her head.

“He owes me a favor,” she said. “We have the element of surprise on our side...”

Cal puffed out a hard breath and tapped his weapon on his knee. “Yeah, but we don’t know who we’re going to find.”

Harry waved his words out of the air and let her eyes sweep the dark lot for any sign of the people they were looking for. “All we know is that the phone is in one of these buildings, and we have to find it to find her.”

She checked one last time to make sure the dome light in the car was switched to OFF, then signaled him with her gun. They opened their doors at the same time, slid out, and let the doors fall nearly closed with a nearly simultaneous double click. Cal crunched toward her through the rocks with a grimace as she surveyed the scene.

“Does this feel really screwed up to you?”

He leaned in until their heads almost touched. “Something is going down here tonight... You take this side, I’ll take the other.” She heard a round click into place. “Anything funny -”

“And we blow the scumbag away,” she answered. “Happy hunting.”

As they made their way through the lot, guns at the ready, Harry’s mind flashed images through her head. Two women and two men were missing, and she knew they weren’t on a couples’ party cruise. Before Harry and Cal had a chance to lose sight of each other, a scream ripped through the silence. They split and started running toward the sound.

“Police! Let me see your hands!” she yelled as two figures came into her line of sight. The larger straddled the smaller, hands at the throat, in a position that could only mean death for the weaker. She drew closer. The man raised one fist and brought it down in a crushing blow across the face of the woman pinned beneath him. Harry squeezed the trigger, and the man let out a bellow as he fell out of his power position.

Cal rounded the other corner of the building, and ran full tilt toward them; he tackled the injured man, twisted his arms behind his back, and slapped cuffs on him while the suspect howled in pain.

Harry rushed to the naked woman, tore off her own shirt, and covered her bleeding, traumatized body. “Ma’am, you’re going to be all right.” She pulled her phone from her pocket, hit the GPS, and dialed 9-1-1.

Cal wrestled with the man as Harry spoke to the emergency operator and cradled the barely recognizable woman in her arms. When the shot rang out, Harry’s whole body seized, waiting for the pain to set in, but it never did.

“NO!” screamed the woman, and tried to push herself away from Harry, as Harry turned in time to see another woman fall to the ground.

Everything went deadly silent in Harry’s head. Their mouths moved, but she couldn’t hear anything. She watched Cal stretch out and feel for a pulse, then shake his head; she could feel the woman in her arms struggling to get free, clawing at her to gain some purchase in a world that had caused her so much grief and put her through such torment.

Harry zeroed in on the face of the dead woman. Her mouth had been contorted in a snarl as she went down; the bullet had ripped a hole through her chest, and her death had been almost instant. As Harry met those glassy, dead eyes, everything else faded away until she was left alone in a dark hole, playing a staring game with a corpse that was starting to bloat. A maggot crawled from the woman’s mouth and fell into nothingness.

Harry tried to swallow, or turn away in disgust, but her body was fixed as if she had been mounted by a taxidermist. The familiar itchy, crawling feeling bubbled in her stomach, and she knew instinctively that the maggots were inside her. The corpse pushed up with both hands onto its knees, and her bloody, swollen face turned slowly on her neck to regard Harry.

“Where’s my justice?” she asked, her voice like the sound of a thousand whispers of a howling wind. She crawled to her feet, and her arms and legs lengthened, her hair lightened, and the blood ran from the cold, dead body into the darkness at her feet. The missing woman was gone, and in her place was a ghost that Harry hadn’t seen, even in dreams, in fifteen years.

Harry pulled with all her strength, but her body was nothing but dead weight, and she sat rooted to the spot as the woman trudged on limbs swollen to the point that the skin split with each step. Harry tried to scream, but the dead mouth opened instead and released a plague of beetles that washed over her like a black tide and pulled her into an open grave.

––––––––

Harry groaned as the room lit up with the flashing face of her phone and dragged her from the misery of another nightmare. The shrill ring sounded like the old rotary phone her grandparents had refused to give up so long ago. She rolled over, grabbed it, and mashed the button to accept the call. It took her a few moments to focus. It was still dark outside the windows; the lights of the city twinkled back at her. Only a few people dared call her this late, or early, and most would only do it if they were in trouble.

"Hello?" she rasped. "Who is this?"

"Did I wake you?"

The voice startled her awake, and she glanced over at the empty space in the bed beside her. "When did you leave?"

"Last night, after we fell asleep. I woke up and didn't want to bother you, so I decided to come home and get some work done." Harry could hear the clacking of keys being struck in the background as CSS Klaudia “Busy” Biznicki worked. The young crime scene specialist was fast, probably the fastest typist Harry had ever met, and a genius with an internet connection. Harry could hear the teasing in her voice, and it brought a smile to her face. "Aren't you ever going to get up?"

"For what?" Harry asked, and dropped back down onto her pillow. She pulled the sheet back up to cover her chilly skin, and felt around on the bedside table clumsily. "I don't have a job anymore, remember?"

She could picture Busy rolling her eyes. She had done it the same way every time Harry had mentioned her lack of a badge in the past month.

"You're being a big baby," Busy told her. Clack-clack-clack. Harry marveled at how she could work on one thing and talk on the phone about something entirely different at the same time. She often teased Busy that the two halves of her brain didn't connect, and Busy took it as a compliment.

Harry flicked the top off her Zippo and lit a cigarette. It had been nearly a year since she quit when the captain had taken her badge. Months of self-control, self-denial, and self-torture—and she had started smoking again almost as soon as the Barsten case was over. It just wasn't worth it.

"Are you going to go out of the house today?" Busy asked.

"I may."

Busy snorted. "Are you going to get dressed today?"

Harry grinned and licked her lips. "I don't know. Are you coming back over?"

"Down girl." Harry heard the tell-tale sound of a printer as it loaded paper and spit it out. "I have to work."

"Must be nice," Harry mumbled. She took a long drag off her cigarette and blew smoke rings into the gathering light in her apartment. In less than an hour, the sun would be up on another day without her badge. She really wanted to just dive back under the covers and go back to sleep. The milk steamer in Busy's little apartment whooshed to life, and Harry wondered how many lattes the young woman had drank already. Two, maybe, but more likely four. "Don't overdo it with the coffee, babe."

"Don't 'babe' me," Busy said, and Harry could hear the grin in her voice. "I think I can handle it. I'm a big girl."

"You drink too much coffee," Harry countered. "It's bad for your kidneys."

"And cigarettes are bad for your whole body," Busy shot back. The crackle told Harry that Busy had moved the phone from one side to another. Both of her hands were probably full mixing syrups into a heady, sweet-smelling concoction. The memory of peppermint whispered through her nostrils; Busy's favorite holiday drink had been her constant companion for the past two months. Harry would be sorry to see it go when spring hit.

"I know."

A comfortable silence fell between them, and Harry pondered what new flavor Busy would come up with when the little tendrils of green started to poke their heads out of the cold ground again. It wouldn't be long before the coats and hats came off, and people desperately reached for spring's warm temperatures with thin, but still long-sleeved, t-shirts and sneakers. Maybe Busy would choose chocolate, or switch to tea. Did they make sprinkle-dusted marshmallow cream for coffee drinks? Harry was partial to black and strong.

Her phone buzzed in her ear, and she pulled it away to check the incoming call. Speaking of black and strong, she thought, as the captain's face glared out at her from the phone. She put the phone back to her head. "Hey, babe, I need to go. Briggs is calling."

"Really?"

Harry made a face. "You don't have to sound so shocked. I'm a good cop."

"I know," Busy said. "I'm sorry. I just didn't expect her to call you so soon. Let me know how it goes."

"I will. Talk to you later," Harry said, and switched over. "Captain, what a nice surprise," she said. She stubbed out her cigarette, put the ash tray back on the night stand, and slid out of bed. The floor was cold on her bare feet as she padded over to the bathroom. "What can I do for you this morning?"

"I just wanted to let you know that you are scheduled to meet with police board in March. I've forwarded the e-mail to you on your personal account. Please let me know if you don't receive it."

The captain's voice was all business, as usual, but there was an undertone that Harry picked up on, but would never mention. Something very soft and very human. She almost sounded like a friend. Harry smiled.

"I'll check as soon as I get out of the shower," Harry told her.

"Good." A pause ticked by between them. Harry could tell it was more tense and uncomfortable from the captain's side. She wanted to say something comforting, something that said she wasn't angry with her, but with the system; she couldn't think of anything. "Thresher, I look forward to your being reinstated."

"I do, too. I'm ready to get back out there."

"Have a good day, Thresher."

"You, too, Cap."

The line went dead and Harry put her phone down on the counter. She stared into the mirror at the dark circles under her eyes, the stringy mess of her hair, and the smudge of cigarette ash near the line of her jaw. Busy was right. She hadn't been taking care of herself. Instead, she had been wallowing in her own misery.

The Barsten case had taken a chunk out of her life, and spread doubt over her every decision like a thick layer of molasses. She was flagging. Worried about what the police board would decide, she could think of little else but the imaginary meeting in her head that played in a loop like a bad movie. The gunshot, the look on Cal’s face, and the dawning realization that she was responsible for putting them in that situation to begin with... all of it combined to sap her self-confidence. All she had left was sex, and it wasn’t fair to Busy to keep her cooped up all the time.

Unemployment wasn't good for her. As she started the shower and waited for the old lines to pull hot from the heater in the basement, Harry decided she would go out today. Nothing had come from her reclusive withdrawal from society. It was time to get back out there.

Her phone buzzed, and she picked it up. She had two new e-mails. One was from the captain, a forward of information on her scheduled meeting with the Board of Police. The other was from an unknown sender. She clicked it open.

"Regina’s Flock would like to invite you to the 7th Annual Christmas Fundraiser! Come check out art and music created by at-risk youth in your area. Refreshments will be provided. Donations of any amount of money, goods, or time are accepted. Checks should be made out to..."

Harry stopped reading. When the Barsten case ended, she had meant to have herself taken off the shelter's mailing list. She had even let her finger hover over the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the e-mail a couple of times before, but didn't have the heart. Regina’s Flock was a dying breed; instead of trying to make a paycheck off street kids, the director, David Miller, was just keeping the lights on and the kids fed. Dry beds were always available for any kid with a need for it. Harry wished for something as decent long ago when she was a kid. She decided to go visit David at the shelter and see what she could do to help set up. A little good karma never hurt anyone.

CONTENTS