Hide (Detective Harriet Foster #1)
Tracy Clark
CHAPTER 1
Elyse Pratt hated Mondays on principle. She hated running on a Monday even more, but at thirty-eight she knew time was not on her side, and she was determined to stay in a size six if it killed her.
She jogged her way along the Riverwalk, heading east, sweaty, huffing, resigned. She’d win no marathon or speed record, but she was out here, she was doing it, and her reward would be gotten on the scale. One hundred and twelve solid pounds was her sweet spot, give or take a tofu salad.
She passed the City Winery and another unhappy jogger going the opposite direction. They exchanged a head nod and a slight smile. Ariana Grande wafted out of Elyse’s earbuds, the beat of the up-tempo pop fluff just lively enough to keep her toned legs moving and her mind off the early hour and the fact that she would allow herself nothing for breakfast but a kale smoothie and half a mandarin orange.
She flicked a look at the clouds overhead and filled her lungs with fall air, breathing in earthy algae from the green-gray river running along her left, mixed, strangely, with the aroma of coffee and chocolate chip cookies—Satan’s temptations.
Elyse picked up the pace, Michigan Avenue and the DuSable Bridge just ahead. She’d stop at the underpass leading to the marina and then turn around and complete her route. Three miles. Then the smoothie. She ticked off the landmarks as they loomed over her from street level—the Merchandise Mart, the Jewelers and Wrigley Buildings, the Tribune Tower, and, on the site of the old Sun-Times, the building Elyse let her eyes sweep right past, its name emblazoned on the side so large that she would swear astronauts could see it from space. She picked up her pace.
As she jogged past the bridge, the underpass in sight, something off the path caught her eye. She squinted, slowed. It looked like a pile of leaves. Odd. There weren’t that many trees down here, not enough certainly to account for so big a mound. It was curious but not alarming. There were leaves. It was autumn. Some city worker had likely raked them up and left them there to scatter again. But as she got closer, she saw something sticking out of the pile. A foot, though it didn’t look real. Some idiot’s sick joke. It was probably a mannequin underneath, someone’s idea of starting Halloween weeks too early.
Elyse slowed as she got nearer, then stopped right where the path abutted the pile. She padded forward, pulling the earbuds free, letting Grande sing on. The foot was ghostly white, almost blue. There was toenail polish on the toes. Not a joke. Not a mannequin.
Her scream tore through the morning like the screech of a thousand crows. Elyse backed away, her heart pounding, and then she ran back along the path the way she’d come, every alarm in her body clanging as panic overtook her. Her phone. She stopped and fumbled for it in her pocket but dropped it on the path when her trembling fingers couldn’t work the keypad.
“Damn it.”
She finally managed to scoop the cell up and ran for the stairs that led up to the street, but there was someone there right at the base of the steps. A man. A Black man sitting on the ground, his head on his chest, a spot of blood on his jacket. She screamed again, this time losing every ounce of composure. Fast, as though the man might leap up and grab her, Elyse backed away, no thought in her head following any logical pattern. Blood. Foot. Leaves. Man. Blood. Dead. Dead.
Her third scream was otherworldly in its desperation. Birds scattered at the sound, and foot traffic along the bridge stopped. She fell to her knees, unable to stop herself from trembling. She needed to get away, flee, but couldn’t get to her feet.
“Call 911,” she screeched, tears streaking down her face. “Please, somebody, call the police. They’re dead.”
CHAPTER 2
Monday. 0800 hours. Eight a.m. Detective Harriet Foster couldn’t get her legs to move as she stood on the sidewalk in front of CPD’s District One building at Seventeenth and State. She was expected inside. Now. But she couldn’t get past the sidewalk. Instead, she stood facing the door, cars whizzing past along the wide street at her back, firmly rooted in the in-between.
This was her first day back from leave, the first day on a new team. There would be a new boss, a new desk, a new . . . partner. Nothing she felt gave her any indication that she was ready, not one single thing. Only eight weeks had passed since it happened, eight weeks that felt more like eight seconds.
She inhaled deeply and held the breath for a time before letting it out slowly, but the building was still there, cops and noncops going in and out. Through the windows on the ground floor, she could see the uniformed cop standing at the metal detector just inside. He was watching her, definitely assessing her threat level. Weird Black woman standing on the sidewalk watching the building—friend or foe? Nothing in his level stare indicated that he was taking his assessment lightly.
Cop entry was around the side on Eighteenth Street, accessed through the lot for staff and official vehicles, but she had circled the building at least six times, unable to pull her car in. She knew it was ridiculous, something that she’d have to get over today, but right now the bigger issue was deciding to get inside the building. Her star was in her hand, hard metal pressed to her sweating palm. She held it up so the cop could see it. He took one last sweep, and they exchanged a look. Then he nodded and went back to his morning. Friend, not foe. She was one of them.
Two months. Not long enough and yet interminable since the day her partner, Detective Glynnis Thompson, had woken up on a Tuesday, fed her kids, kissed her husband, Mike, goodbye, then driven to work and blown her brains out in the CPD parking lot. A PO walking through the lot heard the shot and found her. Glynnis would have been forty-three on Christmas Day.