Cross Her Heart (Bree Taggert #1)(2)

She turned toward the door again. This time Erin didn’t resist.

It was dark in the backyard, and the porch was icy under her bare feet. The wind blew right through her pajamas. But she kept going, down the steps and around to the loose board under the porch. She pulled it back and held it while Erin wiggled through the hole. Then she pushed the baby into the darkness and crawled in after him. Bree pulled the board back into place. She’d hidden here before plenty of times when Mommy and Daddy were fighting.

Under the porch, they were out of the wind, but it was still cold.

Bree looked between the boards at the dark yard. In the shadow of the barn, Daddy’s dogs barked from the kennel. The lady had said the police were coming. The wind came through the spaces between the boards. Bree couldn’t hear Mommy and Daddy fighting anymore. What’s Daddy doing?

“I’m cold.” Erin’s teeth chattered.

Bree pulled her sister closer and shushed her. The baby shivered in her arms and whimpered. His face scrunched up, like he was gettin’ ready to cry. If he did, Daddy might hear. He might find them. Bree wrapped her arms around his little body and rocked him. “Shhh.”

A door slammed, and Bree jumped. Heavy boots stomped overhead. She couldn’t tell if the footsteps were inside the house or on the back porch. Had the police come? Maybe it was gonna be OK. Just like the lady said.

A gunshot blasted. Bree jumped.

Mommy!

Her hands tightened on the baby, and he began to cry. Another door slammed. Bree wanted to run to the sound, but she was too afraid. She heard more footsteps, more yelling, then another gunshot.

Bree closed her eyes.

Even without seeing what happened, she knew that nothing would ever be OK again.





CHAPTER TWO

“This is the building.” Bree Taggert pointed to a line of brick rowhouses occupying a North Philadelphia block. “We’re looking for twenty-year-old Ronnie Marin.”

Fellow homicide detective Dana Romano slowed the vehicle and coughed into her fist. At fifty, Dana was long and lean. A few gray streaks highlighted her short, messy blonde hair. Crow’s-feet deepened as she squinted through the car window. “Is this his place?”

Bree checked her notes. “No. Ronnie’s aunt lives here. The last time he was arrested, she bailed him out. Then he skipped on his bail, and she was out a thousand dollars. I’m hoping she knows where he is and holds a grudge.”

The previous week, a nurse had been beaten, raped, and strangled on her way home from the night shift in the ICU. A Laundromat surveillance camera had caught the killer dragging his victim into the alley where her body had been found. In less than twenty-four hours, the killer had been ID’d as Ronnie Marin from North Philly. Ronnie had a rap sheet as long as the Schuylkill Expressway.

Bree had been working her way through Ronnie’s known contacts. So far, she’d found no sign of Ronnie, and no one had admitted to seeing him.

Dana had been out sick for the past week and was catching up with the investigation. She pulled the blue Crown Vic to the curb behind a pile of snow as tall as the vehicle. “Remind me what Ronnie’s last offense was?”

“Robbery.” Bree scanned the dark street but saw nothing alive. In the trash alley that ran next to the home, black ice shone in the glare of a streetlamp. “He did eighteen months. Before that, vandalism and simple assault. He’s only been out for two months.”

Bree turned the dashboard computer to show her Ronnie’s mug shot.

“A quick progression to murder,” Dana said.

“Nothing teaches a criminal to be a better criminal like going to prison.”

“Maybe Ronnie left town.”

“I doubt it. All his connections are here. This is his turf, and he’s worked hard to be a BFD in his neighborhood.”

Dana shrugged. “What do we know about the aunt?”

“Ronnie’s aunt is fifty-seven. She’s worked for the same commercial cleaning company for the past eighteen years and has no criminal record.”

“Can’t pick your family.” Dana paused, her face reddening. “I’m sorry, Bree. I didn’t mean anything by that.”

In the four years they’d worked together, Dana had never brought up Bree’s parents’ deaths, though Bree had heard plenty of whispers behind her back from other cops in the division. But then, when your father murdered your mother and then killed himself, you had to expect people to talk about it.

“It’s all right. I know it.” And Bree had mostly come to terms with her own family’s past long ago, at least as much as anyone could under the circumstances. She’d also made tragedy and violence a permanent part of her life when she’d become a cop.

Whatever. She’d had more than enough therapy as a kid. She was done with it. After she’d turned eighteen, she’d decided to stop analyzing herself. Some damage left a permanent mark. There was no changing that. She’d shoved her childhood into a dark corner of her memory and moved on. At thirty-five, the last thing Bree wanted was to drag those memories into the light.

She stepped out of the vehicle. Frigid wind whipped along the icy street and stung her cheeks. Despite the cold, she unbuttoned her black peacoat for better access to her weapon.

Coughing, Dana joined her on the cracked sidewalk. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her knee-length parka. “Damn, it’s cold.”