Rejection: Publishing Murder Mystery (Lou Drake Mysteries) Read Online Free Page A

sense of just how badly this night was going to end for him. He finished the call with the dispatcher and knelt down beside his partner.
    “Hang in there,” he said. “Help is on the way.”
    “Fuck you,” Dodd hissed. “You should have been there.”
    Drake knew he was right but there was nothing he could do about it now.
    “What did you see in the apartment?”
    “Oh man,” Dodd groaned. “That is some truly messed up shit in there.”
    “What? What’s up there?”
    But Dodd only shook his head and grunted when a fresh stab of pain seemed to grab him. Drake couldn’t tell if the sheen of wetness on Dodd’s face was from sweat or rain.
    “Oh God,” Dodd whispered. “That was just seriously wrong.”
    Drake stood as an ambulance pulled up, its siren winding down. He moved to one side and answered as few questions as possible while the first patrol officers arrived and then Detectives in their cliché trench coats.
    Dodd had already been stretchered and borne away in the ambulance by the time Detective Michael Collins descended the metal stairs from the apartment and cornered Drake in the alley. Drake couldn’t believe it. Of all people, why did it have to be his former partner who caught this case?
    “What the hell happened here?” Collins demanded.
    “Dodd slipped on the stairs, broke his leg on the way down.”
    Collins pursed his lips and gave Drake a cold stare. After a few moments he said, “What do you make of the scene in the apartment?”
    Drake’s stomach clenched. “I haven’t seen it.”
    Collins nodded. “That’s what I heard.”
    “I had to stay with Dodd. He was hurt and I—”
    “Have I got this right?” Collins said. “You got a call for possible foul play and you let a rookie go in there alone while you sat in the car?”
    Drake could feel the color rise in his face. “Yes but—”
    “What were you thinking?” Collins thundered.
    Drake couldn’t think of anything to say.
    “I can’t believe you,” Collins said. “You never would have left me hanging like that when we worked together. What the hell happened to you?”
    “C’mon, Mike, gimme a break here.”
    “I’ll tell you what I’ll give you, a first-class ticket up those stairs so you can see what you were too lazy to investigate the first time.”
    “Yeah, sure.”
    Drake trudged over to the metal stairs with an all-too-familiar weight bearing down on him. He felt humiliated and ashamed at what his career had become. As he started climbing the slippery stairs he soon realized how easy it would be to fall, especially if you were running scared.
    At the top of the stairs he found a metal door with a cracked wire mesh security window. The door stood wide open and the smell was unmistakable; something was dead inside and had been for a while.
    Drake moved inside and saw on a bicycle leaning against the wall. To his right the horror caught his attention and for a moment his mind refused to register what he was looking at. He heard a strange sound, like a cat mewling, and then realized it was coming from his own throat. He took an involuntary half step backwards.
    “Oh God,” Drake gasped and stumbled out the door to the landing with his hands over his mouth. He managed to hold down the vomit.
    “Holy shit,” he murmured to himself after he recovered
    Collins was looking up from the street, a look of disgust on his face. As the two men stared at each other, the rain started again and slowly washed the last remnant of Dodd’s blood into the gutter.

C HAPTER F OUR

    CAPTAIN JOHN ANDRADE leaned back in his wooden swivel chair and stared across his desk at Drake. The sight made the Captain shake his head in exasperation.
    Drake’s eyes were red with repressed emotion. Sweat turned the dark blue of his uniform to near black, with spreading crescents beneath his arms and a blot below his neckline. His face was dotted with nervous perspiration.
    “So what the hell am I supposed to do with you?” Andrade