No Going Back (Sawyer Brooks #3) - T.R. Ragan Page 0,2

taken whiskey from a bum and money from an old lady.

The sounds of slurping and chewing, and of Rocky’s tail thumping happily against a lower cupboard as he ate, drew Nick back to the present. “Rocky,” he tried to say, hoping the dog would come to him. Man’s best friend. Rocky was all he had. He wanted to feel the dog’s wet tongue on his face. He attempted to tap his hand against the floor to get Rocky to come, but his finger merely twitched.

It didn’t matter. Rocky would never help him.

Nick had kicked the dog in the ribs, whipped him with a belt, and left him out in the cold too many times.

Nobody would come to his aid. His mother had made sure of that the day she’d given birth to him and then tossed him into a public trash bin. No basket or warm blanket. Just tossed away like garbage.

The anger he’d felt growing up had consumed him. Nick couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t causing others pain. He’d always been a bully. Which was why the intruder could be anyone. Tied to a tree? Why can’t I remember?

Nick’s eyelids grew heavy. He could no longer keep them open.

I was sixteen and she was ten.

Nick gasped for air as a crystal-clear image of the ten-year-old kid popped into his mind.

Did she say he’d called her Cockroach? It couldn’t be.

He remembered it all—every horrifying second.

As he struggled to fill his lungs with air, a tear slid down the side of his face.

CHAPTER TWO

Investigative journalist Sawyer Brooks pulled up behind a police cruiser and parked. She then shut off her engine and climbed out of the car. The time was 9:43 a.m. It had taken her about twenty minutes to get to Elk Grove, a city just south of the state capital of Sacramento. Although she didn’t own a police scanner, she had the next best thing—Geezer, the crime scene photographer for the Sacramento Independent. Minutes after he texted her about a homicide that was being linked to the Black Wigs, a group of female vigilantes getting revenge on the men who brutalized them, Sawyer had rushed out of her cubicle at work and made her way to Elk Grove in record time.

Farther up the block, she saw Geezer talking to an officer outside a pale-yellow, well-landscaped house with brick accents. The warmth from the morning sun felt good on her back as she headed their way. By the time she reached Geezer’s side, the uniformed officer had walked away.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” she said to Geezer.

He looked surprised to see her. “That was quick.”

“Not much traffic. So what’s the deal?”

“Dead guy’s name is Nick Calderon. You’ll have to wait for the police report for all the details, but apparently the neighbor’s security camera caught a slender person of about five foot nine walking toward the house around two p.m. yesterday. Six hours later, about an hour after Nick Calderon returned home, the same person was seen leaving through the front entrance followed by a dog.”

Sawyer took notes on her cell. “Was the dog on a leash?”

“Not that I know of.” He lifted the camera hanging around his neck and began adjusting the lens. “A bystander, Tim Moore, he lives over there”—Geezer pointed to a blue house on the corner—“told me that the dead guy had a dog named Rocky.”

Sawyer made note of the dog’s name, then waited for Geezer to finish fiddling with his camera before she asked, “I wonder if the killer took the dog?”

Geezer shrugged. “My guess is the dog followed the intruder right out the door and then ran off.”

“Anything else?” Sawyer asked.

“The intruder appeared to be wearing a black wig that fell to their shoulders and dark lipstick.”

“How could you tell it was a wig?”

“It didn’t sit right—it looked as if it had been put on haphazardly.”

“You got a peek inside, didn’t you?” She knew how Geezer worked. His scanner usually garnered him early access. He kept disposable gloves and shoe covers in his car just in case.

“I might have.”

“Come on,” she said. “Tell me. What did you see?”

“The usual—toppled furniture, a jacket tossed over a chair, and a dead guy.”

Sawyer nodded.

“Not so usual,” Geezer added, “I didn’t see any blood, and the dead guy was wearing one shoe.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah. The shoe and sock had been tossed beneath the dining room table.”

“Was there blood on his foot?”

“None that I could see. I was ushered out of there pretty quickly.” He scratched his neck. “They won’t