Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 44998 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44998 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 225(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
I strut through the glass doors, and it even feels like people are staring at me, but that might just be giddy projection. Either way, when I step inside our war room dedicated to solving this crime, I’m smiling wide. “Hope House!”
Fuck, that feels so good to say. After months of spinning our wheels, this lead feels important.
Jay looks up with one arched brow and an amused smirk on his face. “You finally going to rehab?”
“Ha! Funny,” I reply in a deadpan tone as I roll my eyes. “If I went to rehab, you’d be lost without me,” I joke. “But also no. Hope House is the hidden gem we’ve been looking for. It’s the link between all the victims,” I say, smacking my hand over each victim’s face in dramatic fashion.
Jay’s smirk fades. “We finally have a fucking lead? You’re shitting me.”
I shake my head. “I shit you not. Hope House is the link.” Amelia’s tip was spot on, and I already sent her a fancy schmancy basket that always makes her happy.
Jay leans back in his chair, swiveling back and forth while clicking his pen incessantly, a nervous habit he can’t quit since giving up cigarettes. “So, they were all in juvie?”
My brows dip. “Nope. Foster kids, Jay.”
“I know that, Frankie, but the shit that leads to most kids ending up in the system is usually a guarantee of future criminal activity.” His brows pull together in a deep frown. “And if I remember correctly, Hope House is where they used to send problem kids.”
I nod. “That was true for a brief period, but the late nineties saw a tough time for addicts and an overload of parentless kids in the system.” Those thoughts make me think of Damien. And me. Good kids who’d also lost their parents and made it to adulthood without juvenile detention records.
Jay snorts. “Is that some of your PC shit?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s called treating people like humans, and no it’s not some PC shit. Some of the victims were in juvie, which is what led me to Hope House where they all stayed for at least six months. Some of them lived there for years. It’s the one thing that connects them all. Hope House.”
After I picked up the records, I spent hours looking through the files until I could cross off each victim’s name. “None of the juvie stuff was anything serious, mostly petty crimes of unwanted kids pushing boundaries. They were all returned to Hope House without serving any serious time.”
Jay’s brows dip even more, and his eyes dart back and forth the way they do when he’s deep in thought. With his history on the force, he could be thinking about anything, so I watch and wait until he’s ready to talk. “You know what’s really fucking weird?”
I snort. “Beyond the torture and murder?”
“Obviously,” he says and waves off my sarcasm. “Hope House was one of the few coed group homes at the time, yet all the victims are male.”
“So far,” I add reluctantly. “All the victims so far are male.” But he’s right, it is an anomaly. “House capacity was twenty-five, housing boys and girls ages ten to eighteen when they aged out.” I don’t even want to think about what it means that all the victims are male, but I can’t seem to stop my mind from going there.
“You find any names other than the victims?”
I nod, a proud smile spreading across my face. “Of course.” I peel open the files I requested from the clerk and sift through each page. “The place doesn’t exist anymore, so there are no actual records, but I filled in a few blanks by using court records from the time.”
His brows shoot up. “Damn fine detective work, Frankie.”
“Thanks. I learned from the best.” But his words give me pause. “It’s weird that there’s almost no information about this place when it was owned and operated by the county and the state in a joint effort.”
“Smells fishy,” he grumbles. “One thing I learned during my time as a beat cop was that you don’t fuck with the county and state shit. It’s bad for your stress and bad for your career.” His gaze shifts to one side and he shakes his head as if he’s angry about whatever memory just popped into his head.
“You worked Hope House back in the day? Dad too?”
Jay shakes his head. “No. Why would you think that?” His jaw clenches in a rare show of emotion that gives me more questions than answers.
“I don’t know. Just asking. I saw a lot of the same kind of kids on both sides of sex crimes.” Prior to joining the homicide division, I spent a little over a year in that department.
Jay’s gaze takes on a faraway look that lasts only a moment before he shakes himself out of it and comes back to reality. “Right. We can commiserate later. Now we ought to track down the people who lived there before the killer gets to ’em.”