Blood Stains by Sharon Sala Read Free Book Online

traveling all over the country. All three of us have a different story, but mine started with a murder here in your city. Twenty years ago, a prostitute named Sally Blake was murdered at the Hampton Arms in North Tulsa. No one was ever arrested, and the case went cold.”
    Bodie leaned back in his chair. “You’re wanting me to open a cold case.”
    She nodded.
    “With what evidence?”
    “Right now, I don’t have any…but with your help, I’ll find it.”
    Bodie sighed. “Look, Ms. Slade, this isn’t how investigations work. Unless you have something new to add to what’s in the file, that isn’t going to happen.”
    Maria shoved a hand through her hair in frustration. No matter how many times she said it, it still didn’t seem possible.

    “I do have something…I just don’t remember it.”
    Bodie frowned. “You don’t remember it?”
    “No.”
    “How would you have information relating to a twenty-year-old murder case? You couldn’t have been much more than a toddler then. What could you possibly know that—”
    “I was four. Sally Blake was my mother, and according to the journal Dad left me, I saw the murder happen.”
    Bodie’s heart skipped a beat. “You witnessed her murder?”
    Maria nodded.
    “Why didn’t you say so at the time of the investigation?”
    “It’s all in the journal, but the bottom line was, as Sally Blake lay dying, she begged him to take me and hide me. She kept saying…that if he knew I’d seen it happen, he would find me and kill me, too.”
    The hair stood up on the back of Bodie’s neck. “Holy… He? He who?”

    “That’s the problem,” Maria said. “Sally died before she could name the man. And supposedly I was in shock. They whisked me away, hiding me before the police arrived at the hotel. I didn’t speak a word for a month. Then, when I did, it was as if the first four years of my life had never happened. I never asked about my mother or where she was. I never behaved as if I was suddenly living with strangers. I just woke up one morning as if I’d decided to come back to the land of the living, accepting where I was, and who I was with, without question.”
    “You said they …. Who helped Andrew hide you?”
    “A woman named Becky Thurman. She was my babysitter when my mother went out on her ‘dates.’ She lived across the hall from us. I googled her name in the Tulsa phonebook before I left Montana, but I didn’t get a hit.”
    “That’s quite a story,” Bodie said.
    Maria shrugged. “So are you going to help me?”
    He sighed. “I’m not sure where we can go with this if you can’t remember anything, but I will pull the case files and see what we’re looking at, okay? Is there anything else you can tell me?”
    Relief flooded her body, leaving her slightly light-headed. She smiled.
    Bodie stifled a grunt. Her smile had hit him like a fist to the gut.
    “Yesterday I went looking for the hotel. You know, thinking if I saw it I might remember something. But it’s not there anymore.”
    “Yeah, North Tulsa has its share of problems,” Bodie said.
    “After I realized it was gone, I went a couple of blocks farther to a place called John 3:16 Mission. I spoke to a man named Henry, the preacher who’s running it.”
    Bodie couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You went into that neighborhood investigating on your own?”
    “Yes? What’s the big deal?”

    “It’s a tough part of the city, and going around asking questions about a murder, even if it’s an old one, can get you killed. That’s the big deal.”
    Maria leaned forward, tapping the table with her finger to punctuate her words.
    “No. Facing a freak blizzard on a horse and being five miles from home is a big deal. Yesterday was nothing. It was a bright and sunny day. I drove to the mission, got out and went in. The end.”
    Bodie couldn’t quit staring. From the onset he’d been taken by her determination, and during their interview he couldn’t help but notice her