NO CLOSURE NO FORGIVENESS by Pawan Verma Read Free Book Online Page A

fight.
    Running
wouldn’t work. Hiding would only work for so long. And she couldn’t have the
best of both worlds—capturing Irene’s killer and saving her career. If her days
among Baltimore City’s elite were coming to an end, she wanted to at least
leave on a good note, which meant finding Patrick Brenner by any means
necessary, legal or otherwise. At the very least, an arrest would reduce the
chances of the police, the federal government, or for all she knew the CIA,
would be inclined to hunt her down as if she were some traitor.
    Yet every
hour Jessica drifted further towards being a full-blown vigilante, she felt
just like a traitor, a trained and respected homicide detective who betrayed
the badge and oath she swore to protect for what—a sexy, hot flame who’d just
walked out on her hours earlier?
    Maybe the
harder it becomes to make the best choices, the easier it will be for me to
make those choices, Jessica
thought to herself as she sat in the vehicle. She shivered in the cold car and
zipped her coat up until it pinched her chin. She longed for summer heat and
beautiful sunshine, anything to take away the dull, cold heartache that gnawed
away at her insides since the day she’d been reassigned to Homicide Division,
after leaving the recently formed Domestic Violence Task Force. That was the
day that Andrew had vanished with barely a good-bye.
    Jessica
clenched the steering wheel and gritted her teeth. Over thinking, or whatever
the therapists called it, would bring her to her demise. There was no better
way of talking her way out of taking action than thinking of hundreds of
reasons why taking any form of action would do more harm than good. So she took
a deep breath, shut her eyes and counted to three, then exited the vehicle.
    “So glad I
didn’t call you first,” Jessica muttered as she hurried to the doctor’s office.
It was true. Had she called, she would have learned that no matter how hard she
tried, doctors wouldn’t give out confidential information about patients, not
without a court order. More so, as Jessica herself had been declared sort of
“unfit for duty” and referred to the doctor for a psychological evaluation from
which she had run away. Thus, with no evidence linking Brenner to his wife’s murder,
and her own credibility lost, a court order would never come anyway.
    Desperate
times.
    Jessica tried
to remain in the shadows as she considered the best way to break into the
doctor’s office and steal information without getting caught. All she needed
was an address and maybe some personal information that would give her a better
idea of who she and Andrew were dealing with. She tried not to think about what
she would do if she began finding more than she bargained, a real possibility
considering Brenner was a narcissist and probably got his rocks off venting to
female doctors.
    And of course
there was still the risk of finding nothing at all. After all, there was no
guarantee that Brenner had visited Chapman, or any other doctor who worked in
that office. But he had lived nearby for so long and the neighbor she and
Andrew had interviewed had already mentioned that Brenner frequented the area.
    With all
other doors closed, this was the little opening she had to fall back upon.
There was a risk. It was going to add up to the list of charges that could come
up against her. But there was no time to think. Any moment the police would
track her down and put an end to all her efforts to accomplish what was there
in her mind. She must act. Now! She told herself.
    Here we
go. Jessica took one
final deep breath, then reached down and scooped up a large rock buried under
the snow. She took a quick look around and only after seeing busy city streets
lined with drivers not paying her any attention, she lunged forward, throwing
the rock at the nearest window as hard as she could. The glass shattered into
thousands of little pieces. Instinctively, she lurched backwards to protect
herself from