The Monster Within by Jeremy Laszlo Read Free Book Online Page A

grafter types. I don’t want to feel like I’m a card game that needs to be played.
    “Hi,” I say back before taking the straw between my lips and sucking down a fruity mouthful of Cosmo.
    “My name’s Ted,” the man next to me says.
    “Cool,” I answer.
    “I’m sorry, did I disturb you?” the man asks me. God, I don’t need this right now. I’m not going to go home with him. I’m not that kind of girl. I have some standards and some class, thank you very much. “Because, I could have sworn that you were checking me out from down the bar.”
    I turn and excitedly prepare to tell him that I was actually checking out someone much more attractive than him when I realize that I’m about to tell off Mr. Charcoal. He smiles at me with a pearly smile that makes me want to swoon like some Victorian broad. He holds out his hand and I instantly see that there’s no wedding ring on his left hand. He’s single. I feel my heart fluttering with joy.
    “Jenny,” I introduce myself, reaching out to take his hand.

 
5
    I can’t stand sitting at this desk any longer. I should have went home last night instead of back to HQ. In years past I’ve spent too much time sitting here looking at this blank computer screen, wondering when my next assignment will arrive, but that time is up. Now I’m here to just whittle away the time. I grab my mug and lift it to my lips, taking a sip of my coffee, laced with Jameson. It’s the only way to keep me sitting right now, thinking about what it was I spent the entire night looking at. I blink, my eyelids feel heavy, thick. Everything about today makes me feel unwell. What the fuck did I stumble into with this case? I sign one of the reports, letting the DA’s office send the files and the evidence back to the storage lock up. I’m not interested in any of this any longer. What I want to do is go back home where my kitchen counters, my tables, my furniture is all covered with pictures of dead bodies with bland reports underneath them, claiming that all this carnage was committed in the name of depression, loss, or disappointment. No. I was firmly one of Owens’s acolytes now.
    “King, I heard about the deal Mendez gave you,” a voice draws me from the ether while I stare at the computer.
    Detective Vance Redman is probably the epitome of everything that I see as wrong in the department now. He is the antithesis of what I think a good detective should be. His shirts are so tight that they look like the seams are going to rip open like a fault line over his inflated, bloated muscles. He’s got a fat caterpillar on his lip and the same haircut on his head that he’s had since he went into basic. He’s got a short temper with people, no patience to learn the city, and looking to climb the ladder all the way to the top. I wouldn’t be surprised if Redman thinks he’ll make mayor one day. His ambition exceeds his social skills. He’s one of the many who think they’re a good guy, so that means they’re owed something by the world. The joke is on him, the world owes you nothing.
    “Sounds like a pretty sweet ride.” Redman looks at me with a glare on his freckled face that shows that he doesn’t give a shit about me, because I never gave a shit about him. I’ve given up caring about people in this department. I’ve gotten tired of all of them. “Just sitting around, collecting a paycheck. A wonder they didn’t set you up with that earlier. You might have retired back when all the others like you did.”
    Others like me? Sure, true detectives. Before they were teaching the ideals and importance of networking and having contacts in the criminal flow that floods the city, we called it doing the job right. Knowing people on every corner, having a mole on every street, getting people out of the life, that was what others like me did with this job. We didn’t just clean up for the killers. We didn’t just write the reports and present the perpetrators to the DA’s office