Wicked Lies by Lisa Jackson, Nancy Bush Read Free Book Online Page A

prodded, “this unnamed assailant . . .” And legendary wacko . One he could track down on the Internet as soon as he got to a computer. His current cell didn’t have those capabilities. “He attacked the two men at Halo Valley while he was trying to get away?”
    “That’s what it sounds like. I can’t talk long. They all took out of here a couple hours ago, lights on, sirens screaming. Everybody thinks the psycho’s coming our way.”
    “Who are the victims?”
    “Hospital employees. That’s all I know.”
    Probably another way of hedging.
    “Okay.”
    “Gotta go,” she said, almost as if she regretted her rash call. Then, not subtly, added, “Remember. We have a standing deal. I’m an ‘unnamed source in the police department.’ ”
    “That’s right,” he said, though he was certain if anyone really wanted to know, Geena’s cell phone records would be a dead giveaway.
    “Harrison?”
    “Yeah?”
    “You owe me.”
    That much he knew. “Thanks, Geena.”
    He wasn’t really sure what to do with the information. His job description, loose as it was, wasn’t about deep investigative journalism for the Breeze . Not that they wouldn’t run the story about this guy. A psycho escaping a mental hospital was big news, especially this psycho, who’d terrorized the area once before.
    And Harrison had been given a jump on the competition.
    At what price? his skeptical mind nagged. Remember, payback’s a bitch.
    Shoving his phone into his pocket, he ignored the questions, snatched up Chico, who nipped at his wrist, then headed swiftly back to his dusty brown Chevy Impala as a couple riding a tandem bike whizzed past and the smells of caramel corn and grilled hot dogs reached his nostrils.
    His stomach rumbled, but he ignored it.
    As he reached his low-profile, decade-old Chevy, he was nearly run over by a kid on a skateboard. The skateboarder screeched around a corner and jumped a bench as Harrison dropped Chico into his little car seat. The dog turned around and bared his teeth as Harrison climbed into the vehicle. Harrison bared his own teeth right back, and Chico curled his lip and emitted a grrrr that would only scare another dog of the same small size on a good day.
    Checking the dashboard clock, Harrison figured it would be just over thirty minutes before he could drive south, drop off the mutt, and make it to Ocean Park Hospital. He didn’t feel like fighting for attention at Halo Valley mental hospital with the sheriff’s department all over the place—especially Deputy Fred Clausen, whom Harrison had already managed to get on the wrong side of—but Ocean Park, where the victims had been taken, would be a better bet. He could probably get some interviews there.
    His teenaged Deadly Sinners were being allowed a momentary reprieve while he tackled a different kind of story. He liked that. The Deadly Sinners. Made for good copy, and it sounded like the kind of thing the group—or this N.V. guy—had dreamed up, probably from watching Seven . Didn’t anybody have any new ideas anymore?
    But Harrison’s mind was already switching off the thieves to the more immediate story. “What’s his name?” he said aloud, trying to recall as much as he knew about the strange man whose obsessions had sent him on a killing spree in the area of Deception Bay, a usually sleepy little seaside town, where his sister and niece now lived. Had the guy escaped Halo Valley just to be free? Or, did he have some new sick plan in place?
    Psychos were like that. They didn’t just give it up as a rule.
    Chico glared at him, and his little black lips quivered into a snarl.
    “You’re not as cute as you think you are,” Harrison warned.
    That earned him a series of full-fledged barks and bristling fury.
    Ten minutes later, Harrison dropped off Chico with relief, shaking his head at the way the little fur ball leapt into Kirsten’s arms and licked at her with wild love, his tail wagging, whole body squirming.
    She was