Carter (Hope City Book 2) Read online

  Carter

  Hope City

  Maryann Jordan

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  34. Sneak Peek at Brody, the next book in Hope City!

  Also by Maryann Jordan

  About the Author

  Carter (Hope City) Copyright 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, then you are reading an illegal pirated copy. If you would be concerned about working for no pay, then please respect the author’s work! Make sure that you are only reading a copy that has been officially released by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN ebook: 978-1-947214-58-3

  ISBN print: 978-1-947214-59-0

  Created with Vellum

  1

  Young. So fuckin’ young.

  “Hard to tell, Detective. Maybe not as young as you think.”

  Realizing he’d spoken aloud, Carter Fiske looked up at the medical examiner as he squatted by the body on the floor. Natalie Bastion had only been working in Hope City for a few months, but considering she came from the Medical Examiner’s Office in Chicago, he figured she knew a thing or two about dead bodies.

  He turned his attention back to the young man. Ill-fitting jeans. Well-worn, black, long-sleeved, thermal shirt. Heavy, scuffed boots. But his coat was new. Oversized, but new.

  He stood, perusing the scene. The kitchen was gutted—and not by the fire next door. The row townhouse was stripped to its bones, appearing uninhabited for God knows how many years. Water pooled in the dips in the floor and still dripped off the walls where it blasted through the broken windows.

  A splat landed on his head and he jumped, cursing as he wiped the moisture from his face. A flash of a smile crossed Natalie’s face, and he couldn’t remember seeing her smile before. Inwardly rolling his eyes at being the cause of her fleeting amusement, he continued to scan the area.

  “Not going to be much scene evidence in here,” he surmised aloud as two more firefighters poked through the aftermath. The 9-1-1 came from a driver on the street, and once the Fire Department determined suspicious burn patterns, the arson detectives had been activated. Then, when checking another unit and the body had been found, Carter received a call.

  “I’ll push this up in my queue, give you what I can just as soon as I can,” Natalie said. Completely covered head to toe in hazmat gear, she appeared almost ghostly in the dark room.

  “Anything you can tell me about those?” He tipped his head toward the bag of pills that she had found in the deceased’s coat pocket. The reason he had been called in.

  “They appear to be prescription, but anything beyond that would be premature.” Natalie stood and nodded to her two assistants, indicating she was ready for the body to be transferred to the morgue. Handing the bag of pills to him, he sealed them into an evidence container. She followed her assistants as the body was removed, snapping off her gloves and plastic booties once she was outside.

  Following her down the steps, he observed the firefighters emptying and rolling up their hoses. Portable lights were being hauled to the end unit, and he grinned, recognizing the arson detective standing nearby.

  “Good to see you, Sean.”

  Sean McBride turned to the side and threw his hand out in greeting. “Carter, good to see you, too. I wondered who they’d call in for this.”

  He dipped his head toward the burned hulk of the end unit. “You’ve been busy lately.”

  “That’s a fucking understatement,” Sean agreed.

  “Is Jonas around? You still partnered with him?”

  Sean nodded. “Yeah. He’s getting the lights set up. We’ve got extra and can send some to you, too.”

  “Thanks. I was just going to call for some.”

  Sean held his gaze for a moment and asked, “What do you think?”

  His hand moved to the back of his neck, squeezing some of the tension away. “Medical examiner didn’t see any signs of fatal injury, and I’m not seeing any signs of violence. I’ve got several cases dealing with drug overdoses of homeless persons, so this may just add one more to my load.”

  “Hell, you probably see more of my brother right now than I do.”

  “You’d be right.” Sean’s brother, Kyle, was also a detective with the HCPD, working with the Drug Task Force. “We’re both working the homeless drug cases. Up to our ears in this shit. We’re checking with some of the homeless shelters, but it’s a slow go.”

  “Hey, I’ve got someone who could help. You might want to talk to my sis—”

  “Got the lights!” Jonas called out. “Does Carter want any?”

  They were interrupted by the arrival of the portable lights. Sean directed the ones he and Jonas needed to gather evidence in the blackened hole of the first unit. After a quick clap on the shoulder, Carter walked back into the unit where the body had been discovered, setting up several lamps as well.

  With more illumination, he turned around in a slow circle, his gaze searching the room. The walls dripped with water. The ceiling was dark with smoky soot. The floor gave no signs of evidence as to the identity of the deceased or his life here in this abandoned townhouse. The kitchen cabinets and sink had been removed, and Carter considered that the entire block of houses had probably been gutted of anything considered valuable.

  Over a hundred and fifty years of life inside and they end up as dead as their last resident. Old architecture was fascinating, a tidbit he tended to keep to himself. Buildings can be so resilient, outlasting their many owners. But now, at the end of this house’s life, there was nothing but empty decay, ready for demolition—once it was no longer a crime site.

  He crossed the room while pulling on a new pair of gloves and opened the door to a small closet. Inside, he discovered a cardboard box. Snapping several pictures, he knelt closer. The top of the box formed a shelf, containing a crumpled paper sack. Carefully opening the sack, he found several plastic baggies, all empty except for one which contained bread crust. The paper sack had a large “PB” written in black marker on the outside. He placed each item into an evidence bag, labeling them.

  “Whatcha got?”

  Looking over his shoulder, he smiled at his partner, Rachel Seas, stepping into the kitchen, jerking her head to avoid a water drop falling from the ceiling. It was on the tip of his tongue to warn her to be careful on the slippery floor
, but he hesitated. At over eight months pregnant, she would soon be out on maternity leave and his caution ratcheted upward with each passing week. The balance of not treating her like glass warred with his natural protectiveness.

  Before he had a chance to answer her question, she added, “I never thought an empty room could be a mess, but hell, this is nasty.”

  He chuckled as she walked closer, peering around him to see what he was bagging. “There was nothing in the room other than the deceased. The ME just left with the body but showed me a bag of pills that were tucked in his coat pocket. This is the only thing I’ve found in here so far.”

  “Any ID?”

  He shook his head. “I was just getting ready to go through the other rooms to see if I could find any other evidence that might tell us who he was or what he was doing here.”

  “Could’ve just been looking for a place to sleep.”

  Nodding, he silently agreed. Leaving Rachel to continue looking around the small first floor, he walked upstairs, finding it much like the downstairs. Shining his light around, he saw the space was completely empty. The bathroom cabinets and fixtures were ripped from the walls. The upstairs windows were broken and water on the floor kept him from seeing if the dust had been disturbed before the fire next door. He continued around each room but found no evidence that anyone had been there recently

  After a thorough search, he walked back downstairs where he found Rachel as empty-handed as he. “Nothing?”

  “Anything on the floor would have been washed away with the fire hoses. Upstairs?”

  “Same. I found no evidence that he or anyone had been upstairs.” Carter stretched his back, feeling as well as hearing his neck crack. “I’ll take what I found in the pantry to the lab. I’ll get the rest from Natalie, and hopefully, we’ll be able to get an ID along with cause of death.”

  She lifted an eyebrow and grinned. “Are we going to hit the homeless shelters again?”

  “Yeah, even if we haven’t had much luck with the last two.”

  Patting her stomach, she said, “Since I’ll be on maternity leave soon, I hate to leave it all to you. Hopefully, we’ll get a break soon.”

  “Are you sure that little one doesn’t want to wait longer to arrive?” He pretended to grumble and watched her fight a grin.

  The two stepped out of the back door and walked past the charred walls of the first unit. Its interior was well lit from the portable lamps, and he spied Sean and Jonas kneeling, scraping bits of evidence into jars. While they might have much more evidence to collect, he did not envy them. The serial arsonist plaguing Hope City was not going to be easily caught.

  Walking to the perimeter, he offered a chin lift to the police officer standing watch. Ducking under the yellow tape, he bypassed the few reporters who had gathered for information about the arsonist.

  Placing his evidence in the back of his SUV, the young face of the deceased stayed vividly in his mind. If he truly was homeless, Carter wondered who would mourn his passing. Certainly not the media, clambering for headlines. With the recent high-profile murder of one of Hope City’s richest men, Carter knew his unidentified body would receive little interest or fanfare. Slamming the door of his SUV, he also slammed the door on those thoughts. As far as he was concerned, the young man who’d died alone, possibly after doing nothing more than finding a warm place to sleep, deserved Carter’s full attention. And that’s what he’ll get—my full fuckin’ attention.

  It was after midnight by the time Carter stepped out of the elevator onto the second floor of the police laboratory. Walking down the long, tiled hall, he bypassed a number of doors on either side that led to various labs. Coming to the door he needed, he moved through and looked into the large room. The laboratories were staffed 24 hours a day, but the midnight shift was skeletal. Glad to see a familiar face, he smiled as he approached one of the desks.

  “Hey, Jerry, got something for you.”

  “How you been, Carter? Haven’t seen you in a few weeks. Not here nor at the pub.”

  He handed the evidence bags to Jerry, observing as the lab technician labeled them before handing him the release forms to be signed. Jerry had been working in the lab as long as Carter had been in Hope City, the two of them hitting it off right away, including shared beers at the Celtic Cock. “I’ve been around but haven’t been to the lab in over a week. Before that, I think you were on vacation the last time I came by.”

  Jerry grinned. “Took our youngest to check out some colleges. My wife is having a hard time with him getting ready to leave the nest, but I’m looking forward to a little peace and quiet.”

  “You’re so full of shit,” he laughed. “You’ll be crying in your cornflakes worse than your wife when he leaves.”

  Once the paperwork was finished, Carter got back to business. “Let me know what you can get from any of this. The ME has the body right now, so I’ll get their prints sent to you, hopefully tomorrow. Once I pick up the personal effects, I’ll get those to you also.”

  “Will do. I’ll be on the lookout for them.”

  Jerry stood and the two men shook hands before Carter walked back to the elevator. As he headed to the parking lot, he saw Sean, his arms full of a fire evidence collection kit, walking in. Sighing as he climbed into his SUV, he thought of the hours they kept. Glancing at the time on the dashboard, he calculated that if he was lucky, he might be able to get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.

  2

  Carter parked in the first-floor parking garage of his condo building. Perfectly situated near the Inner Harbor, his seventh-floor condo sported wide windows with views of both the Inner Harbor to the east and the professional football and baseball stadiums to the west. He had been lucky to snag it when he did, renting it from a young couple who had spent a considerable amount of money on upgrades before being forced to rent quickly when the husband was transferred.

  The carpet had been ripped out, replaced with hardwood floor. The walls were painted a soft gray, complementing the granite countertops and black, tiled backsplash in the kitchen—at least that was what the real estate agent said. A far fucking cry from the gutted townhouse he’d just been inside.

  Minimalist in his own furnishings, the two-bedroom condo gave him plenty of space to move around while being comfortable enough to call home. Something he appreciated at all times but especially when he’d been out in the dark of night, staring at the face of death in a young person.

  After shutting the door behind him, he tossed his keys, wallet, and badge onto the kitchen counter to his right. He stood for a moment, squeezing the back of his neck, hesitating over the decision to have a whiskey, a beer, or just a glass of water. At a slight movement out of the corner of his eye, he jerked his gaze into the open dining and living room.

  Before he had a chance to speak, the beautiful, elegantly-dressed woman sitting on his sofa beat him to it. “Well, it certainly took you long enough to get back here.”

  Her words dripped with disdain, and her anger was evident by her narrowed eyes and tightly-pinched lips. When he saw her last, they had been in the process of stripping each other in his bedroom. When the call came in, he distinctly remembered her silently fuming as he redressed and him telling her to leave since he had no idea when he would be back.

  “I’ve been sitting here for,” she began, then swung her arm out to look at her watch with exaggerated movements, “four hours.” She lifted her hands to the side, still glaring. “When is this ever going to change?”

  Fatigue had already morphed into surprise and, with her words, was quickly morphing into anger. “What the fuck, Allison? I told you to go home when the call came in. If you’ve been here for hours, that’s on you. Don’t sit around, then start bitchin’ at me when I walk through the door and you’re not even supposed to be here.”

  “You don’t get it, do you, Carter?” Standing, she placed her well-manicured hands on her narrow hips. “I don’t know how to make it any plainer.”

  His
head jerked back. “Make what plain?”

  “Argh,” she growled in response, her mouth twisting into a sneer. “You must not be a very good detective if you can’t figure this out.”

  “Allison, I’m really not in the mood to try to guess what the hell you’re pissed about. If you’ve got something to say, then just say it.”

  “Typical.” Shaking her head back and forth slowly, she continued to glare. “Okay, fine. I’ll spell it out for you. We’ve been seeing each other for six months. I can’t believe you haven’t noticed that I’ve been calling more, texting more, even insisting on cooking dinner for you. I thought we were taking the relationship forward.”

  “Allison, there is no relationship to move forward.” As soon as those words left his mouth, he wanted to retract them. Not because they weren’t true but because the look on her face gave evidence to the screech that followed.

  Lifting her fist, she shook it in the air. “No relationship?”

  Turning to face her fully, he now placed his fists on his hips, his jaw tight with anger. “Let’s recap, shall we? We met at a party. We flirted. We slept together that first night after both of us clearly stated that we were looking for fun only. In the last six months, we’ve had dinner occasionally, usually followed by fucking—”

  “Don’t be crass!”

  “Crass is all I got right now, Allison. Hell, you’ve even called us fuck buddies. So why are you coming at me with this relationship bullshit when I’m exhausted?”