Chapter One
She stood in Purgatory and studied death. The blood and the
gore of it, the ferocity of its glee. It had come to this place
with the willful temper of a child, full of heat and passion
and careless brutality.
Murder was rarely a tidy business. Whether it was craftily
calculated or wildly impulsive, it tended to leave a mess for
others to clean up.
It was her job to wade through the debris of murder, to
pick up the pieces, see where they fit, and put together a picture
of the life that had been stolen. And through that picture
to find the image of a killer.
Now, in the early hours of morning, in the hesitant spring
of 2059, her boots crunched over a jagged sea of broken
glass. Her eyes, brown and cool, scanned the scene: shattered
mirrors, broken bottles, splintered wood. Wall screens
were smashed, privacy booths scarred and dented. Pricey
leather and cloth that had covered stools or the plusher seating
areas had been ripped to colorful shreds.
What had once been an upscale strip club was now a jumbled
pile of expensive garbage.
What had once been a man lay behind the wide curve of
the bar. Now a ... read full excerpt from: Judgment in Death ebook
