Page 3 of Another Girl Lost

“She’s Officer Margo Larsen.”

“When did you start screwing Della? Did you find her, or did she find you? What itch do you have that she scratched?”

“What’s that mean?”

“Della found me. Her smile was so bright, it banished all my fears and worries. That smile lured me into Tanner Reed’s van. That smile ruined my life.”

“Margo Larsen isn’t Della.”

“You’re wrong. She’s Della, and she’s come back for me.”

Chapter Two

DAWSON

Almost two weeks earlier

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

2:00 p.m.

When Dawson’s phone rang, he was eating a sandwich. He’d had an early call at court that morning, which had meant no breakfast. His stomach was ready to eat itself, and he almost tossed the call to voicemail. He chewed faster, then swallowed before offering a gruff “Dawson.”

“This is Officer Margo Larsen.” He didn’t know the name, and the woman’s voice sounded irritatingly young.

“Yeah.”

“I’m at the scene of a homicide.”

He took another bite of his sandwich. “Okay.” He swallowed. “Where?”

“It’s a home near the Ghent District.” The neighborhood that bordered the Elizabeth River dated back to the 1890s, and it was filled with older homes with a European flair. “Dispatch received a call that there was a body on the premises behind a wall. Didn’t take long to find it. Looks like it’s been here years—a decade, even.”

He grabbed a paper napkin and wiped his mouth. “Who called it in?”

“Don’t know. Anonymous call to the nonemergency number on July 2. The report got lost in the shuffle.”

Dawson sighed. “Male or female?”

“There are several layers of industrial plastic wrap encasing the body. However, the clothes appear to be female.”

He dropped the second half of his sandwich onto the crumpled foil and wiped mayo from his fingers with the napkin. “Okay. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Don’t let the medical examiner or anyone else move that body or anything attached to it until I get there.”

“Will do.”

Dawson was forty-five, and during his years on the homicide team, he had worked hundreds of investigations, including murders, suicides, and unexplained deaths. Early in his tenure, he’d caught all the late-night calls that took him to abandoned buildings, crack houses, back alleys, and even the landfill. Most of the victims had been young, and many of the crimes had been drug related. A body embedded in a wall in the middle of the day was almost a treat.

Dozens of questions rattled through his mind as he grabbed his jacket. When he strode out of the station, he caught a couple of sideways glances. One or two coworkers waved, but the rest ignored him as if his sins were contagious.

It occurred to him as he moved toward his car that he was wearing his good suit because of morning court. Six months ago, he’d have swung by his house and changed because his wife would have given him shit if he messed up a suit fresh from the dry cleaner’s. But the wife had kicked him out, and because the site sounded decent, he opted not to stop by his very depressing hotel room to change.

He hung up his jacket in the back seat and slid behind the wheel, and twenty minutes later, he rolled up on the Ghent District town house. He parked on the street behind the marked cruiser.

Centuries-old townhomes arched along the Elizabeth River and were sandwiched between the Norfolk Southern railyards and lower-income neighborhoods to the east. Renovations ranged from paint and plaster to total gut jobs.

He strung his badge around his neck, pushed up his sleeves, grabbed gloves and a notebook, and rose out of the car. He strode down the sidewalk toward yellow crime scene tape wafting around a brick brownstone. The air was moving, but instead of cooling, it churned the hot, humid summer breeze under plump gray clouds.

A uniformed officer, a stocky man with dark skin and bulky biceps, stood at the entrance to the town house. Dawson climbed cracked cement stairs and exchanged introductions.

---