Page 2 of Long Way Down

Melissa followed.

It was Friday just after midnight, and the ER, while bustling, was far from as crazy as it would get by dawn. She’d spent the week assisting with follow-up interviews on all of Contreras’s open cases, but this call, tonight, was her first new case since coming onto Sex Crimes. She’d been buzzing with anticipation at her desk beforehand, as sick as that was. She didn’twantto get a call; didn’t want to know anyone had been assaulted. Rather, she knew this city, knew human nature, and she wanted to take a run at the sick bastards who’d done the assaulting.

Her pulse beat now in that quick, steady way it had more than a month ago, when a stupid, freckle-faced biker told her to meet him outside a high-rise with her gun and badge. She still asked herself, on sleepless nights, why she’d gone to the address Pongo had given her; why she’d stood beneath a streetlight, waiting for him; why she’d answered his call to begin with. Questions she’d voiced over coffee with Leslie, which had been dismissed with alook, and a shake of a head.

Pongo aside, seeing those girls that night…feeling like she’d actually managed to help someone, for once…that had dredged up old, foul memories better left buried. But it had lit a fire under her, too. The sole reason she’d gone into law enforcement – a career choice full of nothing but disappointment and bitterness so far – was to do something about the depravity in the world. Between the paper pushing, and the ass-kissing, and the looking the other way when a fellow officer was on the take; from the sexual harassment and the in-house politics, and the wildly demoralizing Vice task of arresting working girls and johns, she’d come to loathe her job. To feel utterly wasted; disenchanted and sick of the whole system.

But the night Pongo called, and she answered, and went running with a twist of anticipation in her gut, she’d affected positive change. She’d accomplished something.

Submitting for a transfer had been the easiest choice she’d ever made. Even if, after, Cole had looked at her with something like betrayal, before his jaw flexed and he offered a professional smile and said, “That’s a buncha twisted stuff, Dixon. You sure you’re up for it?” Kneejerk resentment had cooled some of her admiration for him.

And now here she was, right on Contreras’s heels, beneath the glaring lights of the ER.

“Ellen,” Contreras called, as a nurse walked to meet them.

“Rob,” she greeted, voice warm with recognition, though her expression was all business. “I was hoping you’d get the call tonight.”

“Rough one, huh?” He gestured to Melissa as she stepped up beside him. “Ellen, meet my new partner, Detective Dixon.”

To Melissa’s surprise, Ellen offered a quick, firm shake. “Fresh blood,” she said, tone impossible to parse. She tilted her head, gaze moving over her in an assessing way, then nodded. “Our vic and her roommate are young. They’ll like you,” she decreed, spun, and motioned for them to follow.

“Vic’s name is Lana Preston,” she continued, talking over her shoulder as they moved down the hall. “Twenty-four. She waits tables at a steakhouse for the lunch crowd and goes to school at night. Her roommate found her in their apartment around ten when she got home from work. Unconscious, with signs of a struggle.”

She paused, then, and turned back to face them, expression grave, voice lowered. “She’s in rough shape.” Her gaze moved meaningfully between the two of them. “Orbital fractures, a dislocated shoulder. Covered in contusions and scrapes.”

“She fought back,” Contreras said.

“Yeah. Her clothes were torn, the roommate said, but we didn’t find the really disturbing part until we got her undressed.” She reached into her pocket and came out with a small, clear plastic sterile baggie that she passed to Contreras between two fingers.

Melissa leaned in close against his arm to get a look at it.

Written in thick, all-caps Sharpie was the message: THIS ONE’S FOR YOU, DAVEY.

Five words. Melissa read them, and then read them again…with a chill skittering down her back.

This was a calling card, of some sort.

This made it personal.

When she glanced at Contreras, she found that his usual affable expression had turned to something hard and cold. “Davey, huh?”

“Yeah,” Ellen said. “I had the same thought.”

What thought?Melissa wondered, as Contreras passed the note back.

“Put that with the rest of her things if you would, and Forensics can take a look at all of it.”

Ellen nodded, and the exchange had the air of a conversation that had been had many times before. “She’s still unconscious. Want us to give you a call when she wakes up?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Ellen.”

Melissa hadn’t realized a part of her had been dreading the thought of meeting their vic – looking in on her while unconscious was even less savory – until they were turned around and walking back out of the ER. Her belly unclenched, and she took a deep breath that drew Contreras’s attention.

The arch of his brows was inviting, rather than mocking. As was his tone when he said, “What do you think?”

They fell into step on the sidewalk, where it smelled of exhaust and cigarette smoke. The sounds of traffic and conversation and distantly-thumping music created a pocket of privacy.

“I think it’s weird as hell he left a note behind,” she said. “That feels like the sorta thing a really cocky serial killer would do in a movie.”

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