CarterHope 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
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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
