Judas Kiss

The new section of road quickly gave way to the old four-lane highway, and she started making up time as she cruised past the defunct Tennessee State Prison, the site of Robert Redford’s film The Last Castle and an architectural dead ringer for Johnny Cash’s infamous Folsom State Prison. It had fallen into disrepair and was abandoned, left to the ghosts and rats. She tried not to think of her father, once a brief inmate of those twenty-foot-high, three-foot-thick crenellated walls.

Now the prisoners were housed at Riverbend, a maximum-security prison equipped to end the lives of those fated to die at the hands of the state. She’d been inside Riverbend’s death row cells, with their blue doors and creamy concrete walls. She never wanted to return. The overwhelming sense of malevolence coupled with dread was too much to take. She’d sent more than one of the men housed in that unit to death row and hadn’t lost a moment’s sleep over them, but she didn’t want to experience their last moments firsthand.

Her dad, well, his prison environs were a damn sight cushier than a state penitentiary. The feds were kind to their white-collar criminals.

The Interstate 24 split came, and she passed the exit, driving a few more miles to the Dickerson Road access ramp. Off the highway now, into the run-down streets. This was a sad part of town. A crack whore strolled by, arms swinging wildly as she walked, a timid black man in his forties following some fifty feet behind. Had they made the deal already? They must have, the hooker had the bright, insistent glow in her eyes of a junkie who knows she’s about to get a fix.

Taylor shook her head. There seemed to be no legal measures that could stop the pervasive sex trades on the back streets of Nashville. For the pros, a night in jail meant either safety or withdrawal, neither an inducement to break free from the life. For the johns, it was just an embarrassment.

She turned on Gass and passed the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations offices on the right. The TBI task force would be furious if they knew Lincoln had broken the rules. Even though he had done something that was life-preserving, they would still punish him. He’d be kicked off the task force at the very least. She wondered if she could keep the situation quiet, then forced the thought from her mind. She was a master at keeping each aspect separate, tackling one thorny issue at a time. It was the only way she could get through the day.

Forensic Medical appeared on her left, shiny as a new penny in the morning sun. Taylor parked in a visitor slot. She jammed her feet into her boots, tucked her sunglasses into their hard leather case, grabbed the sweater and stepped into the bracing morning air. Dogwood winter, that’s what her mother had called these chilly spring days. As soon as the trees began to bud, Nashville was nearly guaranteed a late frost, shriveling up the fresh, tender blossoms. Only the most hale of trees and shrubs would stand it; the rest would be shocked back into dormancy for at least another few weeks.

The front of Forensic Medical was lined in clusters of forsythia bushes intertwined with azaleas. The forsythia didn’t seem to mind the snap, were rioting in their fervor to spread their rich yellow blooms toward the cool sunlight. The sight made her smile. The mutinous nature of the bushes always lightened her heart. She hated when people trimmed them into balls or squares, felt it killed their wild personality. It was a shame they’d be gone so soon, too. She wished they’d bloom all summer.

Taylor swiped her card and entered the cool offices of Forensic Medical. Someone, probably Kris, the receptionist, was burning a lavender scented candle. Slightly less oppressive than the patchouli incense that sometimes smoked up the foyer, but lavender always made Taylor sneeze. The cacophony of scents that made up Forensic Medical wreaked havoc with her sinuses anyway. Beneath the thick flowering smell was an antiseptic undernote, profumo della morte. The scent of death was pervasive and ugly, no matter what Renaissance language she translated it into.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.