BLUE BLOOD RUNS COLD (A Michael Ross Novel Book 1) by M.A Wallace Page A

handful of us are criminals. Even after all these years, after seeing everything I've seen, I couldn't quite believe that some officers are just felons in training.”
                  “Oh? And Bailey has changed your mind? Because he was out there doing god knows what in the middle of the night on a Friday?”
                  “I don't know, maybe. It's more like, the lines are lot more blurry than they used to be. There's a lot more gray, and a lot less black and white. The truth is twenty-five-sided die whose numbers keep changing. Roll it once, and who knows what will turn up?”
                  Michael took a gulp of Gatorade. He said, “Well, what we have to do now is talk to Shannon. Guess we'd better mosey.”
                  “In the hospital, treating her as our primary suspect? You think that's gonna fly?”
                  “She might not be our primary suspect. I don't know yet. I checked up on her while you were at the police station. Apparently, she's a member of this student group called To Write Love on Her Arms. Recovery from violence and abuse, that sort of thing. The executive board was listed on the university website. Would you believe who was also on that board?”
                  Billy put down his fork, upon which he had speared three pickle slices. He said, “I don't know, who?”
                  “Zachary Tyler, the kid who brought a gun to campus three years ago. He's the treasurer of the group.”
                  “No bueno , man. For real? So what, you think Tyler provided the gun and Moore took the shot?”
                  “Either that, or Tyler did it himself. You know what I'm going to ask when we get to the hospital, don't you?”
                  “I know what I would ask. But man, sometimes you're still a mystery to me. I've known you all this while, and still I don't get you. You have more money than god, but you live in that glorified shack of yours. You're ahead of your time with all the technology you have, but you drive that old car. When I try to figure you out, I just go around in circles.”
                  Michael grinned. He said, “I just believe in using everything for as long as it can be used. But I guess, since you don't know what my questions will be, I'll leave that for later.”
                  “And have me going in blind, not knowing what the game plan is? Come on man, fill me in.”
                  After Michael ate the last of his creamed spinach, he told his partner everything he wanted to ask, and everything he wanted to find out.
     

Chapter Three
     
    1
     
                  At first, it had been the switch, a length of plant taken from she knew not where. Then, as she grew older, it had been the belt. As a child, she had never truly understood why her father beat her with a switch, why he came home some nights reeking of alcohol and furious at the world. She blamed him, then she blamed herself. She blamed her mother for being quiet as a mouse on those nights, never standing up to him. He had never beaten his wife, never in the eighteen years she had suffered in that spotless, antiseptic house. All she knew was that she was the only one who got beaten, the only one who had her pants taken off while an erection grew inside his pants.
                  She began cutting at age nine. One day, she found a used-up kitchen knife in the trash, replaced with something new. It had been the knife her mother had used to cut cantaloupe. That was also the way of it in her father's house: nothing was ever valued, nothing ever lasted. As soon as something new came around, into the trash with everything old. That her father made enough money to buy new things on a regular basis had never been a comfort for her, or for him. The excessive amount of money he made working for the state government had