Night Sins by Tami Hoag Page A

like a promise she knew she couldn't keep.
    Mitch said nothing. The heat abruptly died to a glow. He lifted his hands from her shoulders and stepped back. She wanted to usurp his authority, then rob him of his sanity, then pretend it hadn't happened. A part of him bridled at the thought. But that wasn't an intelligent part of him.
    It wasn't smart to want Megan O'Malley. Therefore, he would not want Megan O'Malley. Simple. She wasn't even his type. Pint-size and abrasive had never done anything for him. He liked his women tall and elegant, warm and sweet. Like Allison had been. Not at all like this little package of Irish temper and feminist outrage.
    “Yeah,” he muttered, digging deep for sarcasm. “Good move, O'Malley. Forget about it. Wouldn't want to get caught with your femininity showing.”
    The words stung, as he had intended them to, but the hit brought no satisfaction. All that stirred within him was guilt and a hint of regret that he had no desire to examine more closely.
    An entrance door banged open, the sound bounced around the quiet like a rubber ball.
    “Chief!” Noga bellowed. “Chief!”
    Mitch bolted, that knot in his stomach doubling, tripling, as he ran along the back side of the boards.
Please, God, let him say they found Josh. And let him be alive.
But even as he made the wish, cold dread pebbled his skin and closed bony fingers around his throat.
    “What is it?” he demanded, rushing up to his officer.
    The look Noga gave him was pale and bleak, the face of fear. “You'd better come see.”
    “Jesus Christ,” Mitch whispered desperately. “Is it Josh?”
    “No. Just come.”
    Megan brought up the rear as they ran from the building. The cold hit her with physical force. She zipped her jacket, dug her gloves out of her pockets, and pulled them on. Her scarf trailed off one shoulder, fluttering like a banner behind her and finally falling off as she dashed across the parking lot.
    Mitch sprinted ahead, running across the rutted ice in dress shoes, as surefooted as a track star. Midway down the lot, along the far edge, three more uniformed officers stood huddled together by a row of overgrown leafless hedges.
    “What?” he barked. “What'd you find?”
    None of them spoke. Each looked to another, mute and stunned.
    “Well, fuck!” he yelled. “Somebody fucking say something!”
    Lonnie Dietz took a step to the side, and a ray of artificial light fell on a nylon duffel bag. Someone had written across the side of it in big block letters: JOSH KIRKWOOD .
    Mitch dropped to his knees in the snow, the duffel sitting before him with all the potential of a live bomb. It was partially unzipped and a slip of paper stuck up through the opening, fluttering in the breeze. He took hold of the very edge of the paper and eased it slowly from the bag.
    “What is it?” Megan asked breathlessly, dropping down beside him. “Ransom note?”
    Mitch unfolded the paper and read it—quickly first, then again, slowly, his blood growing colder with each typed word.

    a child has vanished
ignorance is not innocence but SIN

CHAPTER 6
----
    D AY 1
9:22 P.M.          19°
    K ids do the damnedest things,” Natalie said. She worked at the kitchen counter, building turkey sandwiches while the coffeemaker hissed and spit. “I remember Troy pulling a stunt like this once. He was ten or eleven. Decided he was going to go door to door, selling newspaper subscriptions so he could win himself a remote-control race car. He was so caught up in winning that prize, he couldn't think of anything so minor as calling from school to tell
us
what he was doing.
Call my mother? Why should I call her when I see her every day?
”
    She shook her head in disgust and bisected a sandwich corner to corner with a bread knife the size of a cross-cut saw. “This was when we lived in the Cities and there was starting to be a lot of gang activity going on in Minneapolis. You can't imagine the things that went through my head when