Read Online Deadworld by J. N. Duncan - Free Book Online

side of her booth so her back was more to them. The last thing she wanted was to get called over and asked about the case or to sit and listen to them comment on the body parts of every woman walking to the bar. Besides, Pernetti had joined them, and she just could not stand the prick. How did his wife put up with him? He was a pig with a capital P .
    Worse, the nagging feeling about this case was not getting burned away with the wave of alcohol. Ghosts, psychics, and twelve-year-olds getting drained of blood had her stomach crawling. They’d had one case five years earlier where Jackie had witnessed enough to make her believe Laurel’s psychic weirdness was not bullshit. The case would not have been solved without her, and nothing brought about feelings of ineffectualness like the supernatural. There were no rules, no structure, no FBI training on handling that kind of strange, and this one was strange enough to freak Laurel out. Jackie hoped to hell it was just a normal psycho siphoning off people’s blood.
    The image of Archie would not go away. She could see the boy running away from his fighting and screaming parents, wanting something he could never have there. It struck far deeper than Jackie wanted to admit, and the tequila was failing to trickle down that far.
    Where the hell was Shelly? She wanted one more for the road, and the girl had obviously decided she had had enough. The ticket lay facedown on the edge of the table. The bitch had slipped it in at some point in the last twenty minutes. Damn stealth waitress.
    Jackie picked up the check and made her way to the bar. Definitely needed one more for the road. Maybe she would just walk back over to headquarters and go through that info on the cowboy again.
    “Hey, Jack!” Marly said with a welcoming grin. His burly hands moved with deceptive grace as they dried one pint glass after another and put them under the bar counter. “’Bout time you came up and said hello. Why you hiding out in the corner over there?”
    She shrugged. “New case. Ugly one. Just mulling over shit, you know how it is. It’s going to frustrate me, I can tell already.” Fucking cowboy is going to be a pain in the ass.
    “Christ, Jack. Frustrated already?” Pernetti’s voice cut in like a mouthful of castor oil.
    Goddamn, Pernetti. Did the guy ever know when to shut up? She turned toward his table, which sat off the other corner of the bar. “When’s the last time you weren’t frustrated, Pernetti?” The other three at the table chuckled at Pernetti, who gave her a “is that all you got?” look and looked at her for more. They knew there would be more from Jackie Rutledge. “Not counting Charlene down in shipping.”
    That garnered a few outright laughs and good-natured heckling. Pernetti’s shiny crown of a forehead flushed a lovely shade of pink. His affair with the shipping clerk was common knowledge, except perhaps to his wife.
    Pernetti then sat back in his chair, waving off the barb. “Have a couple more drinks, Jack. That should ease the frustration.”
    Jackie stepped back from the bar and faced Pernetti. At that moment, Shelly walked by, a trayful of food in her hands.
    “Careful, hon. Leave the prick alone.”
    Jackie frowned at Shelly’s back as the waitress walked off into the crowd, tray held high. Leave him alone? He’s the asshole who started it, and now the fucker is accusing me of drinking too much? I’ll carefully plant my steel-toed boot up his ass. Jackie pushed through the bar crowd, ignoring the beer that spilled over her arm and the ensuing swearing from the girl she had bumped into.
    At the guys’ table, Jackie stopped, staring at Pernetti’s dome of a head, glowing with perspiration under the overhanging lamp. He was a bowling ball on legs. “A dozen drinks wouldn’t drown out the frustration of your presence here, Pernetti. Is it just me in particular, or are you a shit head around everyone?”
    Gamble laughed, slapping Pernetti on the