Some Choose Darkness - Charlie Donlea A Rory Moore/Lane Phillips Novel

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she was found.”

      Rory looked back at the Kestner doll resting in the box, the right eye shut peacefully, the left eye open and askew with a deep fissure running through the orbit. She understood what was happening, and knew why Detective Davidson had been so adamant that she take this meeting. It was a classic bait and switch that Davidson knew Rory would be helpless to resist.

      “They never found him?” Rory asked.

      Mr. Byrd shook his head, dropping his gaze to his dead daughter’s doll. “Never had so much as a lead. None of the detectives return my calls anymore. It feels like they’ve simply moved on.”

      Rory’s presence in the library that morning proved Mr. Byrd’s statement false, since it was Ron Davidson who had convinced her to come.

      Mr. Byrd brought his gaze back to her.

      “Listen, this is not a setup. I reached for Camille’s doll the other day because I was badly missing my daughter and needed to hold something that reminded me of her. I dropped the goddamn thing and shattered it. I couldn’t bring myself to tell my wife because I feel so guilty, and I know it would send her into a fit of depression. This doll was my daughter’s favorite possession through her childhood. So please believe me that I want you to restore it. But Detective Davidson told me that your work as a forensic reconstructionist is heralded in the City of Chicago, and beyond. I’m prepared to pay you anything it takes for you to reconstruct the crime and find the man who wrapped his hands around my daughter’s neck and choked the life from her.”

      Mr. Byrd’s stare became too much for Rory to handle, penetrating the protective shield of her nonprescription glasses. She finally stood, lifted the Kestner doll box off the table, and secured it under her arm.

      “The doll will take a month. Your daughter, much longer. Let me make some calls and I’ll be in touch.”

      Rory walked out of the library and into the fall morning. She felt it as soon as Camille Byrd’s father had used the past tense to describe his daughter, that subtle tingling in her mind. That nearly imperceptible, but now ever-present, whisper in her ears. A murmur her boss knew goddamn well she wouldn’t be able to ignore.

      “You’re a real son of a bitch, Ron,” Rory said as she exited the library. She had been on hiatus from her job as a forensic reconstructionist, a scheduled break she forced herself to take every so often to avoid burnout and depression. This most recent pause had been longer than any of her others, and was starting to piss off her boss.

      As she walked along State Street and back to her car, with Camille Byrd’s shattered doll under her arm, Rory knew the vacation was over.

      CHAPTER 3

      Chicago, October 2, 2019

      HER PHONE BUZZED FOR THE FIFTH TIME THAT MORNING, WHICH she again ignored. Rory stared at her reflection in the mirror as she pulled her dark brown hair back and tied it off. She was not a morning person and on principle did not answer her phone before noon. Her boss knew this, so Rory felt no remorse for ignoring him.

      “Who is incessantly calling you?” a voice asked from the bedroom.

      “I’m meeting Davidson.”

      “I didn’t know you decided to go back to work,” the man said.

      Rory walked from the bathroom and slipped her watch onto her wrist. “Am I going to see you tonight?” she asked.

      “Okay, we won’t talk about it.”

      Rory came over and kissed him on the mouth. Lane Phillips had been her, what? Rory wasn’t traditional enough to label him a “boyfriend,” and this far into her thirties, she thought the description sounded juvenile. She’d never considered marrying him, despite that they’d slept together for the better part of the last decade. But he was much more than her lover. He was the only man on this planet, aside from her father, who understood her. Lane was . . . hers, that was the best Rory could do in her own mind, and they were both okay with that.

      “I’ll tell you about it when I have something to tell. Right now, I don’t know what I’m getting myself into.”

      “Fair enough,” Lane said, sitting up in bed. “I’ve been asked to appear as an expert witness on a homicide trial. I’ll be testifying in a couple of weeks, so I’m meeting with the DA today. Then I’m teaching until nine tonight.”

      When Rory tried to back away, he grabbed her hips.

      “Are you sure you won’t give me any clues about what Davidson lured you back with?”

      “Stop by tonight after your class and I’ll catch you up.”

      Rory gave him another kiss, batted away his roaming hands, and walked out of the bedroom. A minute later, the front door opened and closed.

      * * *

      Her phone rang two more times as she sat in morning traffic on the Kennedy Expressway. She exited on Ohio Street and snaked through the grid-pattern streets of Chicago. She pushed through the congestion until she reached Grant Park, circled the side streets for fifteen minutes until she found a parking spot too small for even her tiny Honda. Somehow she managed a brave parallel parking maneuver, unsure if she’d be able to escape the twisting and turning and bumper kissing when it was time to leave.

      She walked through the tunnel that cut under Lake Shore Drive and along the picturesque path until she came to the cusp of the park. Grant Park was a magnificent piece of real estate that separated the high-rise buildings of The Loop from the lakefront. The park was always a popular destination with tourists, and this morning was no exception. Rory walked through the crowds until she spotted Ron Davidson sitting on a bench near Buckingham Fountain.

      Despite that her coat was already buttoned to her neck, she pulled it tight, lifted her collar, and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. It was a mild October morning and others around her wore shorts and sweatshirts, enjoying the lake breeze and bright sunshine. Rory was dressed for a brisk fall day: gray coat secured top to bottom, collar up, gray jeans, and lace-up Madden Girl Eloisee combat boots, which she wore everywhere, including during the dog days of summer. As Rory approached the detective, she pulled her slouchy fleece beanie down on her forehead. The edge of the hat touched the top of her glasses. She felt protected.

      Without introduction, she sat down next to him.

      “Well, Christ be the king, it’s the lady in gray,” Davidson said.

      The two had worked enough cases together for Davidson to know all of Rory’s quirks. She shook hands with no one, something Davidson had learned after a few attempts where his hand floated in the air while Rory averted her eyes. She hated meeting with department personnel other than Ron, and she had little tolerance for red tape. She had never accepted a deadline on a job, and worked strictly solo on her cases. She returned calls at her leisure, and sometimes not at all. She hated politics, and if anyone—from an alderman to the mayor—tried to pull Rory into the spotlight, she disappeared for weeks. If her skills as a forensic reconstructionist weren’t so outstanding, Ron Davidson would never tolerate the headaches she caused.

      “You’ve been off the grid, Gray.”

      Rory allowed the corners of her mouth to curl slightly while she stared at Buckingham Fountain. No one but Davidson called her “Gray,” and over the years Rory had warmed to the nickname—a combination of her attire and her detached outward persona.

      “Busy with life.”

      “How’s Lane?”

      “Fine.”

      “Is he a better boss than me?”

      “He’s not my boss.”

      “Yet you spend all your time working for him.”

      “Working with him.”

      Ron Davidson paused for a moment. “You haven’t returned a call for six months.”

      “I

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