dead naked woman laid out like a starfish, the camera aiming right between her legs. Someone had written “Killer: SpongeBob SquarePants?” in ballpoint across the top of it. Her mom had pulled the picture off the bulletin board, the red thumbtacks popping out and rolling across the floor. “Sorry, beanie. Ignore it. Dumb cop humor.”
She knows all about that. She comes from a long, proud line on her dad’s side. Her great-grandpappy was a firefighter, his son was a sergeant, and then her dad turned traitor and went private security, even though it’s safer, better paid, with benefits. She knows she’s supposed to continue the family tradition because po-lice is in her blood, but as far as she’s concerned, it’s just testosterone. Like the mind-control parasites you get from cats. Toxoplasmosis. If life is all determined by chemical signals, hers are telling her to move on, little girl, right on out of Motor City. Anywhere but here. Anything but po-lice.
“Our fancy network got a fancy virus,” Gabi says. “Someone was downloading porn and it had a spartan or something.”
“Trojan,” Layla corrects automatically.
“All Greek to me.”
“Mom!” Layla cringes.
“The IT guys swear we’ll be back up tomorrow, but in the meantime…”
“Can’t you just fire all the useless cops?”
“There would be nobody left. Come on, beanie, you’re always telling me you can find anything on the Internet.”
“It’s like the universe that way. Constantly expanding,” Layla says. “But it’s mainly creeps and freaks, Mom, I’m warning you.”
“I think my killer would exactly fit those criteria.”
She pulls up the search results. “Well, here we go. Animal-human hybrid corpses. It’s all yours.”
“Great.” Her mother puts on her glasses and squints at the screen. Island of Dr. Moreau, the East River Monster, 25 Creepiest Real Science Experiments, that horrible mouse with the ear growing out of it, a two-headed squirrel in a dress and twirling a parasol, among 307,000 other results that get even weirder.
“What is—?” Gabi cocks her head. “Oh. Right. Is that supposed to be his tail or a tentacle?”
“I’ll exclude furries and hentai in your search terms. Unless you think that’s going to be helpful?”
“No. No I don’t think so.”
“You’re going down a nasty rabid hole, Mom. Good luck.”
Layla nudges open her bedroom door with her hip, carrying black coffee for both of them, because cocoa is for little kids, to find her friend looking suspiciously thoughtful, scrolling through a forum with some very dubious GIFs.
“Hey, you’ll never believe what my mom just said—oh sweet baby Jesus, you had so better not be posting pictures of me to some bug-fuck-crazy porn site.”
“Depends,” Cas grins. “Got any of you when you were ten?”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Catfishing.”
“We’re not doing that.”
“But little SusieLee’s already got two messages.”
“You need another hobby. Ideally one that involves making very finicky, time-consuming things to sell on Etsy.”
“Like homemade tampons with girl power slogans?”
“You are disgusting.”
“You like it.”
“Yeah,” Layla admits. “Bitch.”
“Slut.”
“Love ya.”
“I know.”
I dreamed I was a man.
Scar Tissue
The old bullet wound in the kid’s armpit gives Gabi something she can work with. Six hundred and forty-seven nonfatal shootings in Detroit last year. But the city’s not so soul-decayed that a six-year-old kid catching a stray bullet from a gang war doesn’t make the news. Not yet, anyway. It helps that the ambulance broke down en route and the officers on the scene had to drive the kid to the hospital in a patrol car. Five years ago, which meant it took some digging, but there is a trail of paperwork that leads right back to him.
His name is Daveyton Lafonte. Eleven years old. He has been missing since Friday afternoon. The parents filed a missing persons
She knows all about that. She comes from a long, proud line on her dad’s side. Her great-grandpappy was a firefighter, his son was a sergeant, and then her dad turned traitor and went private security, even though it’s safer, better paid, with benefits. She knows she’s supposed to continue the family tradition because po-lice is in her blood, but as far as she’s concerned, it’s just testosterone. Like the mind-control parasites you get from cats. Toxoplasmosis. If life is all determined by chemical signals, hers are telling her to move on, little girl, right on out of Motor City. Anywhere but here. Anything but po-lice.
“Our fancy network got a fancy virus,” Gabi says. “Someone was downloading porn and it had a spartan or something.”
“Trojan,” Layla corrects automatically.
“All Greek to me.”
“Mom!” Layla cringes.
“The IT guys swear we’ll be back up tomorrow, but in the meantime…”
“Can’t you just fire all the useless cops?”
“There would be nobody left. Come on, beanie, you’re always telling me you can find anything on the Internet.”
“It’s like the universe that way. Constantly expanding,” Layla says. “But it’s mainly creeps and freaks, Mom, I’m warning you.”
“I think my killer would exactly fit those criteria.”
She pulls up the search results. “Well, here we go. Animal-human hybrid corpses. It’s all yours.”
“Great.” Her mother puts on her glasses and squints at the screen. Island of Dr. Moreau, the East River Monster, 25 Creepiest Real Science Experiments, that horrible mouse with the ear growing out of it, a two-headed squirrel in a dress and twirling a parasol, among 307,000 other results that get even weirder.
“What is—?” Gabi cocks her head. “Oh. Right. Is that supposed to be his tail or a tentacle?”
“I’ll exclude furries and hentai in your search terms. Unless you think that’s going to be helpful?”
“No. No I don’t think so.”
“You’re going down a nasty rabid hole, Mom. Good luck.”
Layla nudges open her bedroom door with her hip, carrying black coffee for both of them, because cocoa is for little kids, to find her friend looking suspiciously thoughtful, scrolling through a forum with some very dubious GIFs.
“Hey, you’ll never believe what my mom just said—oh sweet baby Jesus, you had so better not be posting pictures of me to some bug-fuck-crazy porn site.”
“Depends,” Cas grins. “Got any of you when you were ten?”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Catfishing.”
“We’re not doing that.”
“But little SusieLee’s already got two messages.”
“You need another hobby. Ideally one that involves making very finicky, time-consuming things to sell on Etsy.”
“Like homemade tampons with girl power slogans?”
“You are disgusting.”
“You like it.”
“Yeah,” Layla admits. “Bitch.”
“Slut.”
“Love ya.”
“I know.”
I dreamed I was a man.
Scar Tissue
The old bullet wound in the kid’s armpit gives Gabi something she can work with. Six hundred and forty-seven nonfatal shootings in Detroit last year. But the city’s not so soul-decayed that a six-year-old kid catching a stray bullet from a gang war doesn’t make the news. Not yet, anyway. It helps that the ambulance broke down en route and the officers on the scene had to drive the kid to the hospital in a patrol car. Five years ago, which meant it took some digging, but there is a trail of paperwork that leads right back to him.
His name is Daveyton Lafonte. Eleven years old. He has been missing since Friday afternoon. The parents filed a missing persons
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