Third Watch

Book 0: An Alice Madison Short

by Valentina Giambanco

Genres: Police Procedurals; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

As Detective Alice Madison prepares to give testimony in the trial of a fellow Seattle police officer, she becomes preoccupied with a case in rural Chelan County, Washington. She helps to rescue a man from his pickup truck that's gone off the road in the middle of a rainstorm, but she soon realizes that there may be more behind the accident than meets the eye . . .

Release date: August 7, 2018

Publisher: Quercus

Print pages: 41

Sample

The white pickup truck burst out of the narrow trail and onto the blacktop. The tail swung out with a spray of gravel. The rain had just begun in earnest and the woods on both sides were a green smear against the cloudy sky. The driver didn’t know what time it was, whether the low sun was on its way up or on its way down. The driver didn’t even know what day of the week it was.

The pickup accelerated on the deserted stretch. The road was a straight line that sliced the woods in half, and straight was good. Straight meant speed. The driver kept an eye on the rearview mirror. So far, so good.

The headlights cut through the rain and the beams shone on layers of uneven grey. If he stuck to the road and kept going, he’d be easier to find but harder to catch. If he stopped and hid and bided his time, he’d be harder to spot but it would give them a chance to get a couple of road blocks in the right places. And he’d be dead. Well, deader than he was already anyway. It was difficult to think clearly about anything. Ideas and images flashed and just as quickly dissipated into the murk his mind had become.

The bend in the road arrived as the driver was struggling to gauge his options. In the end, gravity, rain, and Newton’s laws of motion took over and the white pickup braked, slid, rolled over twice, and skidded down the steep bank by the side of a bridge. The driver passed out after the first roll but the seat belt held him hanging, upside down in the teetering car, as a trickle of blood from a small cut on the chin dripped from his lips, through his brow, and onto the ceiling.

The metallic gray SUV came to a stop on the other side of the road, and two men and a woman rushed to the edge of the bank. The men leaned forward trying to see inside the cabin without slipping down the ravine. The woman was already speaking on her cell phone when a car appeared out of the rainy haze.

A young woman rolled down her window. “What happened?”

The older woman shook her head. “Must have slipped off the bend. I just called 911.”

“Are they coming?”

“They’re on the way.”

No one had noticed the stream that ran under the bridge because it was nothing but a polite brook that kept within its banks. Upstream though, up in the mountains where it sprang out of the earth, the river was done being polite.

Earlier that morning

Dawn was still one hour away and the sky loomed low and heavy with trouble. Alice closed the door of the cabin behind her and felt the bite of the morning air on her b. . .