Irreparable Harm (A Legal Thriller) Page 19

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  They stood in the narrow alley. The back of Warner’s building ran the entire length of the right side. The left was a row of backyards for a block of townhouses. Each townhouse boasted a tiny, maybe ten foot by twenty foot, yard.

  Most of the owners seemed to have given up the dream of green space. In the shadows, Sasha could make out multilevel decks, a gravel dog run, some concrete patios, and one sad-looking sandbox and slide sitting on a patch of cracked cement. A row of chain link fences, some more crooked than others, framed the yards, abutting crumbling retaining walls. The alley was a good six feet lower than the row of retaining walls. And, except for the lone light shining down on the dumpster, it was perfectly dark. A plump rat darted out from under the dumpster and headed into the weeds.

  “Give me those towels, would you?” Connelly said over his shoulder, as he walked over to the dumpster. She handed him the dish towels, and he wrapped them around his hands as makeshift gloves before prying open the lid.

  “Can you hold this open?” he called from within the bin.

  Sasha held the lid, her head turned away from the smell, as Connelly dug through the bin, tossing bags of trash out and on to the ground. It didn’t take long to find a plaid blanket, rolled up lengthwise, like a rug.

  Connelly unwrapped it to reveal a blood-stained tan sheet. He carefully pulled the sheet aside. The body was that of a young man, probably in his early twenties. Sandy brown hair, matted with blood. His face had been bashed in. The entire left side was collapsed and misshapen.

  “Well, that’s Warner,” Connelly said. “I ran his name through the database earlier. What’s left of him matches his driver’s license photo.”

  Sasha looked down into the dumpster at Warner’s ruined face. The bile rose in her throat, acidic and sharp. Someone had killed this man—kid, really—because of her.