Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Nothing usually happens after dark besides the odd coyote running through town or summer kids stirring up misdemeanors.
That’s why I’m walking out of Red Grounds and into the morning light, carrying a cardboard cupholder with five steaming paper cups printed with the café’s logo.
I’m the last one in to work. I always am.
Technically, it’s a medical exemption, though there’s nothing in my medical history that requires coming in later in the morning. The excuse lets me use my morning hours as I see fit. Walking my dog. Hiking the woods.
Making a few phone calls.
And what I learned during this morning’s phone calls left me pretty fucking pissed.
That brick of cocaine we recovered when we arrested Culver Jacobin for the attempted murder of Delilah Graves—formerly Delilah Clarendon before she went and married Lucas—was a key piece of evidence in an ongoing case.
We’d followed protocol. Turned it over to the FBI to poke at with a few other alphabet agencies. Forensic analysis showed this particular cocaine sample was a dead match for the drugs plaguing the east coast over the last decade, far north of Redhaven.
Proof that the drug epidemic that’s been escalating every year—and taking more lives along with it, stealing folks from their families, stealing from me—can be traced right back to this nowhere town.
So close.
I was so fucking close.
Yet somehow, every last lab sample wound up destroyed in a freak accident.
Coincidentally, right before the forensic analysts verified all their notes.
Then the rest of the entire brick of coke disappeared from evidence lockup.
Clerical error, my ass.
This was a classic cover-up.
A lot like how Culver Jacobin’s and Ulysses Arrendell’s ‘suicides’ in prison were a cover-up, too. The wealthiest family in Redhaven—hell, in all of North Carolina—has a vested interest in burying investigations. They also have all the money in the world to make damn sure it happens.
They’ve also set me right back to square one, putting me in one hell of a mood.
My blood simmers so thick I feel the bright midmorning light turning darker in my vision as I head up the sidewalk toward the station.
My vision hazes and halos around the edges.
I’ve always been sensitive to light. If I didn’t need my nights to myself, I’d trade with Henri for evening on-calls in a heartbeat. The corrective contact lenses I wear don’t really help, scattering the sun into starbursts.
So I almost miss it when it happens.
The girl, staggering through the loose streams of morning shoppers out running their errands. She starts fumbling with her purse, wearing a desperate look.
Her skin looks like white ash against her fiery-red hair, her eyes wide, her face an unnatural red that screams panic.
It’s her motion that grabs my attention.
Then the dull thump of her purse and leather portfolio hitting cobblestone.
Right before she goes tumbling down, collapsing in a spill of vivid scarlet and delicate limbs.
“Shit,” I mutter.
The people milling around her gasp, pulling back with a collective cry.
I don’t even realize I’m moving until I’m halfway across the square.
Dropping the coffee with a messy splash, I sprint to the girl’s side and fling myself down so hard I bruise my shins.
She’s not quite unconscious, not yet.
Her long lashes flutter against her red cheeks, offering glimpses of hazy blue eyes.
A familiar face?
Yeah, she works at the furniture shop down the street. Can’t remember her name, but that doesn’t matter right now.
I cup her face gently in both hands, stopping her from turning it from side to side in case she has head trauma.
“Miss,” I growl firmly, looking down into her eyes. “Focus on me. I’m a police officer. Can you tell me if you hit your head?”
Her lips part, but nothing comes out besides a wheeze. Her chest rises and falls, swift and shallow.
No blood, though.
No contusions that I can see at a glance.
Then I freeze.
She’s trying to reach her purse, I realize, her eyes rolling toward it helplessly while her throat clicks with fear.
That’s when what’s happening really sinks in.
She can’t breathe.
Probably an allergic reaction or an asthma attack.
I let go of her head and dive for her purse, ripping it open and spilling the contents. Notepad, phone, pens, receipts, lipstick, comb. Come on, come on, where’s the goddamn EpiPen or inhaler—
Aha.
An inhaler goes clattering across the stone.
I snatch it up, pull the cap off, and hold it to her lips, fitting it carefully so her soft red mouth wraps around it.
One pump.
Give her a second.
Then another.
My brain whips back to first responder training. Okay, I need to keep calm for her own sake through the adrenaline spike.
My focus narrows to her, and only her.
Tracking her breathing.
The jitter of her eyes.
Watching as she sucks in a deeper breath, then another, her eyes widening, her head tossed back.
Fuck me, I don’t think this inhaler is working fast enough.
I also don’t have time to wait around for dispatch to send EMTs, even if there’s one on the way by now from someone calling it in.