Internal Affairs Read Online Free

judgment—had her flicking on the lights and moving farther into the house.
    She didn’t see anything out of place in her pretty kitchen, but the back of her neck prickled, warning her that someone had been there who shouldn’t have been. Holding her breath, she eased through the doorway connecting the kitchen to the living room. And froze in horror.
    A man lay on the floor beside her sofa, blood soaking the carpet beneath him.
    Sara stifled a scream, swallowing it in a bubble of hysteria. Her saner self said, Run! Get the hell out of here! But something had her stalling in place as her heart hammered in her chest.
    Her brain racked up impressions in quick succession: the big man lay motionless, but he was breathing. He wore jeans, a dark blue jacket and boots with soil and gravel embedded in the treads. She could see their bottoms because he lay on his face, hands outstretched,one nearly touching a pen and notepad as though he’d dropped them when he fell.
    Her panicked brain replayed info from the radio bulletins: a group of men had disappeared in one direction, carrying a couple of bodies. A single man had gone off alone. Having spent the day listening to snippets about the dead agents and the unsuccessful manhunt in the forests of Bear Claw Canyon State Park, Sara knew damn well she should be running for her life, screaming her head off, doing something, anything other than standing there, gaping. But she didn’t move. She stayed rooted in place, staring at the notepad.
    She knew that writing.
    Emotion grabbed her by the throat, choking her and making her heart race even as logic told her it was impossible. That wasn’t his writing. Couldn’t be. The man lying there, bleeding, was a stranger. A danger. Get out of the house, she told herself. You’re imagining things.
    But she didn’t run. She edged around the man and leaned down to read the note. It said: Nobody can know that I’m here. Life or death.
    Sara reached for the notepad, then stopped herself. Her hand was shaking and tears tracked down her cheeks unheeded.
    “No,” she whispered, the single word hanging longer than it should have in the silence. “He’s dead.”
    But she knew that writing, had seen it on countless notes tucked under her coffee mug, or left beside the phone, telling her where he was going, when he’d be back, or that he’d pick up dinner on the way. Lovenotes, she’d liked to think them, even though he’d never said those exact words.
    Hope battered against what she knew to be true. He’s dead, she thought. I went to his funeral.
    Yet she reached out trembling fingers to touch thick, wavy black hair that was suddenly, achingly familiar. And stopped herself.
    All rational thought said she should call for help. The note, though, said not to. She wouldn’t have hesitated, except for the damn writing. It was shaky, but it was his. She’d swear to it.
    She could turn him over and prove it one way or the other. It wasn’t as if he was going anywhere fast. He was out cold, his back rising and falling in breaths so shallow they were almost invisible. Blood soaked the rug beneath him; the smell of it surrounded him.
    Sara’s inner medical professional sent a stab of warning as she dithered on one level, assessed his injuries on another. He’s pale, probably shocky. If you don’t do something soon, it won’t matter who he is because he’ll be dead.
    “Call 9–1–1,” she told herself. “Don’t be an idiot.”
    Instead, she reached out and touched him—his stubble-roughened cheek first, then the pulse at his throat. As she did so, she tried to get a sense of his profile, tried to see if it was—
    No. It couldn’t be.
    Yet her heart sped up, her head spun and her breath went thin in her lungs as she debated between checking his spine—which was the proper thing to do before moving him—and turning his face so she could see, so she’d know for sure.
    Then he groaned—a low, rough sound—and said something