Primitive Secrets Read Online Free Page A

another patient in the hospital assembly line.
    The police had waited through the examination to ask their questions. Storm spoke to them for a few minutes, trying to describe the attacker using acceptable language, and realized how little information she could give them. Black hair, she thought. Jeans, black tee-shirt with no distinguishing marks, tennis shoes, mask. She could picture his posture, the way her hands slipped on the sweat of his arms, the garlic on his breath, but how to get his essence across? From what she could tell the police, the attacker could be one of hundreds of guys.
    The police were closing their notebooks when a handsome blond man in scrubs hustled into the room. She cracked a fat lip into a half-smile. “Rick. I thought you worked the morning shift. That’s why you couldn’t come to the memorial service.”
    â€œYeah, but I got called back in. We’re short-staffed. I heard what happened. You okay, babe? You look terrible.” He stroked Storm’s arm while he leaned back to assess the damage. Leila and Robbie moved off a few discreet steps.
    â€œI’ll take you home,” he said.
    Hamlin turned to leave. “Storm, I’ll pick you up tomorrow for work if you like. About eight?”
    â€œSure.” Storm nodded. “Thanks for all your help, Hamlin.” She looked back at Rick, who was scrutinizing a bruise on her cheekbone. “Leila can give me a lift, Rick.
    I’ll call you tomorrow.” Rick looked a bit disappointed, but Storm wanted the comfort of being with Leila and Robbie, who, unlike Rick, never commented on makeup or designer handbags. Right now she didn’t want to worry that she looked a wreck. Heck, Robbie even seemed to admire it.
    Leila avoided potholes and made all her turns slowly on the way home. She and Robbie tried to talk Storm into spending the night at their house, but Storm convinced Leila that all she wanted to do was go straight to her own bed.
    Storm waved at them through her screen door, let in the cat, and marveled again at how Fang drooled a puddle on the floor at the mere sound of the can opener. When the cat was purring over her dish, she filled a glass at the sink and took a Tylenol with codeine, pondered but decided not to take two, then barely made it to her bedroom to pass out with an ice pack on her face.
    When her radio alarm went off, she hauled herself upright and opened her gritty eyes. She felt as if weights had pressed her into the mattress during the entire night, but then maybe it was Fang. She was sitting on Storm’s chest, rumbling like a ‘67 Corvette.
    Storm let the cat out and stumbled back to the bathroom, where she moaned at the apparition in the mirror. Makeup wasn’t going to fix this problem. Her nose was fat, her lips were scabby, and her dark eyes were highlighted in upside down arcs of fuchsia and violet. They gazed back with a hurt wonder that reminded Storm, with a pang, of her mother. She looked away quickly and took a very long shower.

Chapter 5
    When Hamlin knocked on her door, Storm swung it open and grappled for her computer case, shoes, and keys, which were still scattered from last night. He looked right at her fat nose. “Remind me never to argue with you, counselor.”
    â€œYeah, right.” How in the world was she supposed to face people this morning? She wished she had at least pulled off the attacker’s stocking mask. Then she’d have had a chance of hurting him in the courtroom and of taking him off the street.
    â€œFrom what I saw, he forfeited fatherhood.”
    Storm started to grin at him, then grabbed at her split lip. “Ow, don’t make me laugh.”
    Once at work, she crawled into the privacy of her office, closed the door and fired up the espresso machine. If she’d driven herself, she would have stopped at Leila’s popular downtown bakery and bought a couple of scones, maybe even a wonderful, sugary Portuguese