Sammy Keyes and the Kiss Goodbye Read Online Free Page A

not facing what he really didn’t want to face.
    And so he stepped forward.
    And then, there she was.
    His first reaction was one of enormous relief.
    Her face was fine!
    There was a bruise and a scrape, but … he had imagined much worse. And although her arms were wrapped in gauze and her
head
was wrapped in gauze and there were tubes going into her and wires coming off of her, her face was fine!
    Almost … angelic.
    “Sammy,” he whispered as he moved closer. “It’s your buddy the Borschman.” He grinned. “Yes, I know you call me that.” He stared at her for a long minute before whispering, “Who
did
this to you?” A lump began forming in his throat as he choked out, “And
why
?” He took a moment to compose himself, then whispered, “Did you really go there because of some nightie-napper? Who cares who’s stealing nighties! Was it worth
this
?”
    The lump in the lawman’s throat had grown, and it silenced him until he gave a snort and said, “Just like meto start with an interrogation, huh? What am I, an idiot? That’s what you’re thinkin’, right? Can’t I see you’re not doin’ so hot?” He studied her a little longer, then shook his head. “You should have seen the waiting room earlier. It was packed with kids. I can’t handle a room of teenagers on a good day, you know that. And here I had to go and tolerate it on a day like this?” He forced a laugh. “Thanks a lot, Sammy.”
    He stared at her, lying there while the monitors blipped and machinery softly hummed. “You gotta wake up, you hear me? Just come to and give me a hard time.”
    The lump in his throat was now bigger and badder than ever, so he clammed up and backed away from the bed, nearly colliding with a male orderly.
    “Excuse me!” the orderly said. He was wearing white on white, had narrow, black-rimmed glasses, and (to the Borschman’s immediate and irrational annoyance) had shaggy brown hair.
    “Do you know when a doctor will be by?” Sergeant Borsch asked, composing himself as quickly as he could.
    “Soon, I’m sure,” the orderly said, and after a quick inspection of the area, nodded a good night, and left the room.
    Gil Borsch turned back to Sammy, but after a few more silent minutes willing her to wake up, he turned away and found himself gazing out the window.
    At first, he looked upward. (Perhaps for divine intervention, but even under these circumstances probably not.)
    Then he looked below, at the circular drive to the mainentrance. It was empty. No vehicles coming or going. No illegal park jobs. Nothing.
    Then he looked out, across the town, where the lights of Santa Martina twinkled quietly.
    Deceptively.
    There were no sirens, no burning buildings, no alarms clanging. But out there, the lawman knew, swirling between the twinkling lights like toxic vapors, violence and deceit and unspeakable crimes were taking place.
    Out there, someone who’d thrown a fourteen-year-old girl off three flights of stairs was roaming free.
    Gil Borsch turned away from the window, turned away from his thoughts, turned back to Sammy. “Don’t worry. We’ll get whoever did this to you. That’s a promise.”
    Then he sat in a chair next to Sammy’s bed and hunkered down, unaware that in an unoccupied room across the hallway, the shaggy-haired orderly was hiding in the shadows, waiting impatiently for him to leave.

4—TRACING FOOTSTEPS
    Fortunately, Gil Borsch did not leave Room 411. Instead, he fell asleep in his chair. It was a log-sawing slumber, too. One that could easily be heard in the darkened room across the hallway. One that conveyed a clear and exasperating signal.
    Room 411 would be inaccessible for quite some time.
    Now, I wish I could tell you that Sergeant Borsch was awakened from his log-sawing slumber by Sammy calling, “Hey, Borschhead! Wake up!” but that’s not what happened. Instead, the lawman was rousted from his sleep by a nurse named Joanna who jabbed him in the arm and told him he might