Rocky Mountain Mystery. Cassie Miles

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ tone was brittle.

      “He’s fine,” David said warily.

      “Still playing the field?”

      “With a vengeance.”

      She’d met David through his friend, Jake Zitti, whom she’d been dating at the time of the Fisherman murders. Jake was driving the car at the time of the accident. Jake the Snake dumped her before she was out of the hospital.

      David was a whole different story. He’d made a dozen hospital visits, bringing flowers and magazines she couldn’t read because she was out of her mind on pain medication and didn’t care what she looked like. Other issues loomed larger. Would she ever walk again? Would she regain the use of her arm? David had been kind and encouraging. In some ways, she thought, he’d treated her with the tenderness and attention he was unable to lavish upon his murdered sister.

      The memory of Danielle Crawford returned Blair’s attention to the Fisherman. Should she observe the autopsy? She turned to Adam. “I need to think about whether I want to be involved in this consultation. I’ll call you back at one o’clock. That would be, um, 1300 hours.”

      “I know you’ll make the right decision.” Adam gave a brisk nod. “Call me on the cell.”

      He pivoted and went out the door. She was left alone with David.

      “Mind if I stick around?” he asked.

      “You won’t influence my decision one way or the other,” she warned.

      “Not even a little?”

      “I don’t like looking backward. The Fisherman serial murders got real personal.” She shrugged off the remembered fear. “It’s a time in my life that I’d rather forget.”

      “I understand.”

      She rather doubted that. His response to those tragedies had been the extreme opposite of hers. Instead of trying to forget, David had obsessed over his sister’s murder. He’d plunged deeper and deeper into the horrifying world of serial killers and snipers and mass murderers. He’d travelled all around the country, searching for…what? “Why do you do it?” she asked. “Why do you keep digging into these crimes?”

      He glanced at the pool. “Why do you swim?”

      “A typical reporter.” She grinned. “Answering one question with another.”

      “It’s my nature,” he said.

      “You know, David, even though you’re a hotshot TV consultant, you still dress like a beat reporter.”

      “How’s that?”

      “You’re not quite put together. Khaki trousers with a belt that doesn’t match your loafers. Wrinkled blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Loosely knotted necktie. I bet you’re still wearing the same brown tweed sports jacket you had five years ago.”

      “It’s in the car,” he said. “And you didn’t answer my question about swimming. Why do you do it?”

      “Because it’s good for me.”

      “But it’s not necessary physical therapy.”

      “Not anymore,” she said.

      “You’re pretty much recovered from your injuries,” he said. “Tell me, Dr. Blair Weston, why haven’t you gone back to work as a medical examiner?”

      She held up her wrist, displaying the pale scars from two operations. “My hand is still too shaky.”

      “For working on dead people?”

      “For your information, there’s a certain degree of precision required in an autopsy.”

      “Let me see that wrist.”

      He caught hold of her forearm and pushed up the sleeve of her robe. With his thumb, he traced the line of scars along the tender flesh at the inside of her forearm. Though his hands were warmer than hers, his light caress sent shivers through her body.

      She lifted her gaze to meet his and found herself fully engaged in a study of his intense, compelling eyes. A darker rim circled multifacets of blue, nearly as splintered and complicated as the man himself. As she stared at him, the tiled pool room and the rippling expanse of turquoise water faded into a soft, pleasant blur.

      “I think there’s another reason you haven’t gone back to work,” he said gently. “I don’t know the label. Trauma. Fear. Sorrow. All of the above.”

      “Maybe.” Blair had tried psychological therapy and quit when she didn’t make measureable headway.

      “Were you ever able to recall what happened in the accident?”

      She shook her head. She remembered driving with Jake. The windows on the car were down, and there was a breeze. Riding in a car with Jake behind the steering wheel was always a harrowing experience. Too fast. He always drove too fast. “I don’t remember the crash. My mind is a blank until I woke up in the hospital. I assume I was in shock.”

      “Me, too,” he said. “After Danielle was killed, I went into emotional shock. The way I coped was writing about it. So there’s the answer to your question. I keep writing, keep digging into serial killings because I need to make sense of it. For my sister. And for myself.”

      He might have undertaken an impossible task. “Do serial killings ever make sense?”

      “Not in a rational way.”

      She couldn’t quite believe that they were standing here, holding hands and talking about heinous crimes. “I should get going. Adam needs my decision in less than two hours.”

      “I’d like to see you again,” David said. “Can I take you to lunch sometime?”

      “How about now? Come upstairs with me, and I’ll make you a terrific tuna salad sandwich.”

      “You’re on.”

      Side by side, they left the swimming pool, crossed the lobby and boarded the elevator. Though Blair suspected that David was coming upstairs to convince her to investigate the Fisherman, his attention pleased her. He’d asked her to lunch. He wanted to spend time with her.

      At her condo on the fifth floor, she unlocked the door. “Make yourself at home. I’ll just run into the bedroom and get changed.”

      “Do you have to change?” David followed her into the living room. “I like the blue bathing suit. It shows off your curves.”

      Her curves? Apparently, David had noticed more about her than her damaged leg. “Were you ogling me?”

      “I’m a reporter. A trained observer.”

      “And what have you observed?”

      “Curves. Nice curves.”

      His blue-eyed gaze rested warmly upon her. His masculine appreciation was unmistakable.

      Blair СКАЧАТЬ