LITMIR.BIZ

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Santa Claus.

      The security guard, she realized, her fingers growing lax. She’d seen him around and even exchanged a few words with him on occasion. He was retired, with no family. Being a guard gave him something to do, a reason to get up each day he had said.

      The next moment, her relief began to slip away. The guard was looking down at something on the ground. There was a deep frown on his face and his body was rigid, as if frozen in place.

      Sasha picked up her pace. “Mr. Stevens?” she called out. “Is something wrong?”

      His head jerked in her direction. He looked startled to see her. Or was that horror on his face?

      Before she could ask him any more questions, Sasha saw what had robbed him of his speech. The body of a woman lay beside a car. Blood was pooling beneath her head, straying toward her frayed tan trench coat. A look of surprise was forever frozen on her pretty bronze features.

      Recognition was immediate. A scream, wide and thick, lodged itself in Sasha’s throat as she struggled not to release it.

      Angela.

      Horror vibrated through Sasha’s very being.

      How?

      Why?

      She wasn’t sure if she’d only thought the questions or if she’d actually said them out loud until Walter Stevens answered her.

      “I don’t know. I just found her like this. I think she’s dead,” he added hoarsely. Walter’s watery eyes looked at her helplessly, as if he was waiting for her to do something about that.

      Sasha dropped to her knees, pressing her fingertips against Angela’s neck, frantically searching for a pulse.

      There was none.

      “Call the police!” she ordered the hapless guard.

      Tossing her sweater and her purse aside, Sasha began a round of CPR that she already knew in her heart was useless. But she had to try because, despite everything she had been through, despite Adam’s death, she still believed in miracles.

      But there were no miracles for Angela Rico tonight.

      By the time Sasha rocked back on her heels, finally giving up her efforts to bring the maternity-ward nurse around, more than a few of the people who worked at the hospital had gathered around her, drawn by the sounds of approaching sirens and the security guard’s frantic call for help.

      The murmur of voices went in and out of her head. Everyone was horrified. Angela had been one of their own. Everyone had always liked her.

      In a daze, hating that it had already been too late to help Angela before she’d even got there, Sasha looked down at her hands. They were covered in blood.

      Just as they had been once before.

      With almost superhuman effort, Sasha fought hard to keep the dark shadows of the past from smothering her. Exhausted, she made no such effort to curtail the tears that came to her eyes.

      Detective Anthony Santini was not very happy about getting the call that roused him from a sound sleep upon the sofa where’d he’d collapsed earlier. Today was supposed to be his day off.

      On days off, a man could do what he wanted and what Tony had wanted to do was court oblivion. Especially today of all days.

      Because today was his third anniversary.

      Would have been his third anniversary, he corrected tersely in his head. If Annie were alive.

      But she wasn’t.

      Annie hadn’t been numbered among the living for the last ten months and nineteen days and the hole her death had created in his life just kept on getting deeper and deeper instead of closing up the way that know-nothing police shrink had told him it would when their paths had crossed. Involuntarily on his part. He placed no faith in shrinks. No faith in anything now that Annie was gone. All he had left was his work.

      On days alone, he needed something to dull the pain and nothing seemed to work except a few hard drinks.

      But tonight, his attempts to trample down his memories had been shattered by the phone.

      Tony’d initially cursed at it, but it wouldn’t stop ringing. Not until he’d finally answered it. Captain Holloway was on the other end, asking him to check out the homicide at Patience Memorial Hospital. The captain’d had the good grace to apologize, saying that everyone else was either busy tonight, or out sick.

      Tony had felt like calling in sick himself, given the way his head was throbbing. But now that his sleep had been summarily disrupted, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to get back to it. The best he could hope for was tossing and turning the remainder of the night away. So he might as well lose himself in his work. It didn’t ease the pain that haunted him night and day, but it did give him a reason to go on.

      Sometimes.

      Pulling into the parking structure from the street entrance, he drove down the winding path until he saw the crowd of people clustering together and staring at something on the ground. Tony parked his car to one side and got out.

      The crowd, judging by the uniforms and lab coats, were all from the hospital. He hoped that they knew better than to trample the crime scene. Holloway wasn’t here, but he’d sent in several patrolmen as well as Bart Henderson, a tall, strapping man with fading red hair and a handlebar moustache straight out of another era. The man should have retired years ago.

      There were times, like now, that Tony saw himself in the man’s ruddy face. It didn’t improve his mood.

      Moving forward, Tony saw the body on the ground first. And the pale woman with blood on her clothing second.

      Something about the woman brought to mind a line from an old fairy tale. For a second, it eluded him, and then he remembered. It was the description of Snow White. Skin pale as snow, hair black as night.

      It went on, but he couldn’t remember the rest of the description. However, from what he could remember, the woman who was standing beside the body could have posed for the fairy-tale princess.

      Tony took out his badge and held it up as he approached. The crowd parted, letting him through, some asking him questions he didn’t bother answering.

      “Detective Anthony Santini,” he told the pale woman. “You were with her when she was killed?”

      His tone indicated that he made no final assumptions, waiting for her to answer one way or another. His dark gray eyes took precise measure of her, looking for some kind of sign, a “tell” as the poker players called it, to show him whether she was lying.

      The woman’s voice was low, soft, but strong as she replied, “No. She was already shot when I saw her. Mr. Stevens was standing over her—he was the one who found her.” She took a breath, as if trying to put that between herself and the memory. “I tried to revive her. I’m a doctor,” she added belatedly.

      Tony nodded, keeping his eyes on her face. “Then she was still alive when you came?” It didn’t seem likely, given that the victim was shot in the middle of her forehead, but he played along, waiting to see what the woman would say. “Did she try to say anything?”

      Sasha moved her head from side to side, still trying to come to terms with what had happened. “There was no pulse,” she told him, her voice devoid of emotion, as numb as she felt.

      “But you still tried to revive her.”

      She couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic, or just pressing her for information. “Sometimes, you can bring them back,” she replied quietly.

      The hurt was beginning to burrow its way into her. Death was a terrible, terrible thing. In her head, she could still hear Angela’s voice.

      I’ll see you Friday, Angela had said.

      Except now, she wouldn’t, Sasha thought. Who was going to tell Angela’s little girl her mother

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