07 Uncorked - Chrissy McMullen Mystery Read Free

heartbeat I was racing toward safety, but he croaked something guttural and terrifying.
    I almost made it to the back door before I realized he’d spoken my name. I grabbed the spinning desk fan for protection and pivoted toward him.
    “Holy shit, McMullen!” The bastard’s voice was harsh with pain. He lay in a fetal position on the floor, hands tucked between his legs, eyes scrunched shut. “How many times do I have to tell you to set your damn security alarm?” I backed away a few steps. My hands were just steady enough to flip on the lights.
    A well-built, dark-haired man lay writhing in my hallway, but not in a sexy way.
    More in a dear-God-you’ve-just-crushed-my-nuts sort of way.
    I canted my head at him, sucked in a breath and said, “Rivera?” His name escaped like a question, but I knew it was him. Telling me he was outside my house so that I’d believe he was miles away, then yanking open my door and scaring the bejeezus out of me was just the kind of thing he had done on numerous occasions. But I wasn’t quite ready to relinquish the fan. “Is that you?”
    “Of course it’s fucking…” He sucked in a careful breath, calmed his voice. “Of course it’s me.” A muscle jumped in his cheek. He’d once called it his Chrissy tick. “Who the hell did you think it was?”
    “Well…” I tried a sardonic laugh. It sounded a little asthmatic. Adrenaline was mixing dangerously with a dozen other hormones in my overexcited system, and my hands hurt from gripping the fan with such ferocious intensity. “Certainly not you. You said you were watching my house.”
    Turning his head with painful carefulness, he rolled dark, questioning eyes up at me.
    “I assumed you were lying!” I shrieked.
    “Are you totally nuts?”
    “Me? I’m not the one who habitually attacks me in dark allies or—”
    “I’m just trying to make sure you’re prepared.”
    “Prepared! Are you—”
    “Stop!” shouted a voice, and suddenly another man lunged through the doorway. I jerked toward him, still in battle mode, fan lifted high. But my neighbor, Mr. Al Sadr, was carrying a baseball bat in both hands and failed to notice me. “Do not move or I shall—” he began, then came to a screeching halt and stared at the body on my floor in blinking uncertainty. “Lieutenant Rivera?”
    “Fuck.” His response was more a groan than a spoken work.
    “What has happened here?” Mr. Al Sadr’s face was a meld of concern and curiosity not entirely unknown to me. I first became familiar with that particular expression when, as a four-year-old, I decided to become a professional golfer and hit my brother’s left eye dead on with a nine iron.
    “I didn’t know it was him,” I said.
    “Miss Mc—” Al Sadr said and turned toward me, but in that instant his eyes popped wide and his bat dropped to the floor with a metallic clatter.
    “What?” I raised my own weapon in instinctual defense and jerked back against the wall. “What is it?”
    “Holy shit!” Rivera muttered. He almost sounded more tired than wounded.
    I jerked my gaze to him. “What?”
    “Get some fucking clothes on,” he hissed, and in that moment I once again realized my state of undress.
    I felt my face heat all the way to my scalp.
    “Christina!” called a heavily accented voice from outside. “Christina McMullen, is all well?” A second later Ramla Al Sadr, too, burst through the open door, holding a can of pepper spray and looked ready to do battle.
    At that juncture I rather hoped I would die, simply pass away and move onto the hereafter.
    “Christina…” She blinked at me, big eyes dark and round beneath her brightly colored hijab. We have a history. Some of it’s good. Most of it’s weird. “What has happened here? Are you well? Why are you without the clothing?” My weapon was beginning to droop toward the floor. “I didn’t know it was him,” I said again, but my tone had lost its sterling edge and sounded a little