Mission: Cavanaugh Baby Read Free Page B

think she was asking for assistance with someone’s pet.
    Agitated, Ashley barely heard the voice on the other end confirm her request. Terminating the call, she was vaguely aware of pocketing her cell phone. During the call, her eyes never left the figure on the floor.
    The dog continued to circle around it, barking and growing progressively more and more agitated, as if it knew that its master couldn’t survive long, not with the kind of blood loss that the pool on the floor indicated.
    Whoever it was, was bleeding out, Ashley thought. She had to do something. She couldn’t just stand there, waiting for the ambulance to arrive.
    Her heart in her throat, Ashley raced back to the leasing office to get the manager.
    The sign hanging on the closed glass door stopped her in her tracks. “Out showing apartments. Be back in twenty minutes.”
    The person in the apartment didn’t have twenty minutes. He or she might not even have five.
    She had to get in there, Ashley thought, desperately casting about for how. And then she remembered one of the kids she’d met growing up in the system. He’d taught her a few things that she would never be able to put on a résumé.
    Making up her mind, Ashley ran back to the apartment. Scrutinizing the perimeter of the window, she went into action and popped out the left pane, lifting it up and out of the frame. The space was small, but just big enough to accommodate her.
    Pulling herself up off the ground, Ashley went through the opening and tumbled into the apartment—into the kitchen sink, more precisely. She hit her shoulder against the metal faucet.
    The unexpected jolt vibrated right through her. Entirely focused on the person a few feet away, the pain shooting down her arm barely registered.
    The terrier ran toward her, barking furiously, as if to warn her away from the person he was guarding.
    For a moment Ashley was certain that the frantic little dog was going to bite her.
    “It’s okay, boy, it’s okay,” she told the dog in a low, soothing voice. “I’m here to help. Let me get to your master.”
    In response, the dog ran back to the person on the floor, as if showing her the way.
    “That’s it, boy, take me to—”
    Ashley’s voice felt suddenly trapped in her throat as she quickly followed the terrier to where the person lay.
    Horror filled her.
    She didn’t remember crossing from where she was to the body, but she obviously had to have moved because the next thing Ashley knew she was dropping to her knees beside the victim, panic and a sense of urgency filling her at the same time.
    The person on the floor was a woman.
    Ashley knew all the rules about touching a victim and disturbing a crime scene. Each one of them began with the word Don’t.
    But she was positive that she could make out just the faintest signs of breathing. The victim’s back was moving ever so slightly.
    Amid all that blood, there was no visible wound in the back. It clearly had to be in the front.
    If this woman had so much as a prayer of making it, Ashley knew that she had to find some way to stop the bleeding.
    She began to talk to the victim as if the woman was conscious and could hear her. She talked to her the way she talked to a frightened, wounded animal. Slowly, soothingly.
    “I’m with the police department,” Ashley said as she turned the woman to face her. “The ambulance is coming. Just hang in there—”
    The rest of her words evaporated as she realized that the woman’s belly had been slashed open.
    Everything began to grow dark, and Ashley struggled not to pass out.

Chapter 2
    E xercising every last ounce of her self-control, Ashley fought against the darkness that was trying to swallow her up.
    She knew that if she surrendered and passed out, she’d be of no use to the victim. Although it seemed almost improbable, she was positive she’d detected just the slightest movement of the woman’s chest. She was struggling to breathe, which meant that the woman was still