Triptych Read Free Page A

a lopsided football. He caught it before it hit the ground, his ringers wrapping around something thick and obviously wet.
    Leo said, “Something for your cat.”
    “What the-” Michael stopped. He knew what it was.
    “Lookit his face!” Leo’s shotgun laugh echoed off the walls.
    Michael could only stare at the bag. He felt blood at the back of his throat, tasted that metallic sting of unexpected fear. The voice that came out of his mouth did not sound like his own-it was more like he was under water, maybe drowning. “What happened?”
    Leo was still laughing, so Pete answered, “He bit off her tongue.”

CHAPTER TWO
    FEBRUARY 6, 2006
     
    When he had returned from the Gulf War, Michael had been haunted by his dreams. As soon as he closed his eyes, he saw the bullets coming at him, the bombs blowing off arms and legs, children running down the road, screaming for their mamas. Michael knew where their mothers were. He had stood by helplessly as the women banged the closed windows of the schoolhouse, trying to break their way out as fire from an exploded grenade burned them alive.
    Aleesha Monroe was haunting him now. The tongueless woman in the stairway had followed him home, worked some kind of magic in his dreams so that it was Michael chasing her up the stairs, Michael forcing her back onto the landing and splitting her in two. He could feel her long red nails sinking into his skin as she tried to fight him off, choking him. He couldn’t breathe. He started clawing at his neck, her hands, trying to get her to stop. He woke up screaming so loud that Gina sat up in bed beside him, clutching the sheet to her chest like she expected to see a maniac in their bedroom.
    “Jesus, Michael,” she hissed, hand over her heart. “You scared the shit out of me.”
    He reached for the glass of water by the bed, sloshing some on his chest as he took large gulps to quench the fire in his throat.
    “Babe,” Gina said, touching the tips of her fingers to his neck. “What happened?”
    Michael felt a sting on his neck and put his fingers where hers had been. There was a rent in the skin, and when he got up to look in the mirror over the dresser, he saw a thin trickle of blood dripping from the fresh cut.
    She stood beside him. “Did you scratch yourself in your sleep?”
    “I don’t know.” He knew, though. He still hadn’t caught his breath from the dream.
    Gina wrinkled her nose as she pulled his hand to her mouth. For a second, he thought she was going to kiss it, but she asked instead, “Why do you smell like bleach?”
    He’d had to scrub it off him-that smell, that stickiness, that came from being around the dead. Michael didn’t tell her this, didn’t want to open up that conversation, so instead he squinted at the clock, asking, “What time is it?”
    “Shit,” she groaned, dropping his hand. “Might as well get dressed. My shift starts in two hours.”
    Michael picked up the clock to see for himself. Six-thirty. After processing the crime scene, tossing the woman’s apartment and going through the paperwork, he had gotten maybe four hours of sleep.
    The shower came on, pipes rumbling in the wall as the hot water heater kicked in. Michael went into the bathroom, watching Gina slip off the shirt she’d slept in.
    “Tim’s already up,” she said, taking off her panties. “You need to make sure he’s not getting into anything.”
    Michael leaned against the wall, admiring her flat stomach, the way the muscles in her arms stretched as she took the band out of her hair. “He’s fine.”
    Gina gave him a look, noticing him noticing her. “Check on him.”
    Michael felt a smile on his lips. Her breasts had kept their fullness after Tim, and his mouth was almost watering at the sight of them. “Call in sick,” he told her.
    “Right.”
    “We’ll watch a movie, make out on the couch.” He paused, then tried, “Remember how we used to just kiss for hours?” Christ, he hadn’t had more than a peck