Unforgivable Read Free Page A

chest?
    “Ma’am?”
    She looked at the detective. “He was there already. He must have left right after I did.” She clamped herlips together to keep her teeth from chattering. She wore only the nightshirt, jeans, and wet moccasins; her sweater was tangled in a barbed-wire fence somewhere.
    “Okay, but you didn’t see Hannigan again until you were moving west on the highway, is that correct?”
    Mia looked down at her hands. So much blood. She’d tried to stanch the flow as she’d knelt beside him in the road, desperately pressing her hands against his wound. But there had been so much of it—seeping through his shirt, his coat, oozing warm and sticky between her fingers. And that gurgling sound—
    “Ma’am?”
    “What?”
    “You didn’t see him while you were at the bank?”
    “No.” A fresh wave of fear washed over her as she remembered the ATM, the gun at her cheek. “Maybe he saw me on the highway when I entered or left the bank. I was, um, driving kind of erratically. You said he called nine-one-one?”
    “The call came in at ten-sixteen. He told the dispatcher he’d seen you at the bank and believed you were being held at gunpoint.”
    Mia clenched her hands together again. Her stomach clenched, too.
    “Okay, and then when the car stopped and Hannigan jumped out, you say he exchanged words with your assailant?”
    “It wasn’t an exchange, really. He said, ‘You there!’ like he was trying to get his attention, stop him from what he was doing.”
    Stop him from killing me.
    She looked at her hands again and felt as if she was going to vomit.
    “Uh-oh. Head between the knees.” The paramedic pushed her head down, and Mia found herself staring at a crack in the pavement as she waited for the nausea to pass. More footsteps approached.
    “How’s she doing?”
    Mia closed her eyes at the sound of the familiar voice. Ric Santos. She’d known he would get here eventually, but she’d hoped to be gone by then.
    “We’re about finished up,” Macon reported.
    A pair of worn Nikes and frayed jeans entered her field of vision. “Caramia?”
    “What?”
    He dropped into a crouch and put his hand on her knee. He’d never put his hand anywhere near her knee before, and under normal circumstances, she probably would have gone up in flames. Right now, it was all she could do not to throw up on his shoes.
    “How’s the arm?”
    “Fine.” She looked up at him. Which was a mistake. His brown-black eyes searched her face, and she could tell he knew she was lying. It hurt like a bitch. Worse than anything she’d ever experienced. And she should be grateful she wasn’t lying in that road in the freezing sleet with a team of crime-scene techs surrounding her.
    She sat up straight and brushed the hair from her eyes. Ric stood. Mia felt his gaze on her, even sharper than usual, as she turned to Macon. “Was there anything else? I’d really like to go home.”
    “This could use a few stitches,” the paramedic said, applying the last in a series of butterfly bandages to theslash on her arm. “Otherwise, you’re going to have a nasty scar. We can drop you off on our way back to the fire station.”
    Mia took a deep breath. The last place she wanted to be right now was some ER waiting room. Just the thought made her shudder. “It’s fine.”
    The woman gave her a stern look as she put away her bandages and ointment.
    “I’d make the trip,” Ric said. “They’ll probably give you some pain meds.”
    Mia flashed him a glance. She hadn’t seen him in months, not since they’d worked a case together last summer. But it took only an instant for her to take in every detail about him—his lean, wide-shouldered build, his dark hair that was longer than she remembered and slightly mussed. He wore his scarred leather jacket and jeans, which told her he’d been off duty tonight. Had he been in bed when he’d gotten the call? Had he been with a woman?
    She couldn’t believe her thoughts had gone