Susan Sleeman - Dead Wrong

“I just need to grab my stuff from upstairs and then I’m ready to go.” She nodded at the kitchen. “There’s fresh coffee. Help yourself.”

As she ran up the stairs, she heard his phone ringing. Maybe it was Tommy calling from the autopsy to give them a lead. At least she hoped so. The sooner they got a few strong leads the faster they’d solve the murder and bring closure to Nancy’s family.

She secured her gun in the holster and slipped it onto her belt then gathered her things and retraced her steps. On the landing, she paused and looked down at Mitch. She’d expected to find him in the kitchen getting coffee. Instead, he stood leaning on the fireplace mantel, one hand on his cell, one massaging the back of his neck as if his conversation was tense. She studied him. His broad shoulders and long lean body. His self-assured stance.

A man this attractive should have women flocking around him, but if rumors were true, he didn’t even date. Of course, she didn’t, either. But at thirty she had a few more years than he had to find a mate if she ever chose to do so. He was at least four years older, maybe five.

He turned, looking up at her. His gaze roved from her head to her toes and back up again. Her heart dipped, and she pressed her nails into her palms to keep from embarrassing herself by fawning over him.

She wouldn’t let him get to her again. The loss of her adoptive parents had made her look back on her life and take stock of all she’d been through. To remember all the horrible things that had happened so they couldn’t be repeated. And that meant not letting a man get close enough to control and hurt her as her mother had been hurt. Even a man like Mitch, who on the surface seemed like an upstanding kind of guy.

Just keep remembering that, Kat, and you’ll be fine.

She continued down the stairs and by the time she reached him, he was saying goodbye.

“Tommy,” he said, without making her pump him for information as she’d expected. “The drug in the syringe was propofol.”

Propofol. Very dangerous and deadly in the wrong hands. “The anesthesia drug used in surgeries,” she said, trying to keep the renewed fear out of her tone.

“If he’d injected you with the entire syringe, your breathing would’ve been severely compromised.”

“And I’d be dead,” she said in a whisper.

“Nancy’s tox screen was positive, as well,” he said quickly, as if wanting to move on.

Kat wished she could let go of her memories of that night as easily. It’d be a long time before she stopped seeing Nancy lying there next to her while the killer tried to end her life, too.

“The M.E. estimates Nancy had been dead less than an hour before he arrived on scene,” he continued.

“Not long after she called me,” Kat said and clenched her hands to fight back a fresh wave of sorrow. If only she’d gotten to Nancy sooner. Or taken her more seriously when she’d claimed Nathan had been murdered. Her friend could still be alive.

“Still, the killer could’ve gotten away if he’d wanted to leave.” Mitch paused for a long moment and made eye contact. “Sounds like your theory may be right. He knew you were coming and waited for you to arrive so he could kill you.”

“Then he’ll likely try again.” She stated the obvious and hated how it made her breathe faster to ward off her fear.

Mitch searched her face, his intriguing eyes softened as he moved closer. He took her chin between his fingers and turned her head, studying her like a bug under a microscope.

“Your nose may be broken. We’ll make time today to get it checked out.” He sounded so clinical, which was the farthest thing from what she was feeling.

“I’m fine.” She gazed up at him. He was so close she could feel his breath on her cheek.

With his other hand, he gently brushed his thumb over her cheekbone. “You never said how this happened. Did you fall and hit the floor?”

“The killer punched me.”

He hissed out a breath and his thumb trailed down her cheek and under her chin, sending every nerve in her body into awareness. Even the scientific way he’d held her chin felt good. It was almost like a caress, wrapping her with warmth. Warmth she had no business feeling if she was going to keep Mitch at bay, much less stay alert and out of the path of a killer.

* * *

Mitch didn’t know what it was about Kat that got to him. Sure, she was cute, adorable even. A brown-eyed, curly-haired, five foot four bundle of adorable, but he’d resisted adorable in the past.

He was probably reacting to what had happened to her last night, but man, when she’d told him their suspect punched her, he’d seen red. Bright, vivid, bull-fighting red and he had to touch her. To connect with her on some level. So he’d used her injury as an excuse to reach out to her. Soon, he felt the anger melt and something else he didn’t want to think about replaced it. It had lingered ever since.

Even now after a sixty-minute drive on winding Oregon roads, he couldn’t get images of her being manhandled out of his head when he should be focusing on a case that wouldn’t solve itself.

Maybe things would be better once Tommy joined them. And maybe if they talked for the rest of the drive, his mind would stop wandering to places it had no business going.

“So do you ever miss being a cop?” he asked, trying to sound casually interested.

“Sometimes.” She faced the window as if trying to shut him down.

“But you like working with the agency?’

“Most of the time.”

Great. A real talker. “What don’t you like about it?”

“It can be difficult to work with family.”

With his parents dead and his only sibling wandering the streets of Portland, he couldn’t begin to understand that, but he knew her family was important to her.

“How so?” he asked and took a long sip of the rich coffee they’d poured into travel mugs before leaving her house.

She shrugged.

“C’mon, Kat. Would it hurt to talk to me?”

She swiveled and searched his face with big brown eyes. Sweet eyes. Eyes with no residual frustration but were just filled with questions. “Why do you want to be so buddy buddy all of a sudden?”

“You’ve been through something horrible, and I thought it might help to talk.”

She just looked at him, her expression unreadable.

“This isn’t about that crush you had on me, is it?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes.

“Sorry for bringing it up, but there are a lot of female officers in the department who don’t exactly like to see me.”

She frowned at him, and he got the message. She didn’t feel the least bit sorry for him. Something he should expect coming from one of the women he’d rejected, but for some odd reason it was important that she understood.

“It’s a problem, Kat. A very real one.” He waited for a response but got none. “You try doing your job when half the force is hurt because you wouldn’t go out with them.”

She snorted.

“What?” he asked.

“Half the force?”

“Fine.” He grinned at her teasing tone. “I exaggerated.”

Her lips twitched in a smile. “In all seriousness, I heard other officers complaining about how hurt they were when you rejected them. I know it’s a problem for you.”

“I appreciate your understanding.”

“I can be sympathetic now, but make no mistake, I was mad at you. Or maybe I was more embarrassed that you shut me down in front of my coworkers. But all of that’s in the past.” Her smile faded. “It’s not important anymore. Nothing seems quite as important after losing Nancy that way.”

The opening he hoped for. “You want to talk about what happened?”

She shrugged.