B007GFGTIY EBOK by Simon Wood Read Free Book Online Page B

misread his unwillingness to tell them why he’d called Shane so late as a drug issue. Hiding the file was a stupid move on his part, but he wanted to protect Shane’s name. Shane deserved privacy. If something embarrassing lay at the heart of his suicide, the world didn’t have to know about it. He’d open the file when he got home. If the contents were relevant to Santiago’s investigation, then he’d hand it over. If they weren’t, then it wasn’t any of their business.
    He tried to blot it all out and focus on not falling asleep at the wheel. He found himself on autopilot, replaying the interview. He couldn’t shake Santiago’s point. He hadn’t seen Shane in three years. What made him think he knew Shane the way he knew him in college? They were close back then. Best buds. Hayden had been there at the lowest point in Shane’s life, when his parents had been killed. But that was then. Their lives had taken them in different directions and their relationship had drifted. If they’d really been close, that wouldn’t have happened. The truth of the matter was that he knew the Shane of old, not the Shane who took his life. The admission left him feeling sick to his stomach.
    He pulled over onto the shoulder and broke down. He cried for a friend he couldn’t save. He cried for how frightened he’d been when Shane pressed the butcher knife against his stomach. He cried because he was tired, confused, and grieving and he couldn’t think straight anymore. He cried himself out. He didn’t feel better for it. He still felt nauseated and his head was pounding, but he was good enough to drive.
    It was just after five when he pulled off I-80 and pointed his car in the direction of his home. His skin crawled against his soiled clothes and his brain felt stuffed with cotton balls. He just wanted to go to bed to blot out the last six hours. He’d call the office and tell them he’d be in late.
    Hayden hit the remote and parked in the garage. He was dead on his feet as he slipped from the car, but a preternatural sense snapped him out of his daze. As soon as he pushed open the connecting door from the garage to the house, he pulled up short. He detected a disturbance in his home. He didn’t smell or hear anything. It was much subtler than that. Someone had been inside his home. He knew that as surely as he knew Shane was dead.
    He inched inside, not bothering to close the door behind him. He stood very still and listened. He heard nothing but the hum of the refrigerator. Whoever had been inside wasn’t there anymore. He went to the front door and found the lock intact. The same couldn’t be said of the sliding door in the kitchen. Its lock had been drilled out. Not surprising. The front door with its dead bolt would have taken time, but not the kitchen door. It shared the same security technology as a desk drawer. Still, the kitchen itself appeared untouched. Hayden braced himself to check out the rest of the house.
    He switched on the hallway lights and waited. No shuffling of startled housebreakers greeted him. He went into the living room, turning on lights as he went. The room was a mess—furniture overturned, breakables broken and his TV and DVD player missing. Just what he expected. His house looked as if Shane had dropped by.
    The bedrooms were a similar story. Finally, he checked his office. Drawings, papers, and CDs carpeted the floor. Most devastating to Hayden, his computer and laptop were gone. Someone had his work, his files, and now they had Shane’s attachment.

CHAPTER FOUR
    A Fairfield police officer woke Hayden up. When he hadn’t answered the door, the officer had entered the house the same way as the thieves, through the kitchen slider. The officer found him stretched out on the living room floor. Hayden would have crashed on his bed or sofa, but seeing as both of those were overturned and the dispatcher had told him not to disturb the crime scene, the floor made for the next best thing. He