First Offense by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg Read Free Book Online Page B

her, even if you and her son refuse to accept me. Not only that, I’m an assistant district attorney. Have you forgotten that?”
    Reed just shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll take the kid home myself. Wouldn’t want you to put too many miles on that fancy Rolls-Royce of yours.”
    Glen shuffled his cowboy boots on the linoleum. “That’s the most childish thing I’ve ever heard of. Reed. The car’s twelve years old, and I bought it at a damn auction for twenty grand, for chrissakes.”
    Reed stepped right in the attorney’s face, his breath hot and foul. “What did you see out there? You were at the scene right after it happened.”
    Hopkins was just as hard in return. “Your partner already took my statement. Ask him. And you’d better take a close look at your big hero. Reed,” he said nastily. “Jimmy Sawyer’s a drug dealer. He may be your suspect.”
    “Sawyer a suspect?” Reed said, his mouth opening in surprise. “You’re joking, right?”
    Glen spun around and stomped down the hall, glancing back over his shoulder at the detective. Then he yelled down the hall, “Joking? I don’t think so. Reed. You guys are like the fucking Keystone Kops. Get your act together or I’ll have you removed from this case.”
    Tommy Reed narrowed his eyes and glared until Hopkins turned the comer and disappeared. Sawyer, he wondered, the guy who saved her? He’d have to ask Abrams what he’d made of the guy. Seemed like a pretty poor suspect as far as Reed was concerned, no matter what Ann’s hotshot D.A. thought. People don’t put a bullet in a woman and then rush right over and try to save her life. If anyone needed to get his mind set straight, Reed decided, it was Hopkins. This wasn’t the Wild West, here—this was Uzi country, sawed-off-shotgun land, 9mm heaven. Around here, people shot you for no reason at all, and they sure didn’t hang around to administer first aid.
    Several nurses passed in the hallway, and one smiled at the detective. He smiled back, waiting until they rounded the comer to break out laughing. Hopkins was a fool, threatening to get him yanked off the case, strutting around as if he thought he was the one wielding the big stick and the detective was nothing but a lousy cop. Mama’s boy, as far as Reed was concerned. Mama probably did all his homework in law school.
    Go ahead, cowboy, he thought as he headed to the waiting room to get David, get me removed from the case. The captain had already officially assigned the case to Abrams, claiming Reed was too close to Ann. That was fine with Tommy. The less paperwork he was responsible for, the more time he would have to conduct his own investigation, and he had more contacts on the streets than anyone in the department.
    “Hey, kid,” he said, sticking his head into the waiting room. David was sitting straight up in the chair, his head dangling forward onto his chest. The boy was sound asleep.

Chapter 3

    A nn was in bed with five or six pillows propped behind her. She had been released from the hospital after only six days, and at the end of the second week she was approaching full recovery. David was munching potato chips and shuffling through his baseball card collection on the floor by her bed. “One of these days I’m going to save enough money for a Mickey Mantle,” he told his mother. “Freddy’s grandfather bought him a Mickey Mantle last year. Can you believe it? Freddy doesn’t even like baseball.”
    Ann laughed at the irony of her son’s statement. His friend had no interest in sports, but was, like David, a collector. Being surrounded by his favorite objects made David feel secure, and if there was one thing he needed, it was a sense of security. He still wet his bed several times a week, and worried constantly that one of his friends would find out. After years of therapy since his father’s disappearance, David was still a disturbed young man.
    “It’s time for you to get to bed,” Ann told him, smiling. “And