Last Breath by Michael Prescott Read Free Book Online

like that, and she would be on a couch for six months spilling her guts about every little thing ... and eventually about things that were not so little.
    Things like the boogeyman.
    No one in the department knew about that. And no one would ever know.
    Every cop had a private reason for wearing the uniform, she supposed. Hers was probably no weirder than anyone else’s. Even so, she didn’t intend to share it. Sharing would be too much like reliving the experience—not that she didn’t relive it anyway, in bad dreams and memory flashes and every close call on the street.
    She detoured into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. A shower would have been better, but she preferred to shower at home.
    Drying her face with a paper towel, she looked at herself in the mirror. She wondered if anybody could see how scared she was. Not just today, but all the time. It was a fear that never left her, a fear that had dared her into defying it. She had challenged that fear by enrolling in the LAPD Academy, by earning a badge, by riding patrol in one of the city’s roughest divisions.
    People said that confronting your fears was the way to banish them. People were wrong.
    She had been facing death and danger for the past three years, first as a rookie with a training officer, and now as a full-fledged patrolwoman with the rank of Police Officer 2 ... and still the fear hadn’t left her. She doubted that it ever would.
    Was it fear that had goaded her into entering the Sanchez residence this afternoon? Was she still trying to prove something to herself, and if so, how long would she continue? Until she ended up getting killed?
    She studied her reflection. Green eyes, pale skin, and a bob of chestnut hair that could be tucked neatly under her cap when she was on duty, or unclipped to fall loosely to her shoulders when she felt free to relax. A woman’s face, not a child’s. So why did she feel like a child so much of the time? She was twenty-six years old. She had been working patrol since she was twenty-three. She had seen more, faced more, than most men or women twice her age. But she hadn’t seen enough, apparently.
    “Well, screw it,” she said aloud.
    This was a mood. It would pass.
    She headed out through the station, swinging her handbag over her shoulder. The place was busy in mid-afternoon, but not as busy as it would be after dark. Phones rang, voices shouted, and a news update droned on the TV in the patrol squad room.
    She navigated the maze of hallways, past bulletin boards cluttered with departmental memos and the divisional softball team’s scores. Some of the night-watch cops said hi, others said nothing. But they all looked at her, following her with their gaze.
    She was used to it. They never stopped watching, just as they never stopped with the ribbing and the moronic jokes and that stupid nickname that had dogged her everywhere since her second month on the job. Sometimes they smiled at her and sometimes they didn’t, but always they watched.
    Their eyes studied her from every angle, memorizing the clean lines of her body, the suntanned curve of her neck, the dusting of freckles on her sinewy forearms. They watched her as she clipped back her long chestnut hair to hide it under her cap, as she twisted in the seat of her patrol car to grab the daily log, as she jogged up to the first officer at the scene to get a recap of what she’d missed.
    She was crossing the squad room, wondering if she ought to get a cup of coffee before heading out, when she noticed a blondish man in the uniform of a Sheriff’s deputy standing by the coffee machine, filling a foam cup.
    What was he doing here?
    He saw her too. “Hey, Killer,” he called, drawing a laugh from some of the night-watch guys who had come on duty at 2:15. “Waste anybody today?”
    “That’s funny, Tanner.” She detoured across the room to face him, for no reason other than to prove she wasn’t running from a fight. “Why’re you