PsyCop 2: Criss Cross by Jordan Castillo Price Read Free Book Online Page B

subconscious an inferiority complex. “Uh-uh. Why? Was I talking in my sleep?”
     
    “No. You scratched me.”
     
    I gave Jacob a look like I couldn’t believe he’d be such a sissy over a scratch, when he turned toward me and I saw the arm of his T-shirt hanging off, a line of bright blood slipping down his arm. “Holy shit! I did that?”
     
    Jacob wadded the remains of his sleeve against his biceps. “You’re awake now?” he said, standing cautiously. “I don’t want to get blood on your white couch.”
     
    “Fuck the couch,” I said, jumping up. “Let me see.”
     
    He shook me off and went into the bathroom, where I crowded in behind him. “How bad is it?”
     
    “You’re blocking the light,” he said. He sounded too calm for someone who was bleeding.
     
    I reached up and flicked on the fluorescent bar over the mirror. It hummed a little, but was good enough to shave by. “C’mon,” I said. “Show me.”
     
    Talking to Jacob was like talking to a brick wall. He turned on the cold water tap and then tore his bloody sleeve the rest of the way off. Although he didn’t turn so I could see the cut, I got a good look at it in the mirror despite him. It wasn’t just one scratch, it was two. They almost looked like a sloppy, upside down “T”.
     
    “Shit.”
     
    Jacob splashed some water on it and took a look at it in the mirror. It showed up plain for a moment, and then more blood oozed out of it, mixing with the water and running in a rivulet down his arm.
     
    “What did I do that with?” I demanded, wondering how I could’ve possibly been asleep while something like that was happening. “Was I sleepwalking?”
     
    Jacob sighed, splashed the cut again, then pulled a big handful of toilet paper off the roll to blot it with. “You weren’t sleepwalking. I thought you were...you know...just putting your arms around me in your sleep. And then you scratched me.”
     
    “What -- with my nails?”
     
    Jacob didn’t answer.
     
    He had to be wrong. Not that he’d lie about something like that, but I was sure he’d been mistaken. I must’ve had something sharp in my hand that I’d dropped while he was shaking me. My fingernails weren’t capable of inflicting that kind of damage. I looked down at them with the intention of saying so, and saw they were caked with blood.
     
    I spun out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. I wrenched the kitchen faucet on and thrust my hands beneath it. My vision started tunneling like I was going to have another fucking fainting spell, and I gulped air to keep myself standing. I told myself it was just some congealed blood and not a shred of skin I was pushing out from under my fingernail as I tried to scrub away what I’d done.
     
    I was still washing my hands when Jacob came out of the bathroom. He’d tied a handtowel around the T I’d gouged into him.
     
    “Maybe I should go to a motel,” he said.
     
    I glanced at the clock. Almost five. “No, don’t,” I said. “I have to go to the clinic in an hour and a half anyway. I’ll stay awake. I’ll have some coffee.”
     
    Jacob reached over my shoulder and turned off the faucet. He sighed and leaned back against the sink, crossing his arms loosely over his stomach. “It’s not me that I’m worried about. It’s you.”
     
    “Which is why you should stay. We’ll watch the early news.”
     
    Jacob pinched the bridge of his nose, a weary gesture. He’d been up all night. “Lisa made it sound like I was the problem here, not you. That I needed to get away from you.”
     
    “She said that? Specifically?”
     
    Jacob knuckled his eyes, sighed again, and sat down on a kitchen stool. “I don’t know what she said specifically, Vic. She took me off guard.”
     
    “And then what did you do?”
     
    “I tried to call you,” he said, in a “duh” sort of way. “But it went to voice mail.”
     
    I looked over at the jacket hanging from my back door. The phone was in the inner