Rogue's Passion by Laurie London Read Free Book Online Page B

waiting vehicle, where the woman would open the back door for her. The man would put his hand on her head as she climbed in, because they do that on the reality cop shows. Was it to force someone inside when they didn’t want to go or was it a courtesy thing so you didn’t hit your head?  
    All she knew was that everyone would be watching, including the media, and within minutes, her picture would be posted on countless news blogs. Her life would no longer be her own. The army would own her. She’d never see her mother again.
    “Okay then,” the woman said. “Let’s start with your names.”
    Olivia opened her mouth to speak, but Asher spoke first. “Listen. I fucking… need…an ambulance. When will…another one…be available?”
    She cut him a sidelong glance. He wasn’t serious, was he, or had he changed his mind about getting conventional medical treatment? Didn’t he know these people weren’t aid workers?
    He jerked his chin to the right. “There’s also a poor soul over there…who wasn’t as lucky as we were. Will someone be coming by…to pick him up? Who notifies his wife?”  
    She was struck by how he made it sound as if they were a team. She decided to chime in and see where he was going with this. “I work here and that’s—I mean, that was my boss.”
    The AIU woman unbuttoned her navy wool coat, then pulled a stylus and a digital tablet from an inner pocket. She consulted something on the screen, then closed the cover with an efficient snap. Looking up, she smiled warmly, as if they were all on the same side. Olivia wasn’t fooled. This had to be an interrogation technique.  
    “You’ll need to talk to someone out there,” she told Asher. “They’ll tag the body and get you some medical attention.” She turned back to Olivia. “Getting back to why we came here in the first place, are you the one who helped that female out there?”
    Olivia swallowed nervously. “Me?” She looked back and forth between the two of them. She noticed Asher subtly kicking the fireman’s coat further behind the counter.
    The woman appeared to be in her forties or fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair pulled off her face by two plain bobby pins. A few strands had slipped free and she kept pushing them away with the tip of her stylus. She must be growing her bangs out, Olivia thought. They were that awkward, in-between length, long enough to hang in your face but too short to tuck behind an ear.  
    The man, on the other hand, wore a black suit, skinny black tie, and shoes that, despite the soot and ash outside, somehow still held a shine. He studied her, his face devoid of emotion, making her feel like a one-celled organism on a glass slide. At least when someone showed a little emotion, you could pretend it was as bad as it would get. But when there was nothing, it made you think anything, even the most awful, was possible.  
    “Yes,” the woman said, a touch of impatience in her tone. “The redhead on the gurney. Was that you who helped her?”
    Asher cleared his throat and answered for her. “No. Olivia was with me. We were here, inside the Grape and Bean when everything happened.”  
    She tried not to act surprised. Why was he covering for her?  
    “Is that so?” The woman didn’t sound convinced. “Because we have witnesses—three of them—who said a female individual matching her description had been attending to the injured woman.”
    “Why are you looking for her?” Olivia said, referring to herself in the third person and trying to sound more curious than guilty. “Did she do something wrong?”
    “We think she might be an unregistered Healer-Talent. The victim had been dying until she came along and saved her.”  
    Olivia’s bladder squeezed down to the size of a peanut.  
    Oh God, they know!
    Asher let out an exasperated sigh. “Look at me.” He gently rolled up his shirt, exposing his bruised and bloodied torso.  
    Her hand flew up to her mouth. “Oh my God, Ash.