Target by Stella Cameron Read Free Book Online Page B

leaped from the car and slammed the door hard enough to make Aurelia flinch. “The damsel will cower until your return,” she said under her breath.
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    True to his suspicious nature, Nick hadn’t gone twenty yards before he checked his stride to take a look back at the Audi. He leaned forward to stare at the windshield and Aurelia laughed. He couldn’t possibly see her so she rolled down the window, stuck out a hand and wiggled her fingers at him. “I’m still here,” she murmured.
    Immediately he jogged away among the roses.
    â€œHoover, stay.” She slithered from the car and flattened herself against its damp side. When she set off, taking a wider angle to get to the same place Nick was going, her heart thumped hard enough to shorten her breath.
    She heard another car behind her and pulled back to make sure she didn’t get caught in its headlights.
    Delia took an interest in the roses, so the grass that edged up to the stone retaining walls around the raised beds was kept manicured.
    More lights were trained on one area and Aurelie knew she was about to discover who the accident victim was. Did she knew the person?
    Matt Bordeaux, a big, rangy Cajun who looked as if he’d been born to wear his dark blue uniform, stood with one booted foot braced on what looked like a toolbox. He spoke into a collar mike but Aurelie couldn’t hear a word.
    Nick approached from the opposite side and his sudden exclamation startled her. He wasn’t looking at Aurelie but at a twisted female figure lying mostly on her face amid smashed rosebushes.
    Nick’s shocked expression unnerved Aurelie. She made herself move closer until she could see the victim.
    She opened her mouth and swallowed air, gasped to steady her breathing.
    A scream rose, unbidden, into her throat and blasted loud enough to grab the attention of everyone present. She ran forward but Matt caught her around the waist and her feet left the ground.
    â€œYou don’t need to see this,” Matt said. “How about you go back to your car and wait? I’ll send someone to sit with you.”
    â€œPut me down,” she whispered. “Or I’ll kick where it’ll hurt.”
    â€œAurelie,” he said, dividing her name as he frequently did. “Let the professionals do their job. Stirrin’up a ruckus isn’t what we need.”
    â€œPut her down, Matt.” Nick’s voice roared through the silence that had fallen in the wake of Aurelia’s arrival.
    Her feet touched the ground again, she watched Nick move in and crouch beside the body. He shook his head slowly and made to touch the woman.
    â€œDon’t touch the body,” a female officer said sharply.
    Aurelia wrenched free of Matt and joined Nick. They knelt side by side, looking down at a face marred by multiple contusions. Trickles of blood from the nose and ear had dried on her skin. More blood turned the whites of her eyes purple and her neck should never have been able to twist as it had. One foot was bare and again, turned at a sickening angle. Bone projected through the skin just above the ankle. A considerable quantity of blood caked the leg.
    â€œMy God,” Nick muttered.
    Aurelia squeezed his arm. “Baily,” she said. “She never was happy. I feel awful, but I’m relieved.”
    â€œBecause you thought it was Sarah?” Nick asked very quietly. “That’s why you screamed. There was no way she could have got here but I thought the same thing. I’m so used to the two of them, I forget how alike they are.”
    â€œOnly the coloring and height,” Aurelia said. She turned her face up to the roof of the building. “Did she jump?”
    â€œLooks like it,” Nick said.
    â€œI hope she did.” Her eyes never left his.

7
    D elia walked into Matt Boudreaux’s dreary office at the station. She surveyed the scene, gave long, cold stares to Matt, Nick and Aurelie, in