Running on Empty. Michelle Celmer

can you hear me? You need to lie still. Help is on the way.” He braced one hand under her head and cupped the other over her cheek to hold her immobile. Her delicately boned face felt fragile and looked small cradled in his palm.

      She reached up in a vain attempt to pry his hand away. “Hurts.”

      “I know it hurts, but you could make it worse by moving.”

      Her lids fluttered open and she looked up at him, eyes unfocused and bleary—eyes a spectrum of speckled gray, like the stones he used to collect on the beach at Lake Superior when he was a kid. For several seconds, he found himself suspended in their depths.

      “Please,” she murmured. “Please, don’t let him—” She grimaced, as if the effort to speak was too painful. Her eyes rolled up, and he could tell she was sinking back into unconsciousness.

      “Don’t let him what?” he urged. “Did someone hurt you?”

      In a surprising burst of strength, she reached out and clutched the front of his leather jacket, her eyes clear and wild with fear. “Don’t let him kill me.”

      Mitch watched, feeling an uncharacteristic surge of empathy as the paramedics wheeled the woman away. She looked so small and helpless on the gurney, her skin ashen in contrast to the stark white bandages on the gash at the base of her skull. Since those brief seconds when she’d pleaded for her life, she hadn’t regained consciousness, but her single utterance told him everything he needed to know to get an investigation started.

      This had been no accident.

      As a result, the store was crawling with Twin Oaks’ finest. If the suspect was ballsy enough to attack a woman in a well-lit store, who knew what else he might be capable of.

      “Detective?”

      Mitch turned to Officer Greene, one of the uniforms dispatched to the scene. Greene was new to the force, six months out of the academy, but what he lacked in experience he made up for in enthusiasm. He reminded Mitch of himself ten years ago. “Find anything?”

      “We combed the area but we didn’t find a purse or anything else that might identify her. We’ve got two men searching the parking lot, and another two in the alley, in case the perp slipped out the back.”

      “What about her cart?”

      He nodded to the left. “At the end of the aisle. No purse or any identification.”

      Mitch followed him to the cart abandoned a few feet from where he’d found the victim.

      “Looks like she was on a budget,” Greene said.

      The cart contained generic brand vegetables by the case—six of them altogether. There were also diapers and disposable wipes, and a couple dozen jars of baby food. It would be a safe bet that their Jane Doe had a family, although she hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring. Divorced maybe? A single mother? Or maybe she just happened to take her jewelry off and had forgotten to put it back on when she left the house.

      Sighing, he dragged a hand through his hair and massaged away the knots from the back of his neck. “There are probably a couple kids out there wondering why Mommy hasn’t come home yet.”

      “How bad was she?”

      “Blunt force trauma to the back of the head. Too severe to be from a fall. From the bruising on her arms, I’m guessing she was hit from behind and thrown forward, then rolled over onto her back.” He gestured to the tinted dome overhead that housed a security camera. “What about surveillance?”

      “The store is old, so it’s not exactly a state-of-the-art system. Picture quality couldn’t be much worse. Maybe if the victim knows him, she could identify him from the tapes.”

      Her words echoed in his head—don’t let him kill me. She could still be in danger. They needed to find out who she was and if she knew who had done this to her. They meaning him. Which also meant that sleep would have to wait. Though he wasn’t sure why, he didn’t trust this case to anyone else. It was as if, in those few seconds she’d looked up at him, they’d bonded somehow.

      Bonded? Christ, he must be delirious from exhaustion. If he told anyone at the station his theory, they would tell him he needed his head examined.

      “Make sure someone takes down the plates of all the cars in the lot,” he told Greene. “With all this food, I doubt she was walking.”

      Greene followed him to his cart. “It’s a good thing you found her. Who knows how long she would have lain there bleeding. The store is practically deserted this time of night.”

      “Yeah, my lucky day.” Not.

      “You seem to be having a lot of those lately. That was some arrest. Did you get a confession?” Greene had what could only be described as hero worship in his eyes.

      Mitch didn’t deserve the recognition. He’d been completely stumped until an anonymous letter had been dropped on his desk. It named the suspect, gave his address, and even disclosed where the evidence—trinkets taken from each of the victims—could be found. The entire arrest had been unbelievably easy.

      Too easy.

      “The interrogation went on for twelve hours and he didn’t crack,” Mitch said. “But the D.A. thinks we have enough physical evidence to convict.”

      “This your stuff?” Greene asked, motioning to his groceries.

      “Yeah.” Mitch glanced down at his cart. No time to pay for it now. Besides, the death-by-chocolate ice cream was oozing out and creating a brown puddle on the floor. He’d just have to stop somewhere on the way home, which by the looks of things, wouldn’t be until morning.

      Greene gestured to the basket the employee had dropped. “What about that stuff?”

      “It’s not part of the crime scene. You find anything else, page me.”

      “Where are you headed?”

      “I’m going over to the hospital to get an ID on her,” Mitch said. “With any luck, I’ll have this case wrapped up by morning.”

      Pain, sharp and relentless, lanced the back of her head, pounded through her brain like a jackhammer and wrapped itself around her eyeballs. She tried to lift her lids, but piercing white light seared her retinas.

      “That’s it,” a voice said. It sounded distant, muffled. “Open your eyes.”

      “Too bright,” she muttered, nearly choking on her own words. Her mouth felt funny, as if it had been stuffed with cotton.

      “Why don’t we try sitting you up a little.” There was a humming sound, and she felt herself rising, as if some invisible force held her suspended in midair. Maybe she was dead. There had been a bright light.

      Nah. Heaven wouldn’t smell like rubbing alcohol. And it wouldn’t be so loud. All around her she heard the drone of muffled voices, odd beeps and bleeps, the thud of footsteps. Did people in heaven even have feet?

      She tried to swallow, but her tongue felt thick and sticky. “Water?” she croaked, her voice sounding coarse and unfamiliar.

      A straw touched her lips but she sucked a bit too enthusiastically. The shock of the cold liquid made her gag and choke. Water spewed from her mouth and dribbled down her chin.

      That must have been attractive. When she was able to speak, she would have to apologize to whoever it was she’d just sprayed. With caution, she forced her lids open, blinking several times to clear her vision, and found herself gazing into a pair of deep-set, chocolate brown eyes.

      “Want to try that again?” he asked, holding up a plastic cup. His deep voice enfolded her like soft flannel, and any apprehension she’d been feeling melted away.

      Entranced, she nodded and he lifted the cup, holding the straw to her lips.

      “Take it slow this time.”