Dead Wrong. Susan Sleeman

her like a bug under a microscope.

      “Your nose may be broken. We’ll make time today to get it checked out.” He sounded so clinical, which was the farthest thing from what she was feeling.

      “I’m fine.” She gazed up at him. He was so close she could feel his breath on her cheek.

      With his other hand, he gently brushed his thumb over her cheekbone. “You never said how this happened. Did you fall and hit the floor?”

      “The killer punched me.”

      He hissed out a breath and his thumb trailed down her cheek and under her chin, sending every nerve in her body into awareness. Even the scientific way he’d held her chin felt good. It was almost like a caress, wrapping her with warmth. Warmth she had no business feeling if she was going to keep Mitch at bay, much less stay alert and out of the path of a killer.

      * * *

      Mitch didn’t know what it was about Kat that got to him. Sure, she was cute, adorable even. A brown-eyed, curly-haired, five foot four bundle of adorable, but he’d resisted adorable in the past.

      He was probably reacting to what had happened to her last night, but man, when she’d told him their suspect punched her, he’d seen red. Bright, vivid, bull-fighting red and he had to touch her. To connect with her on some level. So he’d used her injury as an excuse to reach out to her. Soon, he felt the anger melt and something else he didn’t want to think about replaced it. It had lingered ever since.

      Even now after a sixty-minute drive on winding Oregon roads, he couldn’t get images of her being manhandled out of his head when he should be focusing on a case that wouldn’t solve itself.

      Maybe things would be better once Tommy joined them. And maybe if they talked for the rest of the drive, his mind would stop wandering to places it had no business going.

      “So do you ever miss being a cop?” he asked, trying to sound casually interested.

      “Sometimes.” She faced the window as if trying to shut him down.

      “But you like working with the agency?’

      “Most of the time.”

      Great. A real talker. “What don’t you like about it?”

      “It can be difficult to work with family.”

      With his parents dead and his only sibling wandering the streets of Portland, he couldn’t begin to understand that, but he knew her family was important to her.

      “How so?” he asked and took a long sip of the rich coffee they’d poured into travel mugs before leaving her house.

      She shrugged.

      “C’mon, Kat. Would it hurt to talk to me?”

      She swiveled and searched his face with big brown eyes. Sweet eyes. Eyes with no residual frustration but were just filled with questions. “Why do you want to be so buddy buddy all of a sudden?”

      “You’ve been through something horrible, and I thought it might help to talk.”

      She just looked at him, her expression unreadable.

      “This isn’t about that crush you had on me, is it?” he asked.

      She rolled her eyes.

      “Sorry for bringing it up, but there are a lot of female officers in the department who don’t exactly like to see me.”

      She frowned at him, and he got the message. She didn’t feel the least bit sorry for him. Something he should expect coming from one of the women he’d rejected, but for some odd reason it was important that she understood.

      “It’s a problem, Kat. A very real one.” He waited for a response but got none. “You try doing your job when half the force is hurt because you wouldn’t go out with them.”

      She snorted.

      “What?” he asked.

      “Half the force?”

      “Fine.” He grinned at her teasing tone. “I exaggerated.”

      Her lips twitched in a smile. “In all seriousness, I heard other officers complaining about how hurt they were when you rejected them. I know it’s a problem for you.”

      “I appreciate your understanding.”

      “I can be sympathetic now, but make no mistake, I was mad at you. Or maybe I was more embarrassed that you shut me down in front of my coworkers. But all of that’s in the past.” Her smile faded. “It’s not important anymore. Nothing seems quite as important after losing Nancy that way.”

      The opening he hoped for. “You want to talk about what happened?”

      She shrugged.

      “I’ve been there, Kat. Not the being attacked part, but I lost a partner once.”

      Her eyes flew up to his, surprise brightening the color. “Really? I hadn’t heard about that.”

      “It happened in Salem. Before I moved here.” He looked at her wondering if he should go on. If he did, he’d expose feelings he never shared. Raw feelings that he’d rather keep to himself, but he could help her. “It’s something you never get over. I’m still trying to let it go.”

      She peered at him then, her eyes soft. Vulnerable. The emotions from last night were present and vivid on her face.

      “Do you feel guilty?” she asked.

      Her whisper-soft voice cut into him and once again, he was back there, with Lori the day she’d been shot, stuck in the scene that had replayed in his mind too many times to count. The bright sunshine. The deafening sound of a shotgun as the man bolted out of his house and opened fire. The sticky blood everywhere at once. A bullet slicing into his neck, spinning him to the ground where he was powerless to help Lori—not only his partner but the woman he’d just asked to marry him.

      “You know,” Kat added, oblivious to his turmoil. “Guilty, as if you could’ve prevented it from happening?”

      “It’s not as if we have any control over what happens.” He stopped, not trusting himself to say anything until he took a few deep breaths. “No matter what I do if God allows people I care about to be hurt, I can’t stop it.” His voice was heavy with sadness, and he saw the same thing on Kat’s face. “I wish I could go back to the days when I believed God heard my prayers.”

      She didn’t respond immediately, but sat there as if gathering her thoughts. “It may be hard to see at times, Mitch, but God does listen, and He has a good plan for your life.”

      He glanced at her again. “After all you’ve been through and seen on the job, you honestly believe that?”

      “I may not like what He allows to happen, but I know He’s there.”

      “It would be nice to feel that way. I just can’t,” he said with such finality that she looked away, and he was left with his thoughts again.

      Thoughts of his sister, Angie. Every day, he expected to arrive at a homicide scene only to discover she was the victim. He tried not to think about it. Tried, but failed every time he caught a case. Every time he had to inform a victim’s family that their loved one would not be coming home. Every time he worked his leads and brought a killer to justice.

      And even times like now, as he parked in front of the Oregon State Police office in St. Helens, he knew when he talked to the officer about Bodig’s death, a part of him could easily slip into questions about why God took Nathan Bodig. Questions that brought no answers.

      He turned off the engine and as Kat started to get out, his mind moved to the upcoming meeting. “I’d appreciate it if you’d remember you’re just an observer here. Especially since Franklin’s already proved he plays by the rules.”

      “I’ll try,” she said and slipped out of the car.