Page 6 of Sinful Seduction
Finally, as recognition registers in my mind, I frown and take a single step in his direction. “Is that Officer Clay?”
Fletch comes around, his shoulder brushing mine, and nods. “He was the first officer on scene. I told him to take a seat and catch his breath.” He drags his bottom lip between his teeth. “He didn’t arriveafterdeath, Arch.”
I inch my gaze down and study the blood staining Clay’s hands.
“He arrived in time to attempt to plug the kid’s wounds. I only talked to him for a sec because I didn’t wanna mess up his statement before we were ready for it. But he was fighting for this one and lost.”
Damn.
I peer back at Minka and Aubree. “You good here?”
Minka’s eyes come up, then straight past me to the cop barely a couple of years older than our vic.
Both left school and chose guns, but their outcomes are entirely different.
No words necessary, Minka merely nods, releasing me from where I stand, then she goes back to studying her newest patient. So, I start toward the car and mentally catalog every detail available before I arrive. Clay’s dark hair, styled perfectly with a part off to the side, and the comb lines are still visible from when he neatened it. His freshly shaved jaw, as smooth as our vic’s, and long brown lashes coming down to contrast with his cheeks. Even at night, they’re impossible not to see. His shirt is stained red, so much fucking red, that if I didn’t know better, I’d wonder ifhewas the one bleeding, and as my eyes track down, I find his shaking hands, stained and trembling as he rubs his palms together.
“Officer Clay?” I come to a stop just four feet in front of him and wait. Typically, I might be impatient for a subordinate’s respectful attention. For his eyes slinging up to mine, and his spine snapping straight as he bounds to his feet. But not this one. Not today. Because I knowthiskid took a bullet, too, not that hell of a long time ago.
Some memories stick, and some experiences are already rife with scars and mental fuckery.
He doesn’t react to our arrival. He doesn’t look up from his hands, his thumbs rubbing through the red to reveal lighter spots of skin. So, I clear my throat and try again. “Brady?”
He starts and sniffs, glancing up and locking eyes with mine. Then Fletch. Then, as though his thoughts finally catch up, he shoves out of the car and whips his hands behind his back. “Sorry, sirs.” He hardens his jaw, completely incapable of picking just one of us to look at. He flitters back and forth, back and forth. Then he drops his gaze and studies the ground instead. “I didn’t see you approach.”
“Rest easy, kid.” I come another step closer. “I understand you were on scene for this one. Which means we’re going to need your help to piece it all together. You up to the task?”
“Yes, sir.” He swallows, telegraphing more than just nerves. “I’ll make my statement verbally, and again in writing. I’ll do my best to?—”
“Did you see who shot him?” Fletch steps forward, aligning our shoulders once more, his shirt brushing against mine and his shadowed, stubbled jaw in my peripheral. “We need to know if we’ve gotta rush out and hunt down a killer who might look for more victims, or if this crime was personal. One-and-done, so to speak.”
“No, I…” He shakes his head gulps. “I heard the gunshots. Three of them. It’s a quiet night, so when it all started, I heard it in the air. I flipped onthe lights and came in hot. I radioed it in and arrived approximately one minute after the first round.”
“You timed it?” Fletch questions. “While driving hot, you timed how long it took?”
“When I was on the radio,” he rasps. “My old TO drilled that into me a lot, to always ground myself by checking the time. So when I arrived and picked up the radio again to inform dispatch, I looked again.”
“Where’s your TO nowadays?” I make a show of looking around, past the media vans already crowding the bay and the gentle current lapping at the pebbled edge of the inlet. “Lunch break?”
His baby face warms, the red shade sprinting along his neck and past the tight collar of his shirt. I almost feel bad, taunting the kid for the sake of a reaction. But red is legions better than white. Warmth is preferable to paleness.
“N-no, sir.” His eyes shift nervously past us. “My TO was on his way out when I came in. I was his last assignment before retirement.”
“No partner?”
“Sometimes I get one on loan. Had one that was becoming kinda consistent early this year, but then I had to take time off and they reassigned him.”
Because he got shot. On our watch.
“So you’re working this beat at night,” Fletch wonders. “Alone.”
And just like that, Clay’s coloring drops away and his teeth clench shut. “I realize I put myself in danger by responding to a gunfight without backup. I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly, and when I saw the vic and his friend on the ground, I reacted.”
“The friend is already at the hospital? Wounded?”
He nods. “I attempted to plug the male vic’s wound, since he was bleeding so fast, and while I did that, I radioed for medics for the female vic. It took about five minutes from when I first got boots on the ground until ambos arrived on scene.”
“How long until the DB’s heart stopped beating?” Fletch’s voice is hard and his inflection, cold. But the details matter, and reciting them, tearing the emotion out of them, is how we decrease the young officer’s mental turmoil.Hopefully. “Had to be less than five, or the medics would’ve taken him, too.”