Dangerous Attachments (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

the florist shop could solve.
    The roses were still wrapped in their paper, stem tips trapped in plastic vials. Sylvia forced herself to pick them up, and a sharp thorn cut through the paper and stabbed her finger. She sucked at the wound.
    Standing in the brightly lit kitchen, she fought the nervous edge in her stomach, then snapped off the overhead light. She slid her hand along the smooth wall, and felt the switch that controlled the outdoor flood. Everything flashed into view—the salt cedar lurched and lashed at the wind, tarantella shadows danced against the coyote fence—but all she saw was the unbidden image of a tattoo of the Virgin.

CHAPTER THREE
    "Y OU'RE MISSING A goddamn finger?" Rosie Sánchez sat up in bed and hit her head on the walnut headboard.
"¡Qué pendejo!"
she murmured, not quite free of the receiver's audio range. "Is Main under lockdown? I'll be right there."
    She hung up the phone and slid her short legs off the bed. Her husband, Ray, had already donned his plaid bathrobe, and he was searching for his slippers. His wife had held the job of penitentiary investigator for more than seven years. The stress had done in her predecessors, but she seemed to thrive under pressure. Ray had never met anyone who loved her job as much.
    In the kitchen he made instant coffee while Rosie, hastily dressed in a beige suit, nylons, and heels, sat impatiently at the table tracing the red-check design on the tablecloth.
    "Would you believe this?" she mumbled. "Somebody stole a finger—chopped it off a hand!" She gazedwide-eyed at her husband as if she didn't believe it herself.
    Ray raised his eyebrows, "I believe it." He poured boiling water into two mugs of coffee and added sugar to one, milk to the other. By now, he was used to his wife's middle-of-the-night crises. There was never any doubt that Ray would always calmly stand beside her. He stirred both cups and handed Rosie the mug that said, I'M THE BOSS!
    "I don't need this." Rosie brought the edge of her hand against the table in a karate chop. "I do not need Angel Tapia being cut up alive like fresh meat."
    "Who's fresh meat?" a new voice asked.
    Rosie looked up and saw their sixteen-year-old son, Tomás, standing in the doorway. His dark hair stood out from his head, his eyelids drooped heavily from interrupted sleep.
    "Look who's sleepwalking," Ray smiled.
    Rosie clucked her tongue, "Ay,
hijito
, I'm sorry we woke you. Go back to bed."
    "I want to know who's fresh meat."
    "I was just talking about work, Tomás. It's a gang-related thing, a knifing."
    "Harsh," came the sleepy reply before Tomás padded on bare feet back to his bedroom.
    Ray pulled two pieces of raisin toast from the toaster oven and set them on a blue flowered saucer. He selected marmalade from several jars of jam on the refrigerator shelf, put out a butter knife, and waited for his wife to eat.
    She took a small bite, pushed the plate away, and kept her voice low. "The 1980 riot—when I started in 1987, they were still talking about it like it was yesterday. Notso much the murders, or the rapes, but the missing bodies, the missing parts." She brushed crumbs from her lips before continuing. "An arm here, a foot there. If it starts all over again . . ." She curled a strand of frosted hair around her thumb. She looked up at Ray with her dark, glamorous eyes.
    "Most people choose a normal occupation, Rosita." Ray felt his muscles contract, caught himself, and shrugged. She was tough. Every day she did a job most people wouldn't touch. Bloody shanks, syringes, and faded balloons filled with contraband—they were all part of a day's work. She had Polaroid snapshots of the carnage. Somehow, she was able to tolerate and process daily encounters with the worst side of human nature. Ray had long since given up trying to understand that side of Rosie. He just loved her. Ray clutched his hands together, unconscious of the gesture.
    T HE PNM I NVESTIGATIONS office was overheated and smelled musty.