If You Hear Her: A Novel of Romantic Suspense Read Online Free PDF Page B

menu and Roz needed to run it by her that night at work.
    She erased the messages and then headed out of the kitchen. She needed a shower. She was hot, she was sweaty, and if she wanted to be ready when Carter arrived to pick her up, she couldn’t stay in the kitchen brooding about why Ezra King had never called her back.
    What in the hell did it matter?
    They’d had one date.
    One very wonderful kiss.
    It didn’t add up to much.
    So what if she’d dreamed about him quite a few times since then?
    In the end, what were a few dreams? A few really, really hot, sexy, poignant dreams?
    Dreams.
    Fuck, Ezra hated these dreams. They chased him. He could drown them out with liquor. He could lose them in a drugged stupor.
    He chose to live with them. He might change his mind, though … if he lived through the night. This one was choking him.
    In the dream, he was back in the alley. Back in the alley where he discovered that his partner, “Mac” Stover, was dirty.
    His partner, his friend … his lover.
    They had known there was a dirty cop involved somewhere. They had spent the past year trying to bust a statewide theft ring and every time they got close, something went wrong. It was a cop—in his gut, Ezra knew it.
    But he hadn’t thought it would be her. Hadn’t thought it would be Mac …
    “We can’t keep this up. Sooner or later, we’re going to screw up.”
    Ezra stood in the shadows, listening. Dark, it was so dark. He should be able to see—shouldn’t he? See
something. Know something. Like that voice—he knew that voice
.
    Who was it?
    Who was she?
    “We got a good thing going here. One more big shipment, Mac. Then we’re done. One more go-round.”
    A low, tired sigh, followed by a rough, husky chuckle. “Yeah, one more, my ass. Hell, you know what? I am done. One more round and I am so fucking done. One more. That is it.”
    A storm of memories assaulted him as he stood in the shadows. Walking down the street, side by side with his partner
.
    “Come on, Mac. One more. We can hit one more.”
    “Yeah, one more, my ass, pretty boy. One more, and then you’re buying me dinner.”
    Mac. It was Mac.
    Get out … gotta get out. Shit, fuck that. Got to go knock some sense into her … Mac … aw, shit.
    No.
    Get out. Got to get out.
    Couldn’t seem to move his legs, though. Damn it. Like they were stuck in lead, and his head didn’t want to work. Mac … his partner. Best friend. His lover … how many times had he held that woman in his arms? How many nights had they lain awake talking?
    Mac … his partner
.
    Best friend
.
    Lover
.
    Killer
.
    Rational, man, you gotta be rational … gotta get out …
    As the world turned to hell, as voices raged, he kept thinking that
.
    Get out—
    Ezra tore himself out of the nightmare, ragged breathssawing in and out of his lungs, a half scream twisting inside his throat.
    He wanted to rub his hands over his face, but he feared, once more, they’d be covered in blood. Mac’s blood.
    “Lights,” he mumbled to himself. “Need the damn lights.” He smacked at the lamp on the bedside table until it came on and then he swung his legs over the side of the bed, staring at his hands.
    Scarred. Callused. And clean. There was no blood on them.
    So why did he still see it?
    His memory of that night was a mess. Indistinct. He knew all the medical jargon—head trauma, blood loss, and a bunch of psychobabble shit he had no use for. It was possible he’d recall more of that night in time. It was equally possible he’d go to his grave not knowing exactly what went down.
    He knew what mattered the most—Mac was dead. He had killed her. After she had drawn a gun on him. Her lifeless body had been found on top of his, her gun still in hand.
    The doctors had spent hours working to save his leg; one of the bullets had nicked the femoral artery. Another had lodged in his bone.
    He could have died. Maybe he should have.
    He was alive. She wasn’t.
    He knew