Nerves of Steel Read Online Free PDF

will."
    CHAPTER 5
    Cassie left Fran working on the FX mystery.  After returning to the ER's locker room, she changed into the jeans and Shakerknit sweater she'd worn to work the night before.  She touched the bag of drugs in her coat pocket and scowled.  It was a macabre equation.  Twenty-seven pills of pure FX.  Equaled how many dead kids?  She had no idea. 
    She yawned and tucked her hair behind her ears.  Thought about simply turning the drugs into a charge nurse and going home to bed.
    No.  It didn't matter how tired she was, didn't matter what the rules were, all that mattered was stopping more FX from making it onto the streets and killing more kids.  The best way to make certain the police gave the FX thefts at Three Rivers top priority was to speak to them in person. 
    The police substation was less than a mile from the medical center, housed in a squat brick cube of a building that brought back memories of her grade school.  It was sandwiched by St. Andrew's Episcopal Church on one side and a Methodist one on the other.  Perched higher up the hill stood Our Lady of Sorrows, its stained glass a flickering light of hope in the gray morning mist. 
    Who was protecting whom? Cassie wondered, skirting oil slicked puddles as she crossed the parking lot.  Across the street sat a McDonald's, that other bastion of American worship. 
    Inside, the desk sergeant escorted her to a glass-walled waiting area on the third floor, closing the door behind her, muffling the noises coming from the squad room beyond.
    A tall man in jeans and a grimy Rolling Stones' T-shirt sprawled across a vinyl couch peppered with cigarette burns.  His feet hung off the couch cushions.  Water dripping from his red canvas hightops had formed a sooty puddle on the floor.  One arm was flung up to cover his eyes, and a sheaf of unruly black hair cascaded over the arm of the couch.  A gold hoop hung from his left ear, winking in the flickering fluorescent light, giving him the appearance of a Barbary Coast pirate.
    The tiny room was sweltering, a tropical fish bowl for humans.  As she slid out of her jacket, Cassie wrinkled her nose against the smell of urine, sweat, stale cigarettes, and day old Chinese food.  Her slumbering roommate appeared oblivious to both the heat and the stench.  She watched him for a moment, noting the regular rise and fall of his chest.  At least he wasn't dead. 
    Maybe he was a witness or informant.  Her hand went to the plastic visitor's badge the desk sergeant had given her.  The man wore no identification.  A drunk left to sleep it off?
    There was no place to sit except for the couch, but there was a vending machine.  Coffee, just what she needed.  She fumbled in her jeans pocket for change.
    "Make mine black, extra sugar."  A sleep-choked voice came from the sofa.
    Cassie glanced over her shoulder in surprise.  The man's arm was now behind his head, his eyes still closed.  "Excuse me?"
    At the sound of her voice, one of his eyes popped open, drifted for a moment, then lit on her like a beacon in a storm.  He blinked twice, his lips curling into a smile that might have been charming if they weren't shut up in a glass sauna and if he didn't look and smell like a refugee from a third-world insurrection.
    "I said extra sugar, sweetheart."  He sat up, looking at her expectantly as he yawned without bothering to cover his mouth.  "Please."
    Several detectives worked in the squad room beyond the window.  She eyed her companion once more, not liking the way he looked at her.  His gaze was that of a cat searching for a weakness in the canary's defenses.
    "Mister, I've had a really lousy night," she said, pushing up her sleeves and shifting her weight to the balls of her feet.  "I don't need any grief from you.  I'm not your waitress or your sweetheart, all right?"
    "Sure, honey, whatever you say."
    She stepped to the machine, dropped her coins into the slot and jabbed the button for her coffee.