Next to Die Read Online Free PDF Page A

true feelings were anything but remote. He felt raw and vulnerable and utterly off balance.
    “I’m glad you’re home,” she said, backing away. With another shy smile and a flutter of fingers, she retreated, walking crisply across her lawn. She didn’t sway her hips—not intentionally, at least.
    Bemused by her friendliness, Joe dismissed her from his thoughts and hefted his cat to eye him with admonishment. “You’ve been playing the field, haven’t you?”
    Felix offered him a self-satisfied smirk. “Nnnro,” he replied, butting Joe’s chin with the top of his head.
    “Liar,” Joe muttered, heading toward his front door. Every step sent pain shooting up the right side of his back.
     
    Penny slowly closed her door and put her back against it. Gracious! Her neighbor hadn’t looked like that when he left. He was gaunt and sunburned, with more cuts and scrapes on him than on an active three-year-old. And that wound beneath his eye! What, besides an intentional branding or an awful accident, could have caused such a severe burn?
    Poor man! Recalling his groan when he’d pulled his bag from the Jeep, she realized he was in pain. What was hurting him, his back?
    As a physical therapist at the Portsmouth Naval Medical Center, Penny tended all kinds of injured patients. One look at the lines of pain on Joe Montgomery’s face and it was apparent: He’d been through hell.
    But why? Commanders sat in their offices, delegating. They sent junior officers and enlisted to do the dangerous work. He must have been in a car accident. That would explain his condition, the wound on his cheek, as well as his back injury.
    That had to be it. She pushed from the door, dismayed but satisfied by her conclusions.
     
    At ten o’clock that night, she wasn’t so sure.
    “Hey, it looks like your SEAL’s home,” Ophelia announced, blowing in from the waterfront. “Every light in the house is on.”
    “I know,” said Penny, who sat on her couch, biting off a hangnail. It was out of character for her neighbor to run up his electricity bill. Something was wrong with him. “So how was work?”
    “Slow,” Ophelia admitted, dropping onto the couch and reaching for the remote control.
    “Why don’t you get a real job?” Penny suggested, glancing at Lia’s Hooters T-shirt.
    “Real jobs are boring,” her sister retorted, flipping through channels.
    Penny was tempted to throw her hands up in despair. Would Lia ever learn to take life seriously? “I need to ask you a favor,” she said firmly.
    “What?” Lia asked with an anxious look.
    “I found out today that I have to work tomorrow. The other PT is on maternity leave, and we’re short-handed until her replacement comes in. I can’t make that two o’clock appointment with the FBI.”
    “Can’t you reschedule it?”
    “Sure I can, if we wait two more weeks, but I don’t think that’s smart, considering Eric knows of our suspicions, do you?”
    Ophelia just looked at her. “So what are you asking me?”
    “I need you to go in my place. Take the evidence and explain our suspicions to an FBI agent.”
    Ophelia flopped back against the couch and groaned. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
    “Oh, come on, honey, you can do it,” Penny assured her. “FBI Headquarters is in Norfolk, right off of 264 and Military Highway. You won’t get lost. I’ll even give twenty dollars to cover your gas,” she bribed.
    Ophelia grimaced. “Fine, I’ll go,” she relented.
    “Great,” said Penny, rolling to her feet. “The journal and gas money are already on the kitchen counter. Don’t forget to show them the printout of that e-mail.”
    The phone beside the couch rang, startling them both.
    “That can’t be for me,” Penny pointed out. Her friends were all married, cuddling up with their husbands or putting their babies to sleep.
    Ophelia reached for the phone and cautiously lifted the receiver. “Hello?” she said.
    Penny strained her ears to hear who was on the