Officer out of Uniform (Lock and Key Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

How could she possibly relate to what he’d experienced? She’d never witnessed anything more morbid than road kill.
    He just nodded. “So that’s why I closed your curtains. I don’t want to risk whoever did that getting you in his crosshairs.”
    She shivered. “Well, I guess I can’t argue. I definitely don’t want to end up strung up in a tree.”
    Henry grimaced, and the expression was actually scary. “That’s not going to happen.”
    She couldn’t help but notice the pallor of his skin. Normally it was a light golden tan that looked gorgeous with his blond hair, but at the moment, he looked downright pale. She knew it wasn’t just the lighting in her apartment. “Are you okay, Henry?”

CHAPTER 5
     
     
    “I’m fine,” Henry said. “I was just thinking about how we could make your apartment more secure.”
    “Oh?” Sasha arched a brow. “Well, what are your suggestions?”
    “Frankly, I haven’t got shit. I can’t stand the idea of you staying here all by yourself. Not with a freak like that on the loose. I know you probably think it’s a longshot that you’d run into him, but if you did—”
    “I’ve got my Shun,” she said, trying instinctively to banish the ghost-whiteness that’d taken over his complexion. “And I’m not afraid to stand up for myself.”
    “Shun?”
    “My knife. It’s incredibly sharp.”
    Henry looked directly into her eyes, and he didn’t seem amused. “I’d never forgive myself if you got close enough to Randy Levinson to stab him.”
    “Who said anything about Randy Levinson?”
    A hundred unpleasant memories swept over Sasha as she thought back to the Levinson brothers’ escape and the ordeal that had nearly ended two of her and Henry’s mutual friends’ lives. Sure, the warden’s death was the worst thing to happen in Riley County since then, but that didn’t necessarily mean that Randy Levinson was responsible, even if he was still at large.
    Last she’d heard, Randy had been sighted somewhere in the Southwest.
    “The warden’s body – his hands were cuffed together. I don’t think that had anything to do with the way he actually died. I think it was just for show. A message.”
    “Okay.” Sasha nodded as she digested that piece of information, that mental image. “I can see why you think a former prisoner did it…”
    “Randy Levinson had every reason to do it. Being on the run, constantly looking over your shoulder, trying to escape something you can’t ever really get away from – that takes a toll on a man. And we know revenge is a sore spot for him. He can’t just let things go, even if that’d be the smart decision. Even as a kid, he was willing to risk everything in order to dish out retribution. Believe me, Sasha – he’s back.”
    A deep-reaching sense of dread unfurled inside her, its roots spreading through her gut, causing it to cramp. If Henry was right, Randy Levinson was back and looking for revenge, in a big way. If he’d been trying to send a message via the warden’s death, he’d succeeded. Which meant…
    Henry might be put directly in the path of danger again. Riley’s PERT officers – including Henry and his friends Liam and Grey – might be assigned to another manhunt, might spend day and night combing through the county’s pine forests and fields, coast and inlets, like they had when the Levinson brothers had first escaped. The thought caused a cold sweat to break out on Sasha’s brow.
    “I don’t like this,” she said.
    “Who would?”
    “No one, of course – it’s awful. But I meant that I don’t like what this means for you specifically. You might have to go back out on the search again.”
    “That’s my job.” Henry’s expression lightened a little, like he was actually looking forward to it.
    Sasha bit her tongue before she could say anything stupid. Of course it was his job. Someone had to do it.
    She didn’t have any right to a racing heart or a dry mouth, and there’d be no