Photo Finish (9781101537510) Read Online Free PDF Page B

to.”
    He shut his eyes. “I agree to pay Hunter Davenport’s hospital bills. I agree to look after the man who killed my mother. I agree to live in hell the rest of my life.”
    I wanted to say something, something consoling, or maybe heartening: Let it go, move on. But his face was so pinched with pain, I couldn’t bear to look at him. I put the snapshots on his knee and let myself out.
    Â 
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Read on for an excerpt from Sara Paretsky’s
    latest V. I. Warshawski novel,
    BODY WORK
    Available in paperback from Signet Select.
    PRAISE FOR
    BODY WORK
    â€œParetsky’s plotting is always ingenious. . . . The subplots and main story always come together in a seamless, satisfying way. . . . Body Work is as fine a work as ever in the Warshawski canon.”
    â€” Los Angeles Times
    â€œSuperb. . . . This strong outing shows why the tough, fiercely independent, dog-loving private detective continues to survive.”
    â€”Publishers Weekly
    â€œA new V. I. Warshawski novel is always a cause for celebration. . . . Paretsky’s the queen of the hard-boiled for good reasons. Her characters are ordinary people. Her dialogue is pitch-perfect.”
    â€” Minneapolis Star Tribune
    â€œParetsky plays out her trademark political and social themes not with rhetoric, but with a compelling story of lives shattered by pride, greed, and fear of the unknown.”
    â€” Kirkus Reviews
    â€œ Body Work isn’t just a satisfying whodunit; it’s a rich, well-written why-dunit, striking some surprising chords that will resonate long after you finish the final page.”
    â€” St. Louis Post Dispatch
    â€œTeriffic. . . . Paretsky is careful and conscientious, even her subplots are loaded with provocative ideas.”
    â€” The New York Times Book Review

 
    Nadia Guaman died in my arms. Seconds after I left Club Gouge, I heard gunshots, screams, squealing tires, from the alley behind the building. I ran across the parking lot, slipping on gravel and ruts, and found Nadia crumpled on the dirty ice. Blood was flowing from her chest in a thick tide.
    I ripped off my scarf and opened her coat. The wound was high in her chest—too high, I knew that—but I still made a pad of my scarf and pressed it against her. Keeping pressure on the pad, I struggled out of my coat and placed it under her. Left hand on chest, right hand underneath, pushing my coat against the exit wound. Without looking up or stopping the pressure, I shouted at the people surging around us to call 911, now, at once.
    Nadia’s eyes flickered open as I cradled her. The ghost of a smile flickered at the sides of her wide mouth. “Alley. Alley.”
    â€œ Shhh , Nadia, save your strength.”
    I thought it was a good sign, a hopeful sign, that she spoke, and I kept pushing against her wound, singing snatches of a cradle song, trying to keep us both calm. When the paramedics arrived and pried my hands free from her wounds, they shook their heads. She’d been dead for several minutes already.
    I started to shiver. It was only when the medics forced me to my feet that I felt the January wind cut into my bones. The medics brought me into the ambulance but left Nadia lying on the ground, waiting for a tech team to photograph her. The crew wrapped a blanket around me and gave me hot sweet coffee from their own thermos.
    â€œYou did the best that could be done. No one could have done more.” The tech was short and muscular, with wiry red hair. “She was bleeding out within minutes of being shot. I’m guessing the bullet nicked a major vein, but the ME will tell us more. Was she a friend?”
    I shook my head. We’d barely spoken, and at that point, in fact, I only knew her first name.
    A cop poked his head through the open ambulance door. “You the gal that put her coat on the dead girl?”
    Dead woman,