SHATTERED Read Online Free PDF Page B

away. Instead she used more of the peroxide to bathe the site and peered intently at it.
    Nate turned his head to try to get a good look. He was way too aware of her hand resting atop his bare shoulder, her fingers trembling as though her external coolness masked an inner repulsion at the sight of bloody flesh. The tip of her tongue flicked across her lips and he took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure if his reactions to her proximity were an attempt to distance himself from his injury or because he’d have to be in far worse shape than he was not to notice her.
    “I think the bullet entered and exited the fleshy part of your arm,” she said.
    He flexed his hand and tried out a smile. “It must not have hit anything too important on its way. It looks more like a graze to me. More of a nuisance than a danger.”
    “Spoken like a true he-man.”
    “Spoken like a guy stuck in the middle of a shoot-out.”
    “I’ll wrap it with gauze.”
    A few intense minutes later, his biceps was bandaged and she’d found a wool shirt of her dad’s with the tags still attached. “I sent him this for Christmas,” she said. “I guess he didn’t like the color.”
    The color looked fine to Nate, kind of a deep blue. She guided it gently over his bandaged arm, then insisted on buttoning it for him. Once again, her face was close to his as she performed this chore, and once again, every one of his senses jumped into hyperdrive.
    He caught her hand as she straightened up. “I could tell it was an...unpleasant...task for you,” he said, running his thumb over the tops of her fingers. “Thanks.”
    “No big deal,” she said. “I’ve always tended animals, you know. In fact, I wanted to be a veterinarian.”
    “What happened?”
    “Life,” she said. “Now I work at animal clinics. Anyway, I’ve seen my share of bloody messes.”
    “Still, your hand shook,” he said. “Maybe human gore is worse than animal.”
    She shrugged and looked away. It was obvious to him that she wanted to let matters drop, but he couldn’t quite dismiss the feel of her fingers against his skin. Nevertheless, there were more urgent matters at hand. “I assume that old truck parked out front was your father’s only vehicle?”
    “Yes. Why?”
    “Because someone took his keys and wallet.”
    “His keys.” If possible, she went whiter still. “Oh, my gosh. His garage.”
    “What garage?”
    “One of those storage units over in Shatterhorn. Maybe someone wanted access to it. I didn’t even think of that.”
    “What did he keep in it?”
    “Who knows? When I was a kid he kept business-related items there. I’m not even sure he still has it.”
    “Okay, well, try this. Did he ever say anything to you about someone threatening him?”
    “Not directly, but I know he’s felt restless and out of sorts since Labor Day and the mall shooting. Being the closest in proximity when the shooter killed himself really affected him, especially after the carnage the guy had created. And there was that last word the man spoke, too. It worried Dad.”
    “You mean pearl, ” Nate said.
    “Yeah.”
    One of the mall jewelry stores had contracted to keep a pricey shipment of Tahitian black pearls that were in transit to a big casino down in Vegas. The police had voiced the theory that the kid planned to steal them, but it seemed unlikely to Nate. Since when did a nineteen-year-old bring two loaded weapons to a shopping mall on the busiest afternoon of the summer to steal pearls? And if that had been his plan, why kill four people before taking his own life?
    “I don’t know,” Sarah said. “Since the shooter never got around to actually stealing the pearls, Dad worried someone else would step in and try to do it. For a while he drove into town almost every day, watching and waiting. I tried to tell him the pearl shipment had been sent away the very next day, but he didn’t believe me, even when I sent him the newspaper article.”
    “I didn’t know he was