Spitting Image Read Online Free PDF Page A

she nodded and rose to follow.
    I wasn’t sure if Nique’s intent was to save me from temptation, to save Samantha from falling into the EMS slut stereotype, or to save her own gender from another example of the EMS slut stereotype. I felt it best not to interfere with the mission.

Chapter 4
    SARAH SURPRISED ME at my apartment when I got off shift the next morning.
    “Keep this up and I may get used to it,” I cautioned.
    “You were on my mind all day yesterday,” she replied with a smile. But maybe a smaller, tighter smile than usual smile.
    “So long as it was your mind, not your nerves I was on.”
    That got a courtesy laugh. I made breakfast and small talk. She listened more than she talked.
    “Something bothering you?” I asked.
    “No,” she said with a raised eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”
    “You just seem a little preoccupied. Big changes at work?”
    “Yes,” she said. “That must be it. Shakeup in the department, new faculty. And lots of boring policy discussions.”
    “How’s the new office mate?”
    “He’s a poet.” She shrugged. “A dreamer and an idealist.” Her tone was just a shade more cynical than I expected.
    “Horrors,” I said.
    That finally brought out her big, genuine smile. The one I lived for. The one that radiated infectious joy and held just enough mischief that the sisters at St Mary’s School must have marked her down for extra scrutiny as a freethinking troublemaker.
    “That might have been harsh,” she said. “But I spent a long day trapped inside with dull academics, missing you. Why don’t you show me what I was missing?” she finished with a leer, leaning across the table.
    The sisters were probably right.
    I slipped an arm around her waist, ran my other hand through her big, soft curls and kissed her, pulling her against me. She gave me a quick kiss and took my hand, leading me toward the bedroom.
    Afterwards, she lay beside me and traced one of my scars with a finger.
    “Where did you get these?” she asked.
    I was surprised. She’d never seemed to wonder before.
    “That one,” I said, “was a Japanese bayonet on Guadalcanal. I have a few on my back to match. Guy got me there first and after I fell down he stuck me a few more times.”
    “Seventy years ago,” she murmured. “Have the scars kept fading?”
    “Slowly. I don’t know if they’ll ever be totally gone. I still have a little divot in my thigh from a pistol ball from one of Cromwell’s men.”
    She nodded, seemingly lost in thought. “So you don’t heal completely?”
    “Nobody’s perfect,” I said. I wondered why this line of questioning after all this time. “I know I got my nose broken and it healed just a bit crooked. I don’t think it’ll straighten itself. If I broke a bone and it was set wrong, I think it’d heal that way. And I don’t really know the practical limits of my healing. I don’t know what’s the worst thing I could recover from.”
    She nodded again, as though checking a box on some mental list.
    “Is there something wrong?” I asked.
    “Nothing.” She looked at me with the devil in her eyes and smiled her wicked smile. “Nothing at all. Let me show you everything’s alright.”
    But it wasn’t. This wasn’t the Sarah I had fallen for, and I wasn’t sure I liked who she was right now.
    “I hate to say this, but I’m going to have to plead exhaustion. I’m not as young and wild as I was back before Prohibition.”
    Her brow wrinkled for a moment. I’d hoped for a smile at least.
    “OK,” she said, after too long a pause. “Rain check.”
    I drifted off to sleep eventually. I’d learned not to try to read into things too deeply after a twenty-four hour shift.
    When I woke, Sarah was gone. I didn’t find a note, which was odd. That oddness highlighted other odd things about the visit.

Chapter 5
    AT WORK, WITH TIME TO BROOD, that uncomfortable feeling settled in. Put down roots. Tangled itself around my brainstem.
    “What’s the matter?”