The Blood Detail (Vigil) Read Online Free PDF Page A

onto the bed instead. I needed to strip down and take off my shoes, but I was exhausted, on pain relievers, and haunted by the memory of having to give up my gun and badge when Angie and I had swung by the station after the hospital.
    After moping about things a good long while, I fell into a half-dream state. All I could remember from la-la-land was running across a desert landscape, when all of a sudden, I plummeted over the side of a cliff, and woke up. The alarm clock on my nightstand told me I had only been out of it for six minutes—that was it. I tried to get back to sleep, but all I did was stare at the red digital numbers on the face of the clock.
    At 5:22, I heard a noise downstairs—a loud clanging. It made me sit straight up. At first I thought it might have been something on the television, which I could still hear. On second thought, what I’d heard sounded more like a car colliding with my garage door. I got back onto my feet so I could go see what had happened. When I was halfway down the stairs, the telephone rang. I ignored it for the moment, barreling around the corner and speeding into the black-as-night garage.
    The only vehicle down there currently was my bike, an undersized Kawasaki Ninja. Because I wasn’t able to drive it back, my GTO was still in the parking lot at the station. I was hesitant about turning on any lights, not until I knew what was going on. After a moment, I could hear hushed voices on the other side of the big door, and I decided to surprise whoever it was outside. I pressed the controller next to the light switch and the motor began to grind and the segmented door rose up. The first thing I saw were legs, about a half dozen of them. I could make out a couple of startled gasps as the door began to churn, and a one or two of the yokels actually jumped back.
    “Get the fuck out of here,” I said, right at the same instant I realized what was going on.
    What I thought were intruders were in fact LAPD tactical officers, in full helmeted gear, including some fancy night vision appliances. Once the door was all the way up, I counted three in the front, and three more racing across the isolated roadway.
    “Freeze,” one of them said, and then identified themselves as officers of the law.
    Since they all had M-16s pointed at me, I did as I was told, even lifting my arms above my head for good measure. “This is my home, fellas. I’m on the job.”
    “We know who you are,” the man in charge said, and then gave a grimace and a hand signal to two of his people, ordering them to move around to the front of the condo.
    I was curious as hell. “What was that noise? And what the hell are you doing here?”
    The boss man swung under the alcove and began to examine the interior of my garage. Two of his lackeys stood guard as he did so. None of them answered my question.
    “I don’t mind. Ignore me.” My arms remained raised as I stepped backward and used my right elbow to bump the switch and turn on the overhead lights. The Tac guys shouted out in four-part harmony and ripped their night vision goggles from their heads.
    “What’d you do that for?” the boss man asked me, spitting with anger. He began to blink furiously as his eyes were forced to adjust to the light.
    “You weren’t answering me,” I said. “This is my house. I belong here. You do not.”
    “We were trying to protect you,” he said as he shifted away from me.
    “Protect me from what?”
    A van came screeching up out of nowhere and hit the brakes. The side doors slid open and two familiar faces leapt out. Detectives Mac Douglass and Sam Racine charged into my garage, like their apparent colleagues, one hundred percent uninvited. Now that I understood who was involved here, I lowered my arms.
    The lead Tac officer hooked his goggles onto his belt and spoke to his immediate superiors. “She blinded us, sirs.”
    “Any sign of the suspect?” Racine asked, totally ignoring my presence.
    “Not a