The First Cut Read Online Free PDF

retuned and you can pick up on these things now.”
    “That’s something to think about, sweet pea.” Vining then refused to think about it that way at all.
    Emily tried to convince her that it was a gift. Vining didn’t think so. She found it more like an embarrassing twitch that she couldn’t stop. It had prompted Emily to take up a new hobby. The girl attempted to capture on audio and film the essence of places and people that Vining sensed.
    The full-on panic attacks subsided. Vining felt she had got the demon under control. She had won this battle. Yes, she had. She was in control.
    “I guess you can’t go through something like that and not feel you’ve been given a second chance,” Sergeant Cho said.
    Vining nodded. “Lots of things matter less and a few things matter more.”
    Cho watched Vining with eyes that revealed little. They all knew about the two-odd minutes when she’d flat-lined. No one at the department had yet asked her about that. She didn’t know what she would say if they did. It felt too private to talk about. A lot of cops were religious, but they were still practical and grounded in reality. She believed in God in a general sort of way. She attributed little significance to the weird out-of-body experience she’d had when she was dead, even though Emily felt otherwise. All Vining knew was that she felt present in the world in a way she hadn’t before. It was as if a door to a hidden room in her mind had been cracked and was waiting for something to blow it wide open. As if she’d turned a corner and had arrived on the other side of…what?
    Yes, Emily, she had changed.
    “Has he attempted to contact you?” Early asked.
    Vining knew about whom she was speaking. “I should be so lucky.”
    It was tough talk and she knew it. She wanted desperately to get T. B. Mann, but the panic attacks betrayed her. Both her hate and fear of him were visceral.
    “Working burglary is a good move for you,” Cho said. “The more cross-training you get, the better for your career advancement.”
    He had a misconception held by many at the department that Vining had ambitions to work on the third floor, where the department’s top brass had their offices. Vining did not consider herself ambitious. She was simply a single mother who needed to work. If an opportunity for promotion came, fine. She went for it. It meant more money and perks for her. Somehow she’d inadvertently earned a jacket that she was a political player, working the system, kissing behinds.
    Vining had another jacket as a cowboy. A lone wolf. She’d earned that one after the fatal shooting five years before. She was found to have acted within policy, but some still had questions about what had gone on that night.
    The events surrounding T. B. Mann’s assault on her a year ago in the house at 835 El Alisal Road revived the gossip. There were officers on the force, and she’d heard that Ruiz was among them, who thought she’d been cocky that day, knew better than what procedure mandated, didn’t need help, and consequently put other officers in danger along with her.
    The investigating committee found she’d used proper judgment in the El Alisal Road incident, but commented that Vining’s experience was a cautionary lesson about carelessness. Still, officers talked, and the talk had gotten back to her.
    She’d worn both jackets for years before she was aware she had them. She’d also learned that once you had a jacket, it was harder than hell to get rid of it.
    She’d made enemies along the way. Some female officers were cool to her. That started years ago when Lieutenant Gavigan singled her out, took her under his wing, and gave her primo assignments. Conversations still stopped when she entered the locker room. Women were hardest on one another. It was worse than high school. That was okay with Nan. Making friends had never been her objective. She wanted to do her job, stay safe, and go home at the end of her shift.
    She