The Off Season Read Online Free PDF Page B

was taking her complaints seriously. Still, her hand tightened on the banister at the idea of the police creeping around the old Victorian, scrutinizing everything . . . including her sanity.
    Face burning, she forced herself to swallow and descended a few more steps. Far enough to see that there were three of them inside the front door, Harris with his back to her and two uniformed officers intent on what he was saying.
    “Stick together, both of you, and keep in mind we may be dealing with multiple suspects, possibly armed,” Harris told the mismatched pair.
    “You can’t really think they’d still be hanging around.” The speaker was middle-aged and male, with drooping jowls and thinning hair in a shoe-polish black that couldn’t possibly be natural. The straining buttons of his dark-blue shirt brought to mind the cardiac patients that came into the ER all too regularly, especially considering the splotch of greasy yellow-orange—her bet would have been congealed cheese from a fast-food burger—on his collar. “What with two marked patrols cars and—”
    “Three live cops,” Harris finished, with some heat. “And I mean to keep it that way. Always.”
    The second officer, a woman nearly a head taller than Burger Cop, broke the loaded silence that followed by clicking her flashlight on and off with her thumb, as if the male posturing left her bored. With her dark-brown hair pinned back and her impressive height—she stood eye to eye with Harris, who easily topped six feet—she reminded Christina of a warrior princess from a bygone age.
    “So let’s do this,” she said.
    Once the two officers closed the door behind them, Harris turned at the creak of a stair. “I was about to check on you,” he told Christina. “Everything all right?”
    She nodded. “Could I—it’s so cold out there. Would you like some coffee? I’ll make enough for the officers as well.”
    “That’d be great, and I’m sure they’d love some once they’re finished.” A smile stretched one side of his mouth. “Well, if you’re the one who offers. If it was me, Fiorelli’d probably send it out for testing for heavy metals and rat poison.”
    The knot in her stomach eased a little. “Really. I’m a doctor. You wouldn’t expect me to use anything that’d leave behind such obvious evidence.”
    He speared her with a narrow-eyed look that left her wondering—was she out of her mind, joking about poisoning the police?—before letting her off the hook with a fuller smile. A smile so rakishly appealing, it put Christina instantly on guard.
    “So what would you use?” he asked as he trailed her into the kitchen. “If you were of a criminal persuasion, that is?”
    She shrugged before admitting she hadn’t given the idea much thought. “I’m too busy worrying about keeping people alive.”
    He leaned against the counter while she took out fresh beans for the Coffeemaker of the Gods to grind and brew. “Well, then, there’s one thing you and I both have in common.”
    She swallowed hard, trying not to think back to other things they had once shared. The way they’d laughed together so easily. Her startled gasp, and the sigh that followed, when he’d slipped up behind her to cup her breasts, the first time in her life that anyone had touched her like that.
    “You—you like it strong?” She shivered despite the flush of heat that scorched her skin.
    “That’d be great. Strong as you like.”
    A whirring sound was followed by a series of satisfying hisses and burbles. Harris gestured toward the little breakfast table, an invitation that sent her heartbeat off-kilter and made her wish she’d never hit the panic button.
    As a rich aroma wove its way into awareness, he took the seat across from hers, the golden-green of his eyes reminding her of flecks of sunshine filtered through the leafy canopy of a summer woodland. The thought sent her mind spinning to a state park she’d visited with a strong and healthy Doug