What She Doesn't See Read Online Free PDF

her
presence but immediately returning his attention to the file in
front of him.
    She was pretty sure his reluctance to
maintain eye contact was about keeping his emotions to himself.
She’d had a hell of a time repairing her makeup after her cry on
the drive over.
    “Hey, Patton.” She sat down in the chair next
to his desk. “I heard about Hitch. Man, I’m so sorry. I can’t
believe he’s gone. Do you know what happened?
”
    He shook his head, spared her another brief
glance. “Techs are...ah... checking out his car for mechanical
failures, but it looks like he fell asleep at the wheel. Just ran
off the road. He’d been putting in way too many hours lately. I
tried to tell him.” The sigh that punctuated his final statement as
well as his emphatic attempts to refocus his attention on the file
gave away just how badly Hitch’s death had shaken him. “The M.E.’s
preliminary report says cause of death was head trauma.”
    His words hit Alex hard. Hitch hadn’t sounded
the least bit sleepy or even tired when she’d spoken to him. In
fact, he’d sounded hyped. Her intuition was humming like crazy.
She’d initially thought that she was merely in denial about Hitch’s
death, but it was more than that.
    Deep breath. Take it slow. “That’s why I came
by,” she said, unsure whether what she had to say was relevant yet
certain she didn’t want to keep it to herself. Who knew what could
prove significant in an investigation. “Hitch called me last night
at around nine-thirty, maybe ten.”
    Patton picked up a small spiral notepad and
shuffled through the pages until he’d found what he was looking
for. “Yeah, we got that from his cell phone. I know you did a
cleanup on an unattended suicide he’d covered. I planned to touch
base with you and see if the call he made to you had anything to do
with that.” His gaze connected with hers then. “Or if maybe the two
of you...”
    He let the sentence trail off. Alex didn’t
have to say anything, he read the truth in her eyes. She and Hitch
hadn’t started going out again. Patton looked away as if he’d
rather she’d lied to him. Partners talked about their personal
lives. She wouldn’t have expected any less.
    “He didn’t talk to you last night?” Alex
found the idea unreasonably troubling considering she’d passed
along a piece of possible evidence that Hitch had obviously been
excited about. Wouldn’t he tell his partner?
    Patton scrubbed his hand over his face. “I
was at the hospital until I heard about the accident. My wife went
into labor a little early.”
    Alex had forgotten his wife was expecting.
Well that certainly explained his being left out of the loop last
night. “Is everything okay?”
    He grinned but the effort was a little dim
under the circumstances. “Yeah. A girl. Eight pounds one ounce.
She’s a doll.”
    Something far too similar to longing pierced
a tender place deep inside Alex. She evicted the sentimental ache
and gave herself a swift mental kick for even allowing the
senseless emotion to rear its pointless head. She’d made her
decisions about husbands and kids long ago. Hearing about other
people’s kids didn’t usually bother her. The emotional roller
coaster this morning was about Hitch.
    She still couldn’t believe he was dead. She
kept expecting to turn around and hear him tossing some silly joke
at her or asking her if she had plans this weekend.
    Shaking off the painful thoughts, she did
what she’d come here to do. “I don’t know if this makes any
difference,” she began, unsure exactly how to explain the
situation, “but I gave Hitch a piece of what may have been evidence
from the Crane suicide scene.”
    Patton sat up a little straighter, his
attention sharpening a bit. “What sort of evidence? Hitch’s report
says the incident was cut-and-dried. No questions on his end. I
haven’t seen the autopsy report yet—they’re a little backed up over
at the morgue—but the M.E. didn’t mention