True Deceit (Blindsided Book 1) (37 page)

“Hi, Chief,” she said, acknowledging his arrival. “I found him by the side of the road on the way back from work.” She shook her head. “If he hadn’t moved, I would have driven right past him.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t.” It was Doctor Crichton who spoke, drawing their attention. “This poor kid has suffered a severe beating. He has a broken arm, a concussion and severe lacerations all over his body. I’ll need to get him to the hospital immediately to make sure there’s nothing more serious going on internally. If he’d been there all night, there’s no knowing if he would have survived.”

“I’ll go with you,” Kat said immediately. She didn’t want to leave this poor boy’s side.

“Sorry, Kat, but we’ll take it from here.” The chief put his hand on her shoulder gently. “It’s a police matter now.”

Kat opened her mouth to argue but then closed it again. She knew he was right. She wasn’t a police officer anymore. This had nothing to do with her, but the thought of leaving him all alone was killing her. But she had no choice. Though he probably couldn’t hear her, she wanted to say goodbye, to tell him it was going to be okay, so she walked over to him. Leaning down, she whispered in his ear, “It’s okay, you’re safe now.” He moved slightly then, inching his hand over to grip hers where it rested on the side of the examination table. She tried to gently pull it away, but he gripped it harder still. With tears in her eyes, she looked at the chief. “I can’t leave him.”

“If she makes him feel safer, she should stay with him. We don’t know the full extent of his injuries yet and we should avoid doing anything that’s likely to upset him,” Dr. Crichton said, addressing the chief.

Kat held her breath while he considered this and, after a brief pause, he nodded brusquely. “Okay, the doc’s right. Our main priority has to be making sure this little guy is okay. You can go with him. But Kat,” he carried on as she turned back to the boy, “he is a crime scene and I don’t have to tell you that you are now, too. And if he says anything, anything at all, you let me know. Got it?” Kat nodded. “Of course, chief. Thank you.”

He nodded. “I’ll get an officer and CSI to meet you at the hospital as soon as we’ve secured the area where he was found.”

The flashing of blue and red lights through the clinic window told them that the ambulance had arrived. Kat watched as he was loaded onto a gurney and put in the back before climbing in next to him and taking his hand in hers.

“I’m here and I’m not going anywhere,” she told him as the doors closed and they left for the hospital.

Three

He went over what they knew so far in his head as he made his way out to the main crime scene, which wasn’t much. When the chief had called on the radio to tell him to get out there and secure the area where the kid had been found, he’d also told him that Kat had had the foresight to leave the warning triangle from her trunk by the side of the road so they’d be able to find the exact spot again. He was driving slowly so that he didn’t miss it and sure enough, his lights hit the red plastic and it reflected back at him. Pulling over, he got out of his cruiser and shrugged on his coat.
CSI better hurry up,
he thought as he looked up at the sky. Storms had been battering the area all day and while it had been dry for the last few hours, it looked like it wouldn’t stay that way for long.

The wind ruffled his hair as he stood with his hands in his coat pockets, leaning against the hood of the car. There was nothing he could do until CSI got there and he could have waited in the car, but he’d been sitting down most of the day and needed to stretch his legs.

He was suffering from conflicting emotions. Part of him wanted to call Kat and make sure she was okay. What she’d come across wasn’t nice and would have upset even an experienced police officer but the other part, the part that he’d been listening to for the past few months, warned him to stay away. Until she’d turned up looking for her niece all those months ago he’d thought he’d put the past behind him, but her reappearance had opened all those old wounds. While searching for her niece, though, he’d grown close to her again and all the feelings he’d once had for her had started to re-emerge.

When she’d finally told him what had made her leave, though, he’d been floored. He hadn’t known how to react, still didn’t, so he’d avoided her ever since, acknowledging her when he did see her about town but no more than that. He knew he was probably hurting her but he couldn’t help it. He needed to figure out how to deal with what she’d told him.

Lights in the distance snapped him out of his reverie and told him that the crime scene techs had arrived. Kat was tough. She didn’t need him to hold her hand and he had a job to do.

A flash of lightning lit up the sky, then was closely followed by a loud clap of thunder. As he’d feared, big fat drops of rain started to fall slowly at first, gathering momentum until they were coming down fast and heavy.

“Come on, quickly!” he urged the techs as they climbed out of their vehicle. “We need to get a canopy up now!” Helping them pull it out of the back of their truck, they worked as quickly as they could, getting it up in less than two minutes. Finn’s heart sank, though, as he looked at the ground. It was already a soggy mess and it was likely that any trace evidence that had been there had been washed away.

“Do what you can guys.” He sighed, climbing back into the dry interior of his cruiser. He knew that he was going to be here a while, so he rested his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. He had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

I hope you enjoyed the preview. You can grab
Blood Sport
here
.

Sign up
here
for news and to find out about 99c new release sales exclusive to my subscribers! To find out more about me, please visit my author page
here
.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.