Read Cold As Ice: Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 3) for Free Online

think a pulse should be. Breathe into his lungs. Repeat. Stop thinking.
    I felt the icy cold return like a sledgehammer. I told myself to breath. I was near the point of fainting when I heard the rush of footsteps and knew the cavalry had arrived.

    Pasha Boyarov looked into her pleading, terrified eyes. She knew nothing but someone had to pay. He raised a fist as she sobbed and whimpered.
    “Careful, Pasha,” Vladimir Zheglov, his right-hand man said. “We need her. The best way to catch a bear is with a pot of honey.”
    You wanted it all, Pasha thought to himself, barely able to contain his rage and hold the punch.
    Spittle flew from his mouth as he leaned forward, eye-to-eye with Ilsa.
    “If I find you are holding back . . . if I find there is anything you aren’t telling us, I will kill you with my bare hands. Do you understand?”
    She nodded her head yes, trying to avoid the cold black reptilian eyes that were boring into her.
    “He always comes home after work. I swear. I don’t know where he is. He’s told me nothing.”
    Pasha spun, grabbed a wooden chair, and smashed it against his desk. He beat the chair until only a splintered club was in his hand.
    He looked at Vladimir, who looked back at him impassively. If I go down, Pasha thought, at least I know I have Vlad at my side. The only man Pasha considered more deadly than himself was his lifelong friend, Vlad.
    Less than one hour earlier a door to multiplied power and wealth stood open to him, only to have a bumbling bear kick it shut. There had to be a way to kick it back open. Doors are made to be destroyed. He had been doing that most of his life.

7

    I HAVE NEEDED time to shut the world out. I have needed to think about what happened, as painful as the experience itself was, and as painful as it is to relive it, which I have, every moment of every day spent here.
    It could be worse. The Metropolitan Correction Center in downtown Chicago is a modern prison. The architects have thought of everything it seems, even giving me a room with a view. The window is seven feet high, but alas, only five inches wide. But even if it were wider and the glass wasn’t too thick to break, it wouldn’t offer any hope for escape. I’m on the 27th floor.
    But I’ve been able to look through that slit in the wall at the possibility of freedom, even as I have been forced to face up to my mistakes. Yes, I now realize they were my mistakes. I own them. I have risen above the hubris that put me here. What happened was not bad luck or the work of others. I allowed it to happen. I was not true to my code. I fell short of the perfection that I thought I had attained—and perhaps had—but let slip away due to carelessness.
    I’m not one for religion, but it’s true, pride precedes the fall.
    It is only through brutal self-examination and honesty that I can begin to write the story of my life again.
    Detective Conner. Dear Kristen. I confess I underestimated you. I own that, too. You were my only mistake in seven years of living life in full. I wrote and directed all of my encounters—until you.
    Why you? Even if neither of us understands the bond I felt—that I discovered—the moment I first set eyes on you, just know that my response to you is the ultimate compliment you have ever been paid. Consider it grace; something you don’t deserve. You are flawed. But my eyes, my mind, still can’t turn from you. I should have recognized this; embraced this; andpursued this reality. My mistake was to keep you at a distance. I will move quicker and directly next time. Be assured of that.
    No, you wouldn’t understand our bond, for I don’t understand it myself. We only met face-to-face one time, a painful encounter for both of us, but devastating for me.
    The FBI profiler continues to visit me often, praying to me for the words she longs to hear. Dr. Leslie Van Guten is one of those people who love to prove they are the smartest person in the room. But not my room. She is so