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

easy to read. She dreams of being famous for analyzing me and writing about her discoveries. I can see her gazing at the awards on her wall and her picture on magazine covers. She is cold, arrogant, and persistent. She let something slip that I doubt she remembers. It has offered me a glimmer of hope. I must use her arrogance if I am to reengage with the world, free from constraints. She will be of use to me. I will tease her with a gift of my thoughts—just enough for one paper or article to show her masters that her time with me is not in vain.
    I’ve asked for an attorney. Such worthless societal parasites. But I must stay positive. I will need him too.
    But ultimately it’s you who will save me, Detective Kristen Conner. The thought of being with you as it was supposed to be keeps me going. You will die for what you’ve done, but not until you see those you love die at my hand. Only then will I grant you escape from the world—the Hell—I will create for you.
    Thank you, Kristen. The thought of you is enough to keep me going.

8

    THE FACT THAT I was running in zero-degree weather huddled over a man who was bleeding out made me an immediate suspect. I was walked up the hill and led into a van with no inside door handles for questioning. It was so toasty it hurt. I felt prickly, itching jabs as my fingers and toes partially thawed. But I wasn’t complaining—until I warmed up enough that the jabs turned to icy stabs.
    When I reached for my fanny pack to pull out my detective shield, I was ordered to stop and was promptly cuffed. That got me wide awake and my blood started to boil. Five minutes later I was able to get an officer to fish through the crowded pack and pull out my badge. The cuffs came off quickly. My anger was turning to steam but I kept my cool. I get in enough trouble with CPD for my temper, why make enemies with the NYPD?
    After the uniform left to find a detective, I asked a techie who stuck his head in the back of the van the million-dollar question: “Is he going to make it?”
    “Is who going to make it?” he asked.
    “The guy I was giving CPR to. Who do you think I was asking about?”
    “Make it? What are you talking about?”
    “Did he live?” I nearly hollered.
    I didn’t call the techie what went through my mind. I thought I was doing so much better with my temper.
    “Not unless his name is Lazarus. He’s dead.”
    “On the way to the hospital?”
    “No. He was dead when we got to you.”
    Okay. So maybe I didn’t feel a pulse. I wonder how long I blew air into the broken airway of a dead man?
    I’m a homicide detective. I’ve seen death. It’s never pleasant. Sometimes it’s horrific. I was at the murder scene where a twelve-yearold was beaten to death by kids his own age. I heard his mother scream to God for it not to be so. That case—that moment—will never go away. Neither will this one.
    I followed in my dad’s footsteps and became a Chicago policeman. He warned me before my first day at CPD Academy that sometimes you have to forget what you just saw with your own two eyes and move on. Compartmentalization. I understand the word in my head. I do compartmentalize. I think everyone does. But sometimes the dividers let things slip through.
    Someone has to deal with bad people. You don’t wallow in mud without getting muddy. You just hope a hot shower can get you clean enough to interact positively with the people you love.
    My dad got shot on the job. I still wonder what he was thinking before he breathed his last. He knew I would be the first one to reach him. He set it up that way. Was I supposed to take that as a compliment?
    I don’t understand what he did but I still agree with him on compartmentalization. Some things have to be left behind and forgotten as much as possible. His death is one of those things—even if finding the man who shot him isn’t. I carry this with me every day even if I don’t like to talk about it. People want me to open up and discuss