Read Die With Me for Free Online

car idle for a minute, waiting for the heater to kick in. Her thoughts drifted back to Tartaglia and Blake. Their affair had to be recent, as she was pretty sure from conversations she had had with Tartaglia that there’d been no woman in his life a couple of months before. Of course, however much she instinctively disliked Blake, she couldn’t blame her for going for Tartaglia. He was bloody gorgeous. It was unfair that any man should be made like that, with those brooding, dark looks and that lovely generous mouth. At times, he could look so serious, so intense. But when he smiled, his whole face lit up. The only consolation was that he seemed generally unaware of the effect he had on others. Thank God he’d never realised what she thought. In the early days, she had taken great pains not to let her feelings show and now that they’d got to know each other much better, she’d stopped hankering after him. They were mates. Good mates. Not a relationship she wanted to put at risk for something she knew couldn’t last. Anyway, he was impossible, too independent and single-minded, which would make her feel insecure. Also, who in their right mind would want to have a relationship with a detective on a murder team, on call all hours, having to drop everything when a new case came along, working all day and night and weekends? No sane person would bother for long.
    But what had happened between Tartaglia and Blake? There’d definitely been a row of some sort; you could have cut the atmosphere in the room with a knife. At first she’d assumed that they’d had some sort of professional spat, pathologists being bloody awkward creatures at the best of times. But then it had all got very tense just as they were leaving and it was clear that there was something else going on, something personal. Tartaglia had leant over towards Blake and said something. Although she couldn’t quite remember what it was, it had sounded pretty innocuous. But the reaction on Blake’s face was instantaneous and she looked as though she had been hit.
    Trying to replay the conversation in her mind, so as to pin down the exact words, Donovan slipped Maroon 5’s Songs About Jane into the CD player, tabbing to her favourite song, ‘She Will Be Loved’. She let the music and lyrics wash over her for a moment. Of course Tartaglia could trust her. She wouldn’t tell anyone, if that’s what he was worried about. But she was buggered if she was going to let him think he could pull the wool over her eyes, try and pretend that there was nothing going on. Not after what she’d witnessed.

4
    Getting to Streatham took longer than Donovan had imagined but she found the Kramers’ address without trouble and pulled up on a yellow line outside. The house was modern, semi-detached with a neat strip of lawn to one side and a straight, paved path leading between two tidy flowerbeds to the front door. A black taxicab, which she assumed belonged to Gemma’s father, was parked in the driveway in front of the garage, and she could see lights on behind the drawn curtains.
    Thank goodness she wasn’t there to break the news to the family. That was the part of the job she’d always hated most, particularly when a child was concerned. But it was bad enough having to talk to the parents now, knowing that Gemma’s death hadn’t been either a suicide or a simple accident. Unlike several of her colleagues, she found it difficult to cut herself off, found it impossible not to empathise with those affected by the death of a loved one. She had often asked herself why she had ever joined Clarke’s murder team, and could only suppose that it was for the satisfaction of catching the person responsible, justice and retribution the only compensation for all the pain.
    She took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell. The man who answered the chimes was wearing combats, trainers and a T-shirt, with a gold Star of David hanging from a heavy chain around his neck. His head was