Read Once Bitten for Free Online Page A

kitchen. I put the cup on the desk and then I went to fetch the morning paper and I sat on the sofa and begin to read it and then I realised that my subconscious was playing for time, trying to defer the moment when I'd start to put together the report on Ferriman, T. Why was that, I wondered.
    Because she was so pretty? So young? Because she looked so helpless, and yet, at the same time,
    so in control of herself?
    I flipped the paper closed and sat back at the desk and called up her file on the computer and went through the answers she'd given. They were the answers you'd expect from any well-balanced young woman, not too aggressive, not too self-centered. The sort of girl who'd make a good friend,
    or lover. It took me twice as long to finish the report on her than I'd taken over Kipp. It wasn't that she was a more complicated case, it was more that I was finding myself trying to always portray her in a good light, then realising that it might look as if I was being biased in her favour so I'd go the other way and be too hard on her. The whole point of the Beaverbrook Program was that it was supposed to take the emotion out of the judgment, the verdict should be totally objective, and it almost always was, yet in her case I was having to constantly force myself to be neutral. And all the time the image of her in my mind was the girl in the alley in the black leather jacket, her lips against my neck. No, I didn't mention the dream in my report. Once bitten....
    I was printing it out when the phone rang. It was De'Ath calling, wanting to know how I was getting on.
    “Just finished,” I said, and held the receiver by the side of the laser printer so that he could hear for himself. “How's the investigation?”
    “Which one?” he said, though he knew full that I wouldn't be asking about Henry Kipp, Esq.
    “The girl,” I said.
    “Yeah, the girl,” he said. “To be honest, Doc, it ain't going so well.”
    “I thought you said it was open and shut.”
    "Yeah, didn't I just? We got the report back from Forensic and it was his blood on her face and hands, no doubt about it. But there was no blood on her clothes. Yet he was covered in it. He'd been stabbed in the chest and slashed about the throat, there should have been red stuff all over her.
    And there's still no sign of a murder weapon."
    “What's her story?”
    "Now she's saying that she found him in the alley and was trying to give him the kiss of life.
    Can you believe that? Blood streaming from his throat and she's trying to give him the kiss of life!"
    “Who was the guy?”
    “Still waiting to hear from the bag 'em and tag 'em boys. They're gonna take his prints and run them through the computer. Look, Doc, I wanna see her report as soon as possible.”
    “No sweat, but I don't think it's going to be of much help. She's not a crazy, far from it.”
    “Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Can you bring it round?”
    “Half an hour, is that OK?”
    De'Ath groaned. "Oh, man, can't you come round now? Look, I tell you what, we've just got a warrant to go round and check out her place, why don't you meet us there. Any time after ten,
    OK?"
    I agreed eagerly, too eagerly maybe, but I was intrigued by the girl and I thought that a visit to her home might provide some sort of insight that I wouldn't get from simply talking to her. I finished the printing, put on a tie and was outside her apartment block by ten-thirty.
    It was a four-storey modern block on North Alta-Vista, close to Sunset Boulevard, and I realised, fairly close to where she'd been discovered kneeling over the body. I recognised De'Ath's car parked outside and I walked up the stairs rather than taking the lift to prove to myself that I was in good condition. I was out of breath when I reached the top floor so I stood in the hallway until I felt better and then rang the bell. De'Ath's partner, Dennis Filbin, a bulky Irishman with a drinker's nose, opened the door, grunted, and let me in.
    “Don't touch anything,”