Read The Drowning Man for Free Online Page A

alive.
    “You can't die on me now, goddammit,” she shouted down at the cold gray body.
    She kept going. His body jerked. He coughed, water dripping from his mouth. She rolled him onto his side where he curled into a fetal position.
    “Just let me die,” he mumbled.
    “It's okay, you're safe now,” she said, a hand on his too thin shoulder.
    He laughed, a scary, jerking sound, tears streaming down the sharp planes of his face.
     
    Outside, Lora doubled over with her hands on her knees, fighting the urge to throw up. She swallowed hard. Trent Barlow was unrecognizable, his body a shell of its former self. He looked nothing like the fit and happy man she'd seen in the pictures of him. And judging from what she'd just witnessed, his mind was also a shell of what it had once been. Too late, her mind berated her.
    What a fuckup. Before the cops got there, she’d left Barlow long enough to check on her partner and found Woods unconscious in the hall with a blow to the head and no sign of the oversize blond man except for a brief trail of blood down the hallway and out the front door.
    Caroline had regained consciousness and was already in the back of a police car and on the way to jail. Lora watched the paramedics load her partner into one ambulance and Trent Barlow into the other. She stood up slowly, pushed wet hair out of her face, and as soon as her legs would support her, headed towards her car to follow them to the hospital.
     
    Lora and Woods waited for the doctor to update them on Trent Barlow's condition in Woods' room at the hospital, sipping coffee even worse than what they drank at the station. She never diluted the precious dark liquid with cream or sugar, preferring the full hit touched with bitterness, not diluted with artificial crap or sweetened to mask the taste. But she was seriously considering it this time. She suppressed a grimace as she took another swallow.
    Woods wouldn’t be discharged until the next morning. He refused to get in the bed, preferring to sit in one of the visitors chairs, she in the other, his bandaged leg propped up on the bed.
    “I'm sorry,” Lora said, giving up on the coffee and setting the cup on the floor.
    “For what?” Woods asked.
    “You know for what. It's my fault you got shot. We shouldn't have even been there.”
    Woods shook his head. “You didn't force me to drive to the house. We're partners, that's what we do. And if we hadn't gotten there when we did, a man would be dead and a criminal would still be free. It was a good day.”
    They sat in silence before she added, “Except for the one that got away.”
    Lora tucked one foot underneath her and stared out the window. Where the hell had the body gone? She’d been positive the big man was dead, lying in a pool of blood. Had she been in such a rush to get to Barlow that she hadn’t made sure? Not good policework. And yet, if she’d taken that extra time, Trent Barlow more than likely wouldn’t be alive right now. She squeezed her eyes shut. Too late now to question what went down.
    “My fault. He got by me.”
    Her eyes snapped open at the sound of her partner's voice. “You were shot,” she said.
    “Doesn’t matter.”
    Lora sighed. Arguing wasn’t going to get them anywhere. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter now. What matters is finding the son of a bitch.”
    “Amen to that.”
    “Too bad we don’t have jack.”
    The door opened, stopping their conversation. Lora couldn't read the expression on the doctor's face as he approached them. She briefly wondered if they taught that in med school. The calm emotionless stare. “When can we talk to him?” she asked.
    The doctor scowled at Woods being out of bed then shook his head. “I don't know if he'll be talking to anyone anytime soon.”
    “Is he in a coma?” Woods asked.
    The doctor shook his head. “No. He has two broken ribs that are partially healed. He's dehydrated and malnourished, but he's stable. We’re giving him antibiotics for