Read Online First Offense by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg - Free Book Online

your daddy’s. It even smells old.” He stopped and raised his eyebrows humorously. “Also, you know, David’s getting older, and his room is right next to ours. We won’t even be able to have sex without him hearing us.”
    “It’s not that bad, Hank,” Ann pleaded. “Please, we don’t want to go into debt, get in over our heads. We’d need extra money just for the move, and then there’s furniture, curtains, higher property taxes, God knows what else. No, Hank, we can’t.” And he would want even more goodies, like the hot tub he’d just mentioned. Ann knew her husband—he liked nice things. She pulled away in order to pin him with her gaze. “We can’t afford it. Hank. You don’t make enough money.”
    Propped up against the pillows, Ann winced at what had come next, wishing she could block the bad memory out of her mind. A few seconds later, the phone rang and she grabbed it, more than ready to set the past aside. It was Tommy Reed.
    “Did you know no one’s covering my caseload while I’m out?” she told him when he protested her return to work the next day. “Claudette’s even been trying to handle some of the cases herself.”
    “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Reed said. “Just worry about your health.”
    Ann appreciated all the expressions of concern, she really did. Reed was only the sixth person who had made that statement: just worry about your health, get well, everything will work out. Sounds good, feels nice to say it, not so awful to hear it. Glen had even gone so far as to insist that she take David and go away for a few months, even told her he would foot all the expenses. But for all the good intentions, the people offering words of comfort weren’t looking at the situation through Ann’s eyes. For the past two weeks she’d been expending carefully guarded sick time with the agency—her paid leave. The county awarded her only a few days paid leave every month, and she had to stockpile it for emergencies. The situation was simple: Ann had no choice but to go back to work.
    “Don’t worry about me,” she said to the detective, mustering up her customary bravado. “I’m going stir-crazy in the house anyway. Say, what do you think about that probationer stopping to help me? Jimmy Sawyer. They say if he hadn’t known first aid and stopped the bleeding, I might have bled to death. Of all the people, huh?”
    Turning off the bedside light, she tossed the extra pillows on the floor, then turned on her side to talk in the dark. “I promised I’d take Sawyer back to court and get his probation switched to summary so he doesn’t have to report every month. Sort of like a reward.”
    “Oh, yeah?” Reed said. “I don’t think that’s going to work out too well. That’s what I called you about. Glen Hopkins is preparing a warrant right now for his arrest.”
    Ann bolted upright in the bed. “What happened? Did he get busted again for drugs?”
    “Hopkins thinks Sawyer was the one who shot you.”
    “No.” Ann had to stop short, think about this. “That’s ridiculous, Tommy. Why would the man shoot me and then stop to give me first aid? When did Glen tell you this? You don’t know Glen that well. He must have been joking. I just talked to him today, and he didn’t say a thing about Sawyer or a warrant.” Ann reached over and turned the light back on.
    “Look, I’m just repeating what I heard. He believes Sawyer shot you so you wouldn’t execute the search terms. You know, Ann, Hopkins might be right. Maybe Sawyer had a big stash in his house and panicked when he realized you could just walk in and bust him. Abrams said your car…”
    Reed kept on talking, but Ann wasn’t listening. Her hand holding the phone was trembling, her heart racing in her chest. She’d accepted this terrible event thinking it was a random act. Now Reed was telling her it was premeditated.
    Reed said, “Did you hear me?”
    She had the phone clasped with both hands now. “But you said