Read Online Daddy's Girl by Lisa Scottoline - Free Book Online Page A

them. They also ducked to walk inside, and the ambulance bounced at the additional weight. They seated themselves on the padded bench opposite Nat and Angus, like the double date from hell.
    “I’m Trooper Bert Milroy, with the state police,” one trooper said. He was maybe forty years old, with a handsome face, cool blue eyes, and a long, bony nose, red at the tip from the cold. He gestured at the trooper next to him, who had thinner lips and looked younger with faint acne scars on his cheeks. “This is my partner, Trooper Russ Johnston. We’ll keep this short, because I know it isn’t easy for you.” The trooper leaned over, slid a steno pad from his back pocket, and flipped back the cardboard cover. “Do you feel well enough to speak with us? Did you want to go to the hospital or anything?”
    “No, thanks.” Nat raised a hand, in the blanket. “First, can you tell me what happened in there? Is it really over?”
    “Absolutely.” The trooper slid a Bic pen from his inside pocket. “The disturbance took only sixteen minutes to put down.”
    “Sixteen minutes?” Nat almost laughed. “It seemed like a lot longer.”
    “It was,” Angus interjected flatly.
    “But what happened?” Nat asked. “There was a riot in the RHU, right?”
    “Not a riot. A disturbance.”
    Angus chuckled. “Let the spinning begin.”
    The trooper paused, pointedly. “As I was saying, Ms. Greco, inmates in the RHU got into an altercation over a gang issue. Three were killed and four seriously injured.”
    Tell my wife . “A guard was killed, too.”
    “Yes, and two others seriously injured.”
    “What was his name, the C.O. who died?”
    Trooper Milroy flipped through his notes. “Ray Saunders, I believe. No, Ron. First name’s Ron. His wife was just notified. As I was saying, the prison SWAT team put it down in record time, preventing further loss of life. We’ve arrested four individuals in connection with the murders. Charges will be brought against Mr. Buford as soon as possible”—at this, the trooper shifted his ice blue gaze to Angus—“but we dot our i ’s.”
    Nat tried to process it all. “There was fire. I saw smoke.”
    “A few of the inmates set their mattresses on fire.”
    “I heard explosions. What was that?”
    “The SWAT team.”
    “The SWAT team uses bombs? ” Nat was confused.
    “No, the explosions would be the stingers from the SWAT team,” the trooper answered.
    “What’s a stinger?”
    “A device that is fired at the floor and explodes in thousands of rubber pellets—”
    “Not that many, Bert,” the other trooper said, and Trooper Milroy frowned, annoyed.
    “Okay, not thousands, but a lot, and they sting. They stop a man in his tracks without lethal force. The SWAT team performed superbly.” Trooper Milroy raised his pen. “Now, please tell us, in your own words, exactly what happened from when you and Mr. Holt began your class this morning.”
    Nat took a deep breath, and between sips of water, began a scary instant replay. She got to the part where Buford ripped her shirt and began to think that maybe Angus had been right, she wasn’t ready to tell this yet. Her mouth went dry, and she was strangely afraid, even surrounded by police. She felt an instant kinship with every woman who had ever been the victim of violent crime. Questions entered her mind, about what could have happened. How do you live through something like that? What would Hank say? Her father? What if it had happened in front of Angus? Would she have been able to look him in the eye at school, and vice versa? By the time she finished the story, she’d drained her water bottle.
    “What happened after you ran from the classroom?” Trooper Milroy asked, scribbling.
    “I ran to get help.”
    “Did you find any?”
    “Yes. I found a C.O. coming out of a room. I asked him to help, and he came.”
    “Can you be more specific?”
    Nat paused. She was thinking of the other C.O., who now had a name. Ron Saunders.