Read Online Divorced, Desperate and Dead (Divorced and Desperate Book 5) by Christie Craig - Free Book Online Page A

said.
    Damn it, I need to get in touch with Danny. Cary Stevens’ words from her dream played in her head. No, not really words. He was just a dream. So they weren’t really words. He hadn’t said them. He wasn’t real.
    “Who . . . what’s his name?”
    They looked at each other and then back at her as if she was about to sprout another head.
    Please don’t say Cary Stevens. Please don’t say it.
    “Detective Cary Stevens. Why?”
    Chloe dropped her pillow. “Shit,” she muttered without wanting to.
    “Excuse me?” Dan asked.
    “No. Not shit. I mean . . .” Oh, what did she mean?
    “Are you okay?” the dark-haired detective asked.
    She couldn’t tell them. They’d think she was nuttier than a five-pound box of peanut brittle. Hell, maybe she was.
    “You sure,” Dan asked, studying her. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
    “No ghost.” Oh, God, at least she hoped not. “Is Cary . . . ? I mean the cop who got shot, is he . . . okay?”
    “He’s in a coma,” the dark-haired detective answered, frowning.
    “I’m sorry.” She saw Cary in her mind, grinning and looking way too confident and comfortable in her bed. She remembered his kiss, so soft, and the look of honest empathy in his eyes. She remembered he’d agreed to share the worst story award.
    “Really sorry.” A knot of emotion filled her chest and made it hard to breathe.
     
    • • •
     
    Chloe called Amber, her assistant manager, and explained what had happened and asked her to open the bakery while she went to the police station to do the sketch. Since Chloe had already agreed to go to Hoke’s Bluff police department, the detectives agreed to just join her there.
    She drove her own car, and for the entire four miles, she had a long conversation with herself. One in which she told herself over and over that she wasn’t crazy. That there was a perfectly good explanation for all of this.
    And when she stumbled over one, she latched onto it like a hungry dog to a piece of beef jerky. Since Cary’s accident took place on Saturday, she’d obviously heard something about the shooting on the radio or heard someone mention it at the bakery, and that’s why her subconscious created this whole scenario.
    There was no Room Six, no Beatrice Bacon, or any Johnny Depp lookalike. For all she knew, this Cary Stevens could be old, fat, and bald.
    There. Now. Two deep breaths and she felt better. Why she hadn’t considered this earlier was beyond her. It made perfect sense.
    Detectives Henderson and Calder pulled into the Hoke’s Bluff police station at the same time she did. Once inside, they were all escorted to a room where another detective and a composite artist met them. Before they got started, introductions were made and she heard the two detectives explain to the Hoke’s Bluff detective that they’d heard the call go out looking for a black Chevy truck. They also explained how two teen skateboarders, who’d found the unconscious officer in Glencoe, had seen a black Chevy driving away right before.
    Chloe kept seeing her vision of Cary Stevens lying unconscious in a hospital bed, and she fought the emotional pull. She didn’t know the officer in a coma, it wasn’t the man she’d dreamed up.
    As she started to describe the driver of the truck who hit her, Detective Henderson sat beside her, so close his shoulder brushed against hers. It wasn’t as if he was flirting, but all she kept thinking was how nice it had felt when her Johnny Depp lookalike had done that very same thing. And how with Dan Henderson she felt . . . nothing. And she could even give Sheri credit, the guy was hot. If one liked blond, blue-eyed, broad-shouldered guys with deep voices.
    Thirty minutes later, she sat beside the artist and had him change the eyes and nose on the suspect three times, but when he finished the last sketch and turned to show it to her, her breath caught.
    “That’s him.” A chill from seeing his face tap-danced up her spine.