Read Online Pool of Crimson by Suzanne M. Sabol - Free Book Online Page A

I turned. A tall, dark-haired man stood behind me in a police uniform. He had light blue eyes and a handsome enough face. He was too bulky, though, and looked like he’d spent too much time in a frat house to do any woman any good.
    “Sabin,” I said, straightening my back with a wince and working the kinks from my neck. “Dahlia Sabin.”
    “Your friend ...”
    “Jade,” I finished for him. His eyes shot to meet mine, wide with fear. He took the few steps around me, his eyes peering through the shattered tempered glass of the windshield to find Jade still sitting in the front seat.
    “Danny, is she ...” he started to ask in a voice that was softer than it should have been for a total stranger. He cleared his throat and refocused on me. “Jade Markowitz was driving?” he asked, forcing a business tone into his voice but I’d made him. He knew her.
    “She’s all right,” I said softly. He looked up at me with gratitude etched across his brow and gave me a quick nod. “Yes, she was driving,” I said, back to business. I mean, she was still sitting in the driver’s seat. I gave him the make and model of the car that ran us off the road and a partial plate. I could only remember the first three letters. Everything else was fuzzy around the edges since that bitch had hit us.
    Once he had all my information, Officer Derek Hamlin and I walked back over to Jade’s side of the car. The paramedic had picked Jade out of the car and placed her on a gurney like she weighed next to nothing.
    “Are you all right?” I asked her, suddenly afraid that she really was hurt. Her face was so pale, her eyes sunken in and without the usual playful luster that I’d grown to count on. She looked suddenly fragile.
    “She needs some stitches, and I’d like to get her to the hospital to make sure there’s no internal bleeding,” the paramedic said as he met my eyes again with his own beautiful hazel gaze. He looked at me as if he knew me inside and out. As much as I wanted that to frighten me, it didn’t.
    They wheeled her to the ambulance on a waiting gurney and lifted her in. I hopped in after her and took a seat. Officer Hamlin whispered something in Jade’s ear that made her smile weakly before the paramedics closed the doors.
    That probably happens a lot to her.
    I expected the paramedic to have the same reaction to Jade as, it seemed, every other man did in her presence. He checked her vitals and started an IV but he watched me, even when he thought I wasn’t paying attention.
    I leaned back and sank into the bench as I tried to disappear in the small space of the back of the ambulance. I wasn’t used to being the center of attention, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. He scrutinized me as if he didn’t know what to do with me. Under the sharp examination of his gaze, I was consumed with a deep sense of comfort and belonging. That was the part that was wiggin’ me the hell out. Somewhere deep in my gut, it seemed oddly right.
    I rested my head in my hands with my elbows on my knees, trying to get a handle on what I’d learned and what I hadn’t. My head was still spinning from the accident, which wasn’t helping me make sense of any of it. I was tired. I ached all over, and I hurt more than I was willing to admit. I rubbed my eyes with the palm of my hand before I remembered I was wearing eye makeup. My fingers came away coated in burgundy sparkles and black mascara.
    “Damn it,” I said as I rubbed my eye-shadow-covered fingers together. I was already covered in blood, grime, and dirt. I guess a little smeared makeup didn’t matter. I rolled my eyes in disgust and with a heavy breath tried to focus on what actually mattered.
    Someone had tried to kill me.
    Someone had tried to kill me while Jade was in the car.
    Warmth spread across my skin like the heat from the hot July sun, pushing against my skin like a raging fire. I scanned the empty space around me. No one sat within twenty feet of me. No one wanted