Read Online Triage: A Thriller (Shell Series) by Phillip Thomas Duck - Free Book Online Page A

upset,” she went on.
    “I can imagine,” I said.
    “You’re leaving?”
    It was more of a statement than a question. So I didn’t respond.
    “When are you going?” she asked, her eyes glistening.
    “As soon as your melancholy fades,” I said.
    “It may never.”
    “Five minutes, then.”
    I hate the sight of a woman crying. I’ve never quite figured out how to respond. And I’ve had plenty of opportunities. The naked woman with the hearts-and-vines tattoo dabbed at her eyes with her fingertips, same fingers she’d run over every surface in the room just minutes earlier. Then she took a deep breath, then another, then another. I noticed a trend at that moment: she seemingly moved in threes. It was a strange time to focus on such minutiae, but then again my mind was in a strange and dark place.
    I stood silent as she cried softly.
    “Thought you hated her,” she whispered after a moment.
    “I do.”
    “Did,” she corrected. “ Did . She’s gone, Shell, past tense. You can’t possibly believe she’s going to turn up alive.”
    She was speaking of Nevada. I hated her for it.
    “You’re going back to Jersey aren’t you?” she asked.
    Another statement, not a real question. So I didn’t answer that one, either.
    “I’m not insensitive to it all,” she said. “It’s a terrible tragedy.” She hugged herself again. She’d do it once more, for a total of three, before I exited. That’s the only thought I had at that moment. Minutiae. “But I don’t understand how it’s any of your concern, Shell. Let it go. Let Nevada go. You can’t save her. It’s too late.”
    Her words made me want to crumple paper. “I might be able to find out what’s happened,” I said. “It might have something to do with me.”
    “It has nothing to do with you,” she said. “Wouldn’t you know by now if it did?”
    “Maybe,” I said. “Either way I intend to figure out what happened.”
    “Figure out what happened?” she said, a smirk in her voice. “They should have kept you out of the 200-level courses in college, I swear. You take Current Issues in Policing and now you think you’re Monk or Gil Grissom?”
    It did sound foolish.
    I redirected. “I need to make sure there’s nothing in her place that connects to me.”
    “Hate to have the cocoon upset,” she said.
    I ignored the dig. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
    She crossed the room, came to rest directly in front of me, looked up and smiled. Brave woman. “Nevada. Taj. Veronica and Ericka. Fill in the name, Shell, but your downfall is always some woman.”
     “You left your name off the list,” I said.
    “You think I belong on it? Or you on mine ?”
    I didn’t respond.
    “There’s nothing in her place that connects to you, Shell.” She smiled. “There’s nothing in it that connects to Nevada, either. That’s the way you would have it. And I’m sure she learned from you, as all the women do. Right, Mr. Precaution?”
    She tried to touch me then. I backed up a step, a move that made her sigh.
    “Again…Taj. Veronica. Ericka. Now Nevada. You haven’t been able to let go of any of them,” she said. “Maybe now is the time. I believe this is greater than just Nevada. This is about letting go, period.”
    “You certainly do that well.”
    “You too,” she said, smiling. “It’s May first and all you’re thinking about is Nevada.”
    I shook off those words and reached in the front pocket of my slacks, pulled out a thick stack of plastic cards bound tightly together with a single rubber band. I held the stack of cards in my hand, trying to find the words to proceed. None seemed to come.
    She saved me, asked, “What do you have there?”
    “Amex gift cards,” I said. “Each one is loaded with two hundred and fifty dollars. They’re for you.”
    “Tell me you’re kidding, Shell?”
    “What?” I frowned. “There’s plenty here.”
    “Do I look like Air Force Amy?”
    “Who?”
    “Prostitute,” she