Running on Empty

Making this his lucky day.

Cursing a blue streak, Detective Mitch Thompson swerved his cart and narrowly missed rolling over a denim-clad leg. The woman lay sprawled on her back, looking, as far as he could tell, unharmed. And breathing. She was definitely pulling in a sufficient amount of air. He crouched down beside her and pressed two fingers to her throat, finding a strong pulse.

Okay, so what was the deal?

He tapped her cheek lightly, finding her skin warm and soft beneath his fingers. “Ma’am, can you hear me?”

She didn’t respond. Then he noticed the blood. It soaked through the back of her hair, transforming it from honey-colored to crimson.

Well, that would explain it. Damn, he really didn’t need this tonight. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911. He gave the operator his badge number and the location of the store. “I have a woman down, twenty-five to thirty years old, with a head injury.”

After the operator assured him help was on the way, he disconnected and shoved the phone back into his pocket. Thinking she might have passed out and hit her head on the way down, he unzipped her jacket to look for a medic-alert necklace, searched her wrists, shoving up one sleeve, then the other. No bracelets, no rings. Nothing to indicate a chronic medical condition.

He noticed bruises forming on her forearms and elbows. Odd, considering she was flat on her back. When a person fell backward, they didn’t typically land on their arms. Could she have fallen forward and rolled over?

The pool of blood under her head began to spread, and though he didn’t want to move her, he had to stop the bleeding. He searched his pockets for something to press against the wound but came up empty. Out of desperation, he grabbed a beanbag animal from the bin above him and eased it under her head, doing his best not to move her neck. He doubted it was sterile, but it would have to suffice.

“Ma’am, can you hear me?” he tried again. “Open your eyes.”

She mumbled something incoherent.

He scanned the area for a purse or wallet, something to identify her. He checked the pockets of her jacket, finding a few wadded tissues in one, a folded receipt with no store name on it in the other. He was about to check the pockets of her jeans when he heard a gasp behind him.

“What did you do to her?” A young girl with a nametag identifying her as Becky stood several feet away, gaping at the scene on the floor. Her eyes locked on the blood and all the color leeched from her face. The plastic basket of items she was holding clattered to the floor.

“Twin Oaks Police,” he said, producing his badge.

She slapped a hand over her mouth, asking through her fingers, “Is she d-dead?”

“No, Becky, but I need to get her to a hospital.” And he needed to get the clerk moving before he had two unconscious, bleeding women on his hands. “Go to the front entrance and flag down the emergency personnel when they pull up and lead them back to me. Can you do that?”

“S-sure.” She backed up a few steps, eyes riveted on the woman, then turned and scurried away.

He stuck his badge back in his jacket and yawned so deeply his eyes teared. Christ, he was tired. He should be home in bed right now. It was after midnight, which meant it was Saturday and officially his day off. If he hadn’t let his sister Lisa talk him into stopping at the store for her, in bed is where he would probably be.

It had been a long, hellish week that resulted in the arrest of a man allegedly responsible for the brutal rape of five women. Mitch’s arrest, thanks to an anonymous tip. Now all he wanted—what he desperately needed—was a few days off. God knows he’d earned it. Between work and helping care for their mother while she recovered from back surgery, he was running himself ragged. After he dropped the groceries off he had planned to go home, unplug the phone, crawl into bed and sleep straight through until Sunday. Now he’d have to go into the station and file a report.

The woman on the floor moaned, wincing when she tried to move her head.

“Ma’am, can you hear me? You need to lie still. Help is on the way.” He braced one hand under her head and cupped the other over her cheek to hold her immobile. Her delicately boned face felt fragile and looked small cradled in his palm.

She reached up in a vain attempt to pry his hand away. “Hurts.”

“I know it hurts, but you could make it worse by moving.”

Her lids fluttered open and she looked up at him, eyes unfocused and bleary—eyes a spectrum of speckled gray, like the stones he used to collect on the beach at Lake Superior when he was a kid. For several seconds, he found himself suspended in their depths.

“Please,” she murmured. “Please, don’t let him—” She grimaced, as if the effort to speak was too painful. Her eyes rolled up, and he could tell she was sinking back into unconsciousness.

“Don’t let him what?” he urged. “Did someone hurt you?”

In a surprising burst of strength, she reached out and clutched the front of his leather jacket, her eyes clear and wild with fear. “Don’t let him kill me.”

Mitch watched, feeling an uncharacteristic surge of empathy as the paramedics wheeled the woman away. She looked so small and helpless on the gurney, her skin ashen in contrast to the stark white bandages on the gash at the base of her skull. Since those brief seconds when she’d pleaded for her life, she hadn’t regained consciousness, but her single utterance told him everything he needed to know to get an investigation started.

This had been no accident.

As a result, the store was crawling with Twin Oaks’ finest. If the suspect was ballsy enough to attack a woman in a well-lit store, who knew what else he might be capable of.

“Detective?”

Mitch turned to Officer Greene, one of the uniforms dispatched to the scene. Greene was new to the force, six months out of the academy, but what he lacked in experience he made up for in enthusiasm. He reminded Mitch of himself ten years ago. “Find anything?”

“We combed the area but we didn’t find a purse or anything else that might identify her. We’ve got two men searching the parking lot, and another two in the alley, in case the perp slipped out the back.”

“What about her cart?”

He nodded to the left. “At the end of the aisle. No purse or any identification.”

Mitch followed him to the cart abandoned a few feet from where he’d found the victim.

“Looks like she was on a budget,” Greene said.

The cart contained generic brand vegetables by the case—six of them altogether. There were also diapers and disposable wipes, and a couple dozen jars of baby food. It would be a safe bet that their Jane Doe had a family, although she hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring. Divorced maybe? A single mother? Or maybe she just happened to take her jewelry off and had forgotten to put it back on when she left the house.

Sighing, he dragged a hand through his hair and massaged away the knots from the back of his neck. “There are probably a couple kids out there wondering why Mommy hasn’t come home yet.”

“How bad was she?”

“Blunt force trauma to the back of the head. Too severe to be from a fall. From the bruising on her arms, I’m guessing she was hit from behind and thrown forward, then rolled over onto her back.” He gestured to the tinted dome overhead that housed a security camera. “What about surveillance?”

“The store is old, so it’s not exactly a state-of-the-art system. Picture quality couldn’t be much worse. Maybe if the victim knows him, she could identify him from the tapes.”

Her words echoed in his head—don’t let him kill me. She could still be in danger. They needed to find out who she was and if she knew who had done this to her. They meaning him. Which also meant that sleep would have to wait. Though he wasn’t sure why, he didn’t trust this case to anyone else. It was as if, in those few seconds she’d looked up at him, they’d bonded somehow.

Bonded? Christ, he must be delirious from exhaustion. If he told anyone at the station his theory, they would tell him he needed his head examined.

“Make sure someone takes down the plates of all the cars in the lot,” he told Greene. “With all this food, I doubt she was walking.”

Greene followed him to his cart. “It’s a good thing you found her. Who knows how long she would have lain there bleeding. The store is practically deserted this time of night.”

“Yeah, my lucky day.” Not.

“You seem to be having a lot of those lately. That was some arrest. Did you get a confession?” Greene had what could only be described as hero worship in his eyes.

Mitch didn’t deserve the recognition. He’d been completely stumped until an anonymous letter had been dropped on his desk. It named the suspect, gave his address, and even disclosed where the evidence—trinkets taken from each of the victims—could be found. The entire arrest had been unbelievably easy.

Too easy.