Closer Than Blood by Gregg Olsen Page B

her breath, all of it made his body throb with pleasure.
    â€œTori,” he said, “you are an amazing woman.”
    â€œLet’s not get carried away,” she said.
    The next day, her husband out of town, Darius showed up with a bottle of wine. She met him at the door, but she didn’t invite him inside.
    â€œDarius,” she said, “I think you might have the wrong idea here.”
    â€œI wasn’t being presumptuous,” he said, before reading her body language and the cool expression on her face. “I mean, I’m sorry.”
    There was no smile on her face, no trace of anything that indicated any kind of sympathy for the awkwardness of the moment.
    â€œI’m not interested,” she said.
    He lowered the wine bottle to his side.
    â€œWe’re not lovers,” she said. “What happened was fun, but only a little bit fun.”
    His face went red. Tori Connelly was dismissing him. If he’d felt that he might have gotten his game back the night before ... if he felt that whatever his cheating wife had done to him was now erased by sex with a beautiful woman, he was misguided.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I made a mistake.”
    Darius didn’t know it at the time, but he was so right about that. So very, very right.
    And now Alex Connelly was dead.
    He dialed the number Detective Eddie Kaminski had left the night of Alex Connelly’s murder, the night that Tori Connelly had been shot. It went to voice mail and he did as commanded.
    â€œDarius Fulton here. I want to come in and talk to you. In person.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Tacoma
    Corazón White rolled a cart with a snack for Tori Connelly, a task that a nurse would never have to do if not for the budget cutbacks that left the hospital short staffed. Mrs. Connelly had somehow managed to make a bad situation worse. The gunshot victim’s latest annoyance was her request for an egg white omelet and side of whole wheat toast “no crust please” and “a dark juice of either acai or pomegranate.”
    â€œWe have orange, tomato, or pineapple,” Corazón said while she took her order and did her vitals for the doctor’s rounds earlier that morning.
    Tori frowned and fussed with the IV line again. “This is a hospital, isn’t it?”
    â€œYes, of course it is.”
    â€œSurely, you’ve heard of the benefits of dark juices.”
    She wanted to play dumb and say her name wasn’t Shirley. Mrs. Connelly was getting on her nerves.
    â€œYes, I have.”
    â€œWell, your dietician here ought to have his or her work permit pulled. The juices you offer might as well be colored sugar water, because you’re not giving your patients anything of value.”
    The “work permit” phrase was a slam and Corazón knew it. She’d also waitressed through nursing school and knew that such arguments can never be won.
    â€œI’ll see what I can do,” she said.
    It turned out she could do next to nothing. Mrs. Connelly wasn’t getting any pomegranate juice. She was getting orange like everyone else on the floor.
    â€œBest I could do,” Corazón said, wheeling the tray into the room.
    â€œYour best is not going to be noted on my comment card. If you have one here. I guess one would be surprised if you did.”
    Corazón wanted to say something rude back, but she held her tongue. The woman with the wound on her thigh and the perfect haircut thought she was in a spa or hotel, not a hospital. She sure wasn’t acting like a woman who had just lost her husband in a violent shooting.
    She started to pull the curtain, even though the room was without a second bed.
    â€œI know you’ll want some peace to eat your meal, Mrs. Connelly.”
    After her encounter with “the bitch in 561D,” Corazón did only the minimum required. She saw the patient. She tried not to engage her. The woman on the other side of