Free Don't Kill the Messenger by Eileen Rendahl Page A

Markowitz made me feel old. People call my mother Ms. Markowitz.
     
“Melina, look, I don’t care why you were down there. Something pretty heinous happened there, and we’re trying to get more information. No one down there is talking. We’ve got some dead kids and a lot of blood and a lot of people looking really scared. It would be helpful if you could stop playing games and cooperate a little. What exactly did you see?”
     
I tried to remember exactly what I’d said to the 911 operator. If I stuck to the script maybe I’d get out of this without being hauled off for psychological evaluation. “I saw a bunch of guys fighting. I heard gunshots. I didn’t stick around to see or hear anything else. I hightailed it out of there and called you guys. I figured it was your job.”
     
He nodded and jotted something down on his notepad. “You weren’t involved with this group of guys you saw in any way?”
     
“No! Of course not! I’m an innocent bystander. I was driving by and tried to do what was right as a citizen.” Who knows? Sometimes people back down in the face of self-righteous indignation. It was worth a shot.
     
“None of them were, say, your boyfriend?” Officer Goodnight seemed amazingly unimpressed with my righteous indignation. In fact, instead of backing off, he moved a little closer.
     
“No boyfriend,” I said, perhaps a little too quickly. Have I mentioned my total lack of social life? Having a dream about Alex last night was the closest thing I’d had to a date in months and that was only a dream and it was about a guy who was undead. Admittedly, very sexy, but still completely undead. Although I have heard that vampire sex is supposed to be pretty damn good.
     
Officer Goodnight was trying not to smile. I bet a lot of girls managed to work their lack of a boyfriend into conversations with him. I bet those pouty lips set in that very square-chinned face had women of all ages telling him they were single. He sat down on one of the stools at our breakfast bar. Some of the starch left his shoulders, and he rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. Then he looked up at me, totally nailing me with those bright blue eyes. “Melina, if you’re involved with this in some way, we can help. That’s what we’re here for.”
     
I looked into his eyes and believed that he actually believed what he was saying. He really thought the police were here to protect and serve. Wow. How charmingly naïve. “I’m not involved,” I repeated. I wasn’t. Whatever was going down out there was none of my Messenger beeswax.
     
“If you’re worried about retaliation, we can protect you.” He had a nice voice, low with a touch of sand in it. A little scratchy, but not like a smoker’s rasp. He put his hand on my forearm. His touch was warm and strong and very, very human.
     
I sighed. Pretty much the only human touch I got these days was at the dojo, and that generally didn’t feel very good. This felt a little too good coupled with that scent of baked goods he seemed to carry with him. “I don’t need protection,” I said. Sadly, that was true. I could almost certainly do a better job of protecting myself from what I’d seen last night than any police force in the country, assuming they’d even acknowledge that there could be something like whatever it was I saw marauding around in their streets.
     
Too bad, though. I liked the way his hand felt on my arm, and I could easily start to imagine what it would feel like other places. Something inside me tingled, and it wasn’t just the remnant of last night’s dream. Nightmare, I reminded myself. Call it a nightmare.
     
He thought for a second and then took his hand away, which was a bummer. I wondered what I would have to do to get him to put it back. “Okay, Melina. Whatever you say.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his card. He jotted a few numbers on the back. “Here are all my numbers. Seriously, all of them. You can reach me