Free Edge of Survival by Toni Anderson Page A

The Doc stiffened as she bit into her whole-grain lunch.
    “You left the other woman alone in the bar?”
    Daniel nodded. “The place was busy and I figured Vikki Salinger could handle herself. Anyway, I knew I’d only be a minute.” He rolled a heavy shoulder.
    “You make a habit of rescuing women?”
    “Not if I can help it.” Daniel shut down his smile. Rescuing women had gotten him into this whole bloody mess in the first place. He wondered if Kershaw already knew that and was playing with him. Daniel’s company personnel file sat in front of the cop but that contained sweet FA.
    “That’s not what I heard.” The cop paused and pinned him with eyes that saw more than Daniel wanted him to see. “In fact I heard you’re pretty unpopular hereabouts because you make a habit of rescuing women.”
    Daniel suddenly understood the line of questioning. “You are kidding me.” He laughed. “Maisy?”
    “I didn’t get her name in my report. Just the fact you broke someone’s nose for giving a girl a harmless kiss.”
    Daniel’s lip drew back as anger heated his blood. “Some prick cornered her in the freezer and put his hand up her skirt.”
    “Maybe she wanted his hand up her skirt?”
    Daniel tapped his fingers on the table, unintentionally matching the beat of his heart. “Maisy has the mental age of a twelve-year-old, and that might be stretching it.” Maisy was the KP on the ship. A local girl from Nain who was getting some work experience for the summer. Daniel figured that shouldn’t include being assaulted in a walk-in freezer. He’d made it clear to the sailor what would happen if anyone touched her again. He hadn’t made any friends that day, but he didn’t need friends. “I did what anyone would have done.”
    “Not everyone agrees.”
    The Doc watched them with vivid eyes.
    “People who think raping a mentally challenged girl is acceptable can go fuck themselves.” His language slipped back to army basics. The Doc’s mouth dropped open and he sighed. Miss Pollyanna Inc.
    Kershaw ignored his invective. “So you went looking for Dr. Young and then what happened?”
    “I found her racing out of the bathroom like her ass was on fire.” He frowned. The memory of that brief embrace still disconcerted him. “We went back inside. I checked the stall and saw Sylvie…and then the Doc—” he nodded awkwardly at Cam because he’d rather smoke Semtex than deal with a woman like her, “—looked like she was going to faint so we got the hell out.”
    “You didn’t see anyone else?”
    “No.”
    “Did you inform the barkeep he had a body in the restroom?”
    “I thought about it,” he admitted. “But I figured calling the cops was the best thing I could do, otherwise everyone in the place would be filing through the back checking her out.” Her. He cleared his throat. “Sylvie.”
    The miners were a rough bunch. They weren’t all bad, but it was hard, lonely graft and sometimes men forgot they were supposed to be civilized. Having spent more than a decade in the army, Daniel understood that better than most. He also knew more than one person in this camp was capable of slitting Sylvie’s throat.
    “You knew the victim?”
    He held the cop’s gaze. Figured the truth couldn’t hurt. “We had sex once.”
    The Doc crunched her granola bar.
    Kershaw raised his brows, his eyes as warm and intent as an Alsatian’s. “You were a client?”
    “No.” Tired, Daniel wiped a hand over his face. They’d both been shit-faced—hell, he didn’t remember what happened last night, let alone six weeks ago. “We hooked up in the bar in Nain my first day here. I crashed at her place.” He shrugged. He was sorry she was dead, but he hadn’t had anything to do with killing her.
    “You ever have sex with the victim in the restroom here at the bar?”
    “No.”
    “You ever have sex with anyone in the restroom in this bar?”
    “No.”
    “So we’re not gonna find your DNA in