Free Dangerous Attachments (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 1) by Sarah Lovett Page A

was coming from somewhere outside the building. She couldn't locate its source, but it had a calming effect.
    Her eyes followed the repeating pattern of the wire grill that was two inches from her face: right in front of her nose. Neat, even, methodical; not flashy, not exceptional in any way. Just like Angel's stitches.
    And then she saw her own reflection in the glass and smiled.
    Sylvia retrieved a pack of Marlboros from her purse and tapped out the one remaining cigarette. She found matches and lit up.
    She had an off-the-wall theory.
He doesn't like to see his own reflection. The snatcher is shy. Why? A deformity?
She didn't think so; not an external deformity, anyway. Could it be as simple as self-loathing? Religious penance?
    The smoke tasted wonderful.
    Last spring, the day Malcolm revealed he had cancer, she'd bought a pack of Marlboros. He told her it was a stupid, obvious way to defy her fear of death. She agreed. Now, she smoked only when she was alone; she coveted her secret habit.
    She stubbed out the last of the cigarette when she heard a door close somewhere at the other end of the hall. That was followed by shuffling footsteps, probably a C.O. cleaning up.
    She left her files and notes in the meeting room and strolled down the deserted wing. An inmate artist had executed a mural on the walls. The murky colors—black, gray, red, brown, purple—always reminded Sylvia of somebody's drug nightmare. Dark dreams of shadows, monsters, and demons against a nihilistic landscape. To look was to touch the mind of the artist—to look was painful.
    "Hello," someone called out quietly.
    Sylvia had reached the end of the hall. To her right, behind a glass wall, a desktop publishing system sat unused. The room was empty.
    Who had said hello? Sylvia's attention turned to theopen doorway opposite the office. It led into a large room, now almost completely dark. The sound of the fountain was audible again, but now it was more like a purring cat. And it seemed to be coming from inside the room.
    Sylvia inched toward the main door and the stairs. Not water, not a cat, but breathing. Somebody breathing.
    The door swung open abruptly and someone stood in shadow. A hulk of a figure.
    "Nobody's supposed to be here now."
    Sylvia caught her breath as a door slammed at the other end of the hall. She felt trapped. The figure moved forward into the light. He had the ruddy features of a redneck. C.O. Anderson.
    "I'm locking up. Let's go."
    Sylvia's muscles didn't respond immediately when she willed them into motion.
    She found her voice and said, "I'll get my things."
    She strode down the hall to the meeting room and began to gather up her files. It registered immediately: the pages with her notes were gone.
    T HROUGH THE 600 MM lens, Billy Watson could stand forty feet from the house and see Sylvia Strange in her kitchen. She was in perfect focus. Her dark eyebrows shaded deep-set eyes. Her unruly hair was tucked behind her ears. On her chin she had a faint dimple. And her neck looked creamy white except for the slash of shadow in the hollow.
    The Volvo was parked at an angle in her driveway, and lights glowed from the living room, kitchen, and study. The electric halo illuminated patches of juniperand piñon surrounding the house, but the light didn't reach his hiding place on the south side. He had set up his tripod under a small cottonwood near the coyote fence. The moon, what there was of it, was shielded by clouds. There were no street lamps this far out of town, the nearest house was a quarter mile across the river, and his blue van was hidden behind juniper and scrub. If she looked out her window, she'd only see a tree.
    The tripod held the lens steady even though his hands shook in the thirty-degree air. Through the viewfinder, the world flushed yellow-orange, and a golden Sylvia stood in front of the sliding glass door. He could see the tip of her nose, her lips were open, and she was singing to herself.
    He squeezed off two