“An ambulance is on the way.”
Maggy looked at the man. Would they make it in time?
“You need to apply pressure to the wound . . .”
I’m friggen doing that. Bright red blood oozed through the scarf and onto her hand. The man’s face paled as his life force drained out of him. She put down the phone, swallowed hard, and used both hands to apply steady pressure on her scarf. “Hang in there, buddy. Don’t die on me.”
His eyelids moved just a fraction. But they moved.
Swollen and cut, his face looked like it had taken a beaten. She leaned down to listen at his mouth. His breathing was faint and ragged. Seconds ticked by slowly.
Then his lips moved. Maggy leaned in.
“Tell Logan,” he rasped. She waited for him to say more. Pain flooded his eyes. His lips trembled, but no sound came out.
She could barely breathe herself. The man’s life was sliding away in front of her, and there was nothing she could damn well do to stop it. She pressed down anyway, and his blood seeped through her fingers.
“Tell Logan,” he repeated. She bent closer. “The Emer…old…”
He made a horrid gurgling sound and a gush of blood flowed from his mouth. His muscles jerked and quivered. He was fighting to live, as his organs shut down.
As the sound of sirens pierced the night, Maggy sat up and met his dead eyes. Shivers ran through her body. Tears streamed down her face.
“May you find peace,” she said. She closed his eyes and waited.
***
“And he said nothing?” Inspector Peterson from the Vancouver Police Department asked in a low gravelly voice that raked her senses.
Maggy tried to tell her body to stop trembling, but it wouldn’t. A tiny stream of blood flowed dangerously close to where they stood a couple yards from the body. A policewoman snapped pictures of the dead man. A medical examiner directed two assistants to take evidence. The paramedics waited for orders. It was like standing in the middle of a CSI set, only it was real, all too real.
Maggy took a long shaky breath in and looked at the policeman. “I don’t know him,”
He gave her a hard-ass cop look that could peel paint off a wall.
The dead man’s blood, now dry on her hands, tightened the surface of her skin. At least her tears had stopped. She focused on taking deeper breathes and wished the annoying cop would leave her alone.
“I asked you if he said anything.” Gravel voice towered above her. He stood at least six feet to her five foot three. A jagged scar ran across his square jaw. He had the broad kind of shoulders she always noticed. No doubt, he would look good in a uniform, but tonight he wore jeans, a Gore-Tex jacket and a navy blue toque and might have looked like any middle-class man in the city except for the fact his hard-ass eyes screamed, “cop.” A light rain started to fall. He continued to stare at her.
“Nothing,” she said. “The man said nothing.”
“You don’t know anything about the victim? He has no wallet, or identification. Nothing. If there’s anything you can tell us about him…”
“No. I never met him, but…” Her throat felt like dry like worn sandpaper. “He was at the Black Cat, down the alley, earlier tonight. That’s where I work. I saw him when I was singing. He stood at the end of the bar. I noticed him because his eyes…” She hesitating not wanting to put words to her thoughts. The stranger’s eyes had vibrated with a feral wildness, like the devil had stolen his life or something. But she couldn’t say that. She cleared her throat. “His eyes were intense. I don’t know if that helps you. Just a feeling I had. I don’t know his name.” She left out the part about how sexy he made her feel when he watched her sing.
The detective’s silence was more disturbing than any words would have been.
She shifted her feet. “Look, I feel real sorry for the man, but there’s nothing I can do for him now. Nothing any of us can do. I need to get some sleep.”
“You’re tired?”
“Worn out. It’s been one hell of a day and now this…” She stopped, not finding the words she wanted. How could she complain about her day, when a man had been murdered? With another breath she continued. “I’ve got day jobs that start at the crack of dawn.” That was only five hours away. “Can I just go? I don’t know anything about the murder.”
She wanted to fade into the night and be forgotten. No, it was more than that. Like a bad nightmare, she wanted her experience in the alley to end so she could get on with her life. She wanted to close the door on her memory of the stranger who had died in her arms.
The inspector gave a solid head nod. His brow wrinkled. “Before you go, just tell me one more thing. Why were you in a dark alley in the middle of the night?”
She exhaled slowly and looked once more at the puddle of blood near the dead man.
“We can talk in my car if you prefer, or back at headquarters.”
“No, no, I just want to get this over with.” She shook back her hair. “When I finished my last set at the Black Cat, I headed out the back door to go home. My car’s parked on the street. It’s the black Honda. I can give you the license plate number if you want.”
“No,” he said tapping his pen on his notepad. “But I still don’t get it. Why didn’t you go out the front door? It would have been safer. Were you meeting someone in the alley?”
Maggy shook her head. “I was avoiding a drunk named Frank. He keeps asking me out. When I wanted to leave, he was leaning on the wall beside the front door waiting for me. I knew he’d ask me out again and rake his eyes all over me. I didn’t want to end my night like that, so I went out the back door. It should have taken five minutes for me to get to my car. I’ve done it before.”
“So tell me again your story about what happened in the alley.”
“It’s not a story,” she said, and repeated the details of how she’d tripped over the man’s dead body in the alley.
His right eyebrow rose. Did he know she was holding out on him, or was he a control jerk getting his thrills grilling her?
His hard mouth turned downwards. “You look like you do need sleep,” he said. Was that compassion in his voice? A compassionate cop? Maybe, he thought she was crazy, or too exhausted to be of much help. Whatever.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” he said as he fell into step beside her. “What do you have against cops?”
Her shoulders tightened. This guy was good. “Not much.” Just everything.
The look in his eyes said he didn’t believe her, but that was his problem. No doubt he would check her out and find his own answer. All she wanted to do was wash the dead man’s, dried blood off her body and out of her mind.
They reached her car. She put her guitar case in the back seat and then got in the front. After she closed the door, the inspector tapped on her window. She rolled it down.
“If you remember anything else tonight that may help us learn more about the victim, or the murderer, call me. Otherwise, I want to see you in my office tomorrow morning at nine to make a formal statement.” He handed her his card.
“But I can’t.”
“You will,” he said. “Your memories will come back a piece at a time. Traumatic events steal them for a while.” He grimaced. “But they have a nasty way of coming back to haunt you.”
“Bloody cops,” she muttered just loud enough for him to hear. He stepped back as her old engine sputtered into life.
***
With a trembling hand, she unlocked the door to her houseboat in the Shady Lane Marina at Granville Island. The memory of the dead man in the alley wouldn’t leave her. His eyes had touched her in an unsettling way. Had she done right by him? Should she tell the cop his dying words? Hell no. The last thing she needed was to get involved. Especially with the police.
After toying with the inspector’s card for an hour, she threw it in her recycling bin and went to bed. She’d see Gravel cop tomorrow. Dead tired, she fell into a restless sleep. The memory of the dead man’s blood,
pooling in the dark night, kept calling to her.
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Lovin' Danger: Mata Hari Series Book 4 Page 9
