by Davis, Jo
“Paxton.”
“Hey, Six-Pack.”
“Zack!” Some rustling ensued, and the lieutenant’s upset jacked up a notch. “Where in the holy frickin’ hell have you been? Eve went by the hospital this afternoon to take you home and you were gone!”
“What?” Damn, Eve was probably pissed. “She was supposed to have Sunday dinner with her mother today.”
“She did, but they moved the time up so she could fetch you, dinglewad. And I’ll have you know, she searched for you everywhere.” A heavy pause. “She drove out to your old house, my friend. Nobody was home. She called me all in a snit, looking for your butt. What was I supposed to say when you swore me to silence about losing the place?”
“Shit.” Zack raked a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, man. I had no idea she’d planned to give me a lift.”
“Evie’s your best friend, Zack. What did you think she’d do? Just leave you stranded?”
“No, I just . . . I guess I wasn’t thinking. Someone gave me a ride.” Boy, did she ever.
“To where, for God’s sake? I’ve been calling your apartment all afternoon and got no answer. I don’t recognize this number on the caller ID, either.”
“You’re not going to believe this.” Zack sighed. “I’m back at my house, at least for the time being. Only it’s not mine anymore. The place belongs to my new . . . friend. She’s the lady we pulled out of the Explorer on the bridge.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?” A loud noise banged in Zack’s ear, like his friend pounding the phone on the nightstand. When Six-Pack returned, his voice was incredulous. “Hell-oo? Is this squeaky-clean Wonder Boy Zack I’m talking to? Disappearing without a word to anyone and shacking up with the hot chick from the wreck that almost got him fucking killed? I’m guessing you took a harder blow to the head than any of us realized. Tell me what the hell is going on, kid.”
And wasn’t this fun? If Howard was this ticked, he could hardly wait for Eve to carve out his spleen with a blunt instrument. “I will, but I’d rather explain in person.”
“Yeah? Can you do it Tuesday afternoon? Kat and I have something we want to bring by.”
Zack closed his eyes. His buddies were on shift tomorrow, and they had no clue how badly he wanted to be there. He missed being in the driver’s seat to the point he felt as if he’d had a limb removed.
“Sure. Where else would I be?”
“Hey, you’ll be well and ready to return in a matter of days,” Six-Pack said in a firm tone.
“I know.”
“And call Eve, tonight.”
Crap. “I will.”
“Take care, my friend. See you Tuesday.”
Zack said good-bye, punched the END button, and rubbed his tired eyes before blinking them open. Long day. In spite of the earlier nap, he couldn’t wait to flop down and crash. He turned, reaching to replace the phone in the cradle.
From somewhere outside, a crack rang out, followed a split second later by the tinkling of glass.
A hard kick in his right shoulder sent him crashing into the counter. Knocked off balance, he fell, scattering cookbooks and a stack of mail, sweeping them to the floor. Stunned, he pushed to his hands and knees, trying to make sense of what just happened. Too fast. What . . .
Blood. Dripping onto the linoleum.
Pain. Blossoming in his shoulder. Thick and sickening.
Shot.
“Oh, God.” A shock of fear and adrenaline nearly stopped his heart. “Fuck!”
Dazed, he sat back on his heels and slapped a hand over the wound. Sticky warmth rushed between his fingers, soaking his shirt. A wave of nausea assaulted him, bile rising in his throat. Treating a gunshot victim at a scene in no way prepared a guy for being on the receiving end.
The phone. There, next to the pile of cookbooks. He snatched the handset and punched 911, hands shaking so violently he almost dropped it.
A dispatcher asked him to state his emergency, so darned pleasant he might’ve laughed if he weren’t dangerously close to throwing up.
“I’ve been shot,” he gasped. “Jesus Christ.”
Voice changing to tight and clipped, she asked for the pertinent details, of which he had few, including having no idea who’d done the deed or why. He gave her his name and address through a dense haze. Shit, he was dizzy.
“Mr. Knight, stay on the line with me, okay?”
“Can’t . . . Cori’s upstairs.”
He had to get to her.
“Mr. Knight?”
The phone slipped from his hand.
Cori awoke with a start, frowning into the shadows of her room. “Zack?”
She groped the bed beside her, but he wasn’t there. Had she been dreaming, or had she heard a gunshot echoing across the hills in the darkness? Something else, too. A noise like breaking glass. She strained, but heard nothing else.
The mind could do strange things to a person, confusing dreams with reality. Probably nothing. She wouldn’t get any more sleep until she’d checked on Zack and the house, though. Cool air kissed her skin as she slid out of bed, reminding her of her nakedness. Quickly, she pawed through the dresser drawers, found a pair of panties and a large T-shirt, and yanked them on.
Padding across the hall, she peered into Zack’s room first, surprised to see his bed empty. Maybe he’d stayed up to watch TV. As she walked out, however, there were no soft, canned sounds of a program, no glow of the screen coming from the living room.
Starting down the stairs, she called out. “Zack?” At that moment he staggered out of the kitchen, and she huffed an exaggerated breath. “There you are. I thought I heard—”
“Cori,” he rasped, clutching his shoulder. “Stay away from the windows.”
Her smile died. A dark, wet stain was spreading over his shirt. His fingers were crimson, his face white.
Her feet were flying down the stairs before she even realized she’d moved. “You’re bleeding! What happened?”
“Shot. I called the police.”
“Oh, my God!”
Meeting Zack halfway across the living room, she caught him as he stumbled. His arm went around her and she hugged his left side, steadying him.
He waved a hand. “Let’s go into the foyer. We’ll be away from the windows there.”
They closed the remaining distance and she helped ease him to sit on the first stair. Her brain whirled with questions, but her single priority right now was to check his wound. She started to sit next to him, and he shook his head.
“This side of me,” he said, indicating the place next to the inside wall.
She complied, opening her mouth to question him when his actions struck her. He’d placed his body between her and the living room—and possible danger. Again.
“It’s okay; the curtains are drawn.”
“Don’t care.”
He slumped against the railing and her heart skipped. His pallor had gone gray and a fine sheen of moisture beaded above his lip. She pressed her fingers to his forehead and as she’d expected, his skin felt clammy.
“Let’s get your shirt off so I can examine the wound.”
“Not quite as fun as the last time you ordered my clothes off, huh?” His laugh ended on a strangled wheeze.
“Do me a favor and don’t give up your day job to be a comedian, okay?” Lifting the edge of his shirt, she began to work it up.
His handsome face contorted in agony as he pulled his arm out of the sleeve. “Joking might keep me from passing out.”
“Under the circumstances, you’re allowed. This looks pretty nasty.”
It did, too. Puckered, torn flesh edged the bloodied furrow in the top of his shoulder, and bits of his shirt were stuck in the mess. Rivulets of blood streaked down his chest. She prayed the wound appeared worse than it was.
“Gee, thanks. Seems we’re going to have to work on your bedside manner, Nurse Ratched.”
“Call me that again, and I’ll stick my finger in there and twist. Slowly.” He croake
d a short chuckle at the retort, and she let their banter soothe the worst of her terror as she examined both the entry and exit wound.
“You’ll be fine. I know it hurts like the inferno of hell, but the bullet caught all skin. You’ve got an ugly scratch, that’s all.”
“Will it need stitches?” He angled his head, trying to see.
“The gauge is too wide. Not enough flesh. We’ll let your buddies clean and bandage this, but at least you won’t have to take a ride. You okay?”
“Just feeling a little green.”
So was she. Three inches to the left and it would’ve severed his spine between his shoulders. A slightly different angle, an inch or two lower, it would’ve blown out his heart.
Someone had tried to murder Zack. Almost succeeded.
His eyes drifted closed and despite her assurances, keeping him talking would lessen her worry.
“What were you doing in the kitchen?”
“Talking to Six-Pack on the phone,” he murmured without opening his eyes. “Had to let someone know where I’m staying. Turned to hang up. Shot came through the window over the sink.”
So he’d been facing the shooter originally. Who’d probably had the center of Zack’s chest in the crosshairs.
“All right. Listen, I’m going to get a washcloth and towel. I’ll be right back.” She started to rise, and her wrist was caught in his iron grip. His serious gaze pinned hers.
“Be careful and stay low.”
His tone brooked no argument, not that she’d intended to give him one. Being independent and being stupid were two different things. Giving him a quick nod, she hurried upstairs, pulled on a pair of jeans. Last, she grabbed a washcloth, wet and wrung it, then a towel.
In less than a minute, she was leaping down the stairs two at a time, toward the figure hunched at the bottom. “Zack?”
“Hmm?” He was drifting, lashes fanning his cheeks like black lace.
“Sorry; this is going to sting.”
Cori cleaned his wound as best as she was able with the damp cloth, turning it red. Finished, she laid it on the step and pressed the towel to his torn flesh. He moaned and she talked to him softly, the way people do when they want desperately to sound reassuring and know it’s a total load of crap.
Because the picture beginning to gel was a terrifying one. For whatever reason, somebody had targeted her in a campaign to make her afraid. Now Zack was in the bastard’s way, and the would-be assassin couldn’t have made his displeasure clearer.
Well, the cops had to believe her now.
If they didn’t . . .
God help us both.
For the third time in one night, the chirping of the phone committed the felony of coitus interruptus, punishable by a lingering death.
Lieutenant Howard Paxton glared at the offending instrument, his luscious blond wife’s snorts of merry laughter ringing in his ears.
“Sonofabitch.”
Kat giggled. “It’s not going to stop, sweetie.”
“Is the damned answering machine broken?”
“I think so.”
“I’m buying us a new one.” Grumbling, he rolled off his new wife and snatched the phone, his trademark calm strained to the max. “What?”
“Lieutenant Paxton?”
Howard sat up, already tense. He didn’t recognize the voice on the other end, but he knew when a tone didn’t bode well. “Speaking.”
“Lieutenant, this is Captain Lance Holliday from Station Two.”
He slid out of bed, already reaching for his jeans. “You got a four-alarm on your hands?” He glanced to the bed, where Kat clutched the sheet to her bosom, wide-eyed, humor evaporated.
“No, sir. Nothing like that. But I thought you’d want to know we responded to a disturbing call tonight. One of your boys has been hurt.”
“Which one?” God, please not Sean. If he’d been drinking again—
“Your FAO, Zack Knight.”
He froze, trying to assimilate. “What? I just talked to him an hour ago. Was it an accident? A fall or something?”
“Shooting. Some lunatic scoped him with a rifle. Bullet came in through the kitchen window.”
He felt the blood drain from his face. The memory of his own ordeal was still much too fresh. “Sweet Christ, someone shot Zack,” he said to Kat, zipping his jeans and reaching for his discarded shirt. Her hand went over her mouth as he addressed Holliday again. “How bad?”
“Grazed his shoulder. We cleaned and bandaged the wound, and he didn’t require transport.” A weighty pause. “Knight got lucky. Cops said attempted murder, as if there was any doubt. If your man hadn’t moved when he did, well, he’d be dead. As it is, he’s resting at home, but I thought you’d want to know.”
“Thanks, Captain. I appreciate the call.” He hung up and tossed the phone onto the nightstand. His wife was out of bed, grabbing for clothes. “You don’t have to go, honey. He got clipped in the shoulder, so he’ll be all right.”
“I know, but I want to, Howard. You know how I feel about Zack.”
He did. Knight had been the first of his team members she’d met, and Boy Wonder had a special place in her heart. Hell, he felt the same way, not that he’d go around spouting off like a Hallmark commercial.
A world without Zack in it would be a pretty awful place.
He damned well intended to find out why someone had attempted to take him out . . . and what sort of trouble this lady friend had brought down on Zack’s head.
“Mr. Knight, you’re positive you don’t have any idea why somebody would want to shoot you?”
Zack stared at the grizzled detective—Bernie, if he recalled through his drug-induced trip—and wondered if the man was hard of hearing, or whether cynicism was a job requirement. “Not unless it had something to do with that body I helped bury last week.”
Six-Pack, Kat, and Cori worked to hide grins. Eve was not amused.
Neither was Dick Tracy. “Under the circumstances, you might try to take the situation a little more seriously.”
O-kay. Must be the painkiller loosening his normally civil tongue, because he’d had his fill of this little pinhead. He struggled to sit up on the sofa and fixed the man with what he hoped to be a lethal glare.
“No, sir,” he said coldly, as his friends goggled in amazement. “That would be your job. In the past week, I’ve survived drowning and being shot. Ms. Shannon barely escaped the bridge accident with her life after someone shot out her tire. Since then, she’s been followed on numerous occasions and terrorized at her own home. Stalked, Detective Bernie. You do know the definition of stalking, don’t you?”
The detective sputtered, his face reddening, and Zack went in for the kill.
“Then you also know almost ninety percent of stalkers are men, and of the women being targeted, some eighty percent either know their stalker intimately or have had some sort of contact with him. A vast number of these women meet with a sad fate because local law enforcement didn’t do a goddamned thing to help them. Is that serious enough for you, Bernie? Because if it isn’t, here’s one more factoid.”
“Zack,” Howard warned.
Zack seethed with anger, ignoring his friend’s voice of reason. “Start with Ms. Shannon’s badass brother Joaquin Delacruz of Atlantic City, and her deceased husband. Leave no stone unturned as to who’d want to hurt her, and find this sonofabitch. Find him, Bernie, because if you don’t, I will. And if I locate him first, there won’t be any need for a trial.”
“Shit,” the lieutenant muttered.
The ladies’ eyes were round, Cori’s face pale.
“You shouldn’t have said that to me,” Detective Bernie hissed, mouth tight with barely suppressed rage. “Especially in front of witnesses.”
“With all due respect, I don’t give a fuck. Scribble that down in your little notebook, and be sure you spell my name right.”
Casting a humiliated glare around the room, the detective stalked out the front door, leaving an uncomfo
rtable vacuum of silence in his wake.
Eve broke it after a few seconds, giving a low whistle. “Wow, buddy. Where’d the baditude come from? For a minute, you sounded exactly like Sean.”
“Funny, I’m not as bothered by the comparison as I would’ve been a week ago.”
“I’ve never heard you hand anyone their ass before,” Eve said, frowning at him.
“Never had a week like this one before. Or maybe it’s the awesome drugs.” He gave Cori a hopeful look, gesturing to his pill bottle. “Do I have any refills?”
“Nope, sorry. Those will have to be enough, handsome.”
“Oh. Guess I’ll have to keep getting my warm fuzzies from you, huh?”
Cori blushed as Eve’s eyebrows shot up. Eve’s sharp gaze bounced between them, then narrowed as she got the drift.
Whoops. Note to self. Apologize to Evie.
Cori squeezed his hand. “I’m going to go upstairs and see if we have enough bandages. We might need to run to town.”
She was giving them time alone, and he appreciated it. After she’d gone, Zack held up a hand to forestall his friends’ third degree.
“Don’t even start with me. I can’t handle any more tonight.” Turning his head, he appealed to his fuming best friend. “Evie, I’m really sorry about this afternoon. I had no idea you were picking me up. Please don’t be mad at me.”
“Mad? Mad?” She slapped a hand to her cheek, looking unsure whether to hug him or strangle him. “I was insane with fear for days, positive you were going to die. We all were. Now someone’s trying to kill you the very same night you run off with that—that woman, and nobody knows where the hell you are or what’s going on!”
“She’s not ‘that woman,’ ” he said calmly. “Her name is Cori, and she helped me out of a tight spot.”
“Any one of us would’ve done the same if you’d given us the chance, Zack,” she replied, sounding hurt. “We can’t be there for you if you won’t clue us in. You’re keeping secrets from me, from all of your friends, and what? You’re sharing them with her?”
