Slow and easy, because he knew she had nowhere to run, no one to help.
Please!
But there was no help, nothing but the sound of her heart thundering in her ears and the tap of feet on tile floor.
She lunged for the back door, her shaking fingers barely managing the lock. Cool air slapped her face as she raced out into the dark alley behind the bakery.
Something snagged her shirt.
Someone yanked her back, dragged her deeper into the alley’s black shadows.
“Give me your money!” he demanded, pulling the purse from her shoulder.
She didn’t waste her breath telling him it was empty of cash. She just shoved into him, using a move she’d learned in the self-defense class Dottie had insisted she take.
He stumbled back, and she lifted the knife, her hand shaking as she did the unthinkable. Plunged it toward her attacker, intent on harming or killing or doing whatever was necessary to make it out alive.
He knocked her hand to the side, the blade barely grazing his arm before it clattered to the ground, curses spewing from his mouth as he dragged something from his pocket.
A gun.
“No more games, lady. We’re going back in the bakery, and you’re emptying the till for me. Any trouble, and I kill you.”
“It’s already empty,” she said, the sound of traffic on the street beyond the alley a siren’s song. All she had to do was run.
A hundred feet, and she’d be out on the street with cars and people and safety.
A hundred feet.
With bullets flying?
Or maybe not.
Maybe he’d go into the bakery by himself. Take what he wanted while she escaped.
Never get in a car with your attacker.
That’s what the self-defense teacher had said.
Did the same apply to going in a building with him?
Should she fight to the death? Or go along and pray the guy wouldn’t kill her once they got inside?
He grabbed her arm, his fingers cruel and hard as he tugged her back to the door.
She looked into his green eyes, saw intent and something else, something vaguely familiar and completely terrifying.
Coldness.
Emptiness.
The same look she’d seen in the eyes of the guy who’d been jogging near Maureen’s place, who had stood in front of the hospital. Only he’d had ice-blue eyes. It couldn’t be the same man.
Could it?
Panicked, she slammed her foot into his knee, kicking with enough strength to knock his leg out from under him.
He cursed, swung the gun and aimed it at her face.
No more time to think.
She dived, the explosion of gunfire nearly deafening her.
The bullet whizzed by her, its heat and energy blasting through the small alley.
Run!
She took off, zigzagging like someone in an action thriller. Only this wasn’t a movie and it wasn’t thrilling.
Terror fueled her, egged her on.
The mouth of the alley just a few feet away, beckoning her.
Another gunshot exploded.
Something slammed into her back, knocked the breath from her lungs. Momentum carried her out into the street. Car horns blared as she stumbled into traffic. Someone shouted. Darkness and light pulsed around her as she fell to the pavement.
Get up!
Keep running!
But life and energy seemed to pour onto the ground, spill into the street.
Blood flowing like a river, and she flowed with it as someone ran toward her, knelt beside her; a stranger with horror in her eyes, talking into a phone, screaming for help as Shelby flowed away.
SIX
“One-twenty-five. One-twenty-six. One-twenty-seven. One-twenty-eigh—” Ryder’s phone rang as he neared the end of his workout, and he thought about ignoring it. Just two more push-ups and he’d be done. Finished for the night. But it was late for anyone to be calling. Late for good news anyway. Bad news, that could come at any time.
He grabbed the phone, glanced at the caller ID.
Chance Richardson.
A private investigator with Information Unlimited, Chance had worked with Ryder a few months ago. They hadn’t hit it off. After working together to save a woman’s life, they’d formed a truce and a friendship of sorts, but they weren’t chummy enough for late night phone chats.
“Malone, here. What’s up, Richardson?” he asked, grabbing a towel from the weight bench he’d set up in his living room and wiping his brow and chest.
“My mother-in-law just got a call from Dottie Jamieson. They go to church together. She mentioned your name, asked Lila if there was any way to look you up.”
“Why?” he asked, worry rearing up and taking hold.
“She wanted you to know that Shelby was taken to the hospital a half hour—”
“What happened?”
“An intruder tried to rob her bakery, and he shot her in the process. She was alert enough when she arrived at the hospital to have staff call Dottie, but Dottie needs transportation to the hospital. She wanted my mother-in-law to take her, but since she mentioned you, and you’re closer to the hospital and to Dottie, I thought I’d give you a call first.”
“What hospital?” He didn’t bother asking who’d shot Shelby, where she’d been shot, what her chances were. Those questions would come after he got to the hospital and made sure she was still alive.
“Deaconess.”
“Give me Dottie’s address, and tell her I’ll pick her up on my way there.”
Chance rattled off an address that was halfway between Ryder and the hospital. He didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to waste a second of time doing anything other than getting to the hospital, but he knew what Shelby would want, and that tied his hands and limited his choices.
“Tell her to be outside the house. If she isn’t, I’m going on without her.” He hung up before Chance could reply, tugged on a T-shirt and jogged down the four flights of stairs to the apartment complex’s parking area.
It took less than two minutes to reach Dottie, but it seemed like an hour.
Seemed as if it took longer than that for her to climb into the Hummer.
She refused his help, of course.
Only her haggard expression and the tears on her cheeks kept Ryder from rushing her.
“You need steps on this thing, boy,” she groused as he closed the door, but he could hear the terror behind her words, feel it pulsing through the Hummer as he jumped in, started the engine and sped toward the hospital.
“How bad is she?” he asked as Dottie urged him to drive faster.
“She called me, so she’s alive and breathing. They’re taking her into surgery. Stopping some internal bleeding. Taking out her spleen. My poor, poor girl.” Her voice broke, and Ryder patted her bony knee, regretting it when she winced away.
“She’ll be okay.”
“I know that,” she snapped, but her voice shook.
Ryder pulled into the hospital parking lot, forced himself to wait while Dottie eased out of the Hummer.
“You can move faster than me. You go in there, and you tell those doctors they better save my girl. If they don’t…”
He didn’t hear the rest of Dottie’s threat.
He was across the parking lot and in the emergency room in seconds. A young nurse looked up as he approached the reception desk. “Can I help you, sir?”
“I’m looking for Shelby Simons.”
“She’s a patient?”
“Yes.”
She typed something into the computer, slowly scanning whatever she pulled up, and he
wanted to jump over the counter, look for himself.
Finally, she looked up, offered a compassionate smile.
“She’s still in surgery.”
“Is she—”
“I’m sorry, sir. That’s the only information I can give you. Go up to the third-floor surgical unit and wait there. The surgeon will be out to speak with you once Ms. Simons is in recovery.”
“Well? Well?” Dottie hobbled in as Ryder jabbed a finger at the elevator button.
“She’s still in surgery.”
“Still in surgery? What kind of hospital is this?” Dottie shouted, and Ryder was tempted to slam a hand over her mouth.
“The kind that will kick you out if you cause a ruckus.”
“I’m not causing anything. I’m asking a reasonable question. Shelby called me twenty minutes ago. Seems to me they should have patched her up by now.”
Internal bleeding?
Removing a spleen?
Those things took time, but Ryder didn’t say that to Dottie as they made their way to the waiting area. They both knew it, and the weight of their combined worry seemed to fill the small room.
Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore.
Not the hushed expectancy of the surgical ward or the loud tapping of Dottie’s fingers on the armrest of her chair.
“I’m going to find out what’s taking so long.”
“It’s about time,” Dottie grumbled as he walked into the hall. He’d track someone down. Find out something.
Wide double doors opened at the end of the hall, and a short round man appeared, his surgical scrubs loosened, a mask hanging from his neck. He met Ryder’s eyes, his gaze filled with the same compassion Ryder had seen in the eyes of every doctor and nurse who’d tended him in Afghanistan.
He braced himself for bad news.
Braced himself but didn’t want to hear it.
“Are you a relative of Shelby Simons?”
“A friend.”
“I won’t beat around the bush, then. I’m sure you’re anxious to hear how she’s doing.”
“Yes.” And if the doctor didn’t start talking quickly, Ryder might be tempted to shake the information out of him.
“She made it through surgery. The bullet hit her spleen and nicked her liver, but we were able to stop the bleeding. She has a cracked rib, but that should heal well. Barring any unforeseen complications, she should make a full recovery.”
“Where is she?” he asked as Dottie hurried into the hallway.
“Room 415. She can only have one visitor at a time, though, and the police are waiting to interview her.”
“You go on up, boy. I can wait a few more minutes,” Dottie said, something calculating and sly in her eyes.
“What are you up to, Dottie?” Ryder asked, but he was pretty sure he knew. Matchmaking. Just like Shelby had said.
“Just thinking that you’ll be a lot better at tracking down the guy who shot my girl than I will be. You’ll also be a lot better at meting out justice.”
“That’s a job for the police.” But he wouldn’t mind taking it out of their hands. Catching the guy, giving him just a little taste of what it felt like to be on the other side of the gun appealed to Ryder in a way that thrummed through his blood, made him desperate for the hunt.
He jogged up the stairs, trying to work off adrenaline, settle into a better frame of mind before he saw Shelby. His rage would do her no good.
Two police officers stood outside Shelby’s door. They eyed him dispassionately as he approached.
“You a friend of the victim?” the shorter officer asked, and Ryder nodded.
“The deputy sheriff is in there. Once he’s done—”
Ryder opened the door, walked into the room.
She looked small in the hospital bed, dwarfed by the sheets tugged up around her shoulders. An IV line snaked from her arm, and a heart monitor tracked her racing pulse. Pale. Everything. Cheeks. Lips. The only color in her face the vivid blue of her eyes.
Ryder walked past a tall, hard-faced officer, lifted Shelby’s hand. “How are you feeling, Shelby Ann?”
“I’m shot up so full of drugs, I can’t feel anything.” Her eyes drifted closed, and Ryder met the officer’s eyes.
“Ryder Malone.” He offered a hand.
“Deputy Sheriff Logan Randal. Spokane County Sheriff’s Department. I have a few more questions to ask Ms. Simons. If you’ll wait out in the hall—”
“No.”
“It wasn’t a request, Mr. Malone.”
“Nor is it a possibility,” he responded, pulling a chair to the bedside and sitting down.
“Don’t get yourself thrown in jail on my account, Ryder,” Shelby mumbled.
“No one is going to jail, Ms. Simons. Except the person who did this to you, and hopefully, we’ll have him in custody soon.” Randal gave in without a fight. A guy who picked his battles. Ryder could appreciate that.
“I hope so, because I don’t want him showing up at my bakery again.” She opened her eyes, wincing as she tried to sit up.
“Hold on. You’re going to rip something the doctors just fixed.” Ryder pushed the button to adjust the bed, and Shelby winced again.
“You are in pain.”
“Only when I breathe.”
“I’ll call the nurse.”
“No, you won’t. I’m already groggy from whatever they gave me during surgery, and I want to answer Randal’s questions. If I don’t, how are they going to catch the guy who shot me?”
“Did you get a look at your attacker, Ms. Simons?” Randal cut in smoothly, and Shelby shook her head.
“He had a mask over his face. Some kind of nylon thing that distorted his features. Very creepy.” She shuddered, and Ryder lifted her hand, brushing his thumb over her knuckles, trying to warm her chilled skin.
“How about hair color? Eye color?”
“Not his hair, but I saw his eyes. They were green. That surprised me, because…” Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged, wincing at the movement.
“What?” Ryder asked, and she took a deep breath.
“This is going to sound completely paranoid, but when he walked into the bakery, I was sure he was the guy I saw yesterday morning. But that guy had silvery-blue eyes, so they couldn’t be the same, could they?” Shelby’s voice drifted off, her eyes closing again, and Ryder met Logan’s gaze.
“Contacts?” he asked, and Logan shrugged.
“Or two different people.”
“They were the same height and build. They even moved the same, but maybe I just thought that because I was terrified,” Shelby said, trying again to sit up, her hospital gown falling off one shoulder, revealing creamy skin and a deep black bruise.
The rage Ryder had been tamping down boiled up and threatened to spill over. He tugged the gown back into place, his heart thundering with anger and something else.
A deep, deep need to protect Shelby.
To keep her from being hurt again.
“Do you have a security camera at your store?” Randal asked, and Shelby shook her head.
“No.”
“Too bad. That might have helped. Tell you what. We have a team collecting evidence at the scene. Once we’re finished, I’ll come back, check in with you again. For now, how about you just rest? The sheriff already put in a call to the state police. A composite-sketch artist will meet with you as soon as you’re up to it. Once we have the sketch, we can release it to the public. Hopefully, that will make it easier to find our perp.”
“Okay.” Shelby’s eyes were already closed again, her breathing deep and even.
“Can I speak to you out in the hall for a minute, Ryder?” Randal asked.
Shelby grabbed his hand, her heartbeat jumping, the monitor beeping loudly. “Are you coming back?”
And he knew he had to.
Come back.
Again and again and again to Shelby’s side.
Because there was something about her that called to him, and he couldn’t deny it. Couldn’t refuse it.
“Count on it,” he responded as he eased his hand from hers and followed Randal into the hall.
SEVEN
She just needed to suck it in a little more.
Just a little.
Shelby exhaled every bit of breath from her lungs, squeezed in her stomach and just managed to close the button of her shirtwaist dress.
Stupid bandages.
She frowned at her reflection, unhappy with the tightness of the dress, but unwilling to wear one of her brighter- colored, looser-fitting outfits to Maureen’s funeral. A funeral she was going to no matter what anyone said.
It had been one day since Shelby had left the hospital.
Four days since she’d been shot.
Time to step back into the world, regain control of her bakery and her life. Despite Dottie’s protests, despite her mother’s insistence that Shelby fly to California to recuperate for a month, Shelby was going to attend the funeral, and then she was going back to work.
But first she had to make it out the front door.
She slid her feet into two-inch heels, wobbled to the door, and grabbed the collar and leash from the coat hook. A neighbor had fed and walked Mazy while Shelby was in the hospital, but the poor little dog hadn’t been happy about it. She’d chewed up both of Shelby’s throw pillows and eaten half a roll of paper towels.
“Come on, Mazy. Today is the day. I know it’s hard, but you’re going to have to say goodbye to Maureen.” She crouched to snap the collar around the dog’s neck.
Now all she had to do was stand up and walk out the door into the bright spring day.
Too bad moving made her break out in a cold sweat.
Too bad her back burned and her rib ached.
Too bad she couldn’t have downed a couple of the painkillers the doctor had prescribed, but taking them would have meant not driving, and she was going to drive, because she was not going to ask anyone for a ride.
Undercover Bodyguard Page 6
