Danger in a Red Dress (21 page)

If she could save enough, she’d go to California.

But who was she kidding? She didn’t dare access her own account. The cash Mrs. Manly had left her ran out four months ago, in San Antonio, and she would never be able save money working for minimum wage. She could hardly feed herself. She lived in the misery of a dorm in a hostel in the museum district. The people who ran the place had taken pity on her and let her stay on as one of their permanent residents, but the other permanent residents were odd, to say the least, and one old woman was watching her with a glint in her eye that made Hannah very uncomfortable.

But the old lady was half senile. Surely she didn’t remember last winter’s newscasts . . . and Hannah had changed her appearance, dyed her hair a mousy brown and let it grow, and pierced her ears multiple times. She dressed like a teenager, made sure she looked younger than her twenty-five years.

She felt older. A lot older.

That was the trouble. Mrs. Manly’s murder had struck a chord with the press. The story had been covered on every television station, on the Internet, in the papers.

Carrick had been interviewed time and again, his expression tragic as he related the story of how he had hired Hannah to help his mother . . . and instead she had killed her. At that last sentence, his voice always trembled theatrically. The guests at the party had told their stories, each one more fantastic than the one before. Even Jeff Dresser had had his moment of glory as he related how she’d screwed his poor old father to death and, in the same sentence, threatened to have the body exhumed and examined for foul play.

Worst of all, the video of Hannah injecting Mrs. Manly with the fatal dose of curare had played on screens and monitors time and again. They never showed how desperately she tried to save her with CPR. No, never that. But they went over and over how curare was an ancient South American paralyzing poison known as arrow poison, and described how it cruelly killed Mrs. Manly by slowing and then stopping her heart and lungs.

Who had taken the video? How? Susan Stevens had told them there were no videos or microphones. Yet the video existed, so Susan had lied, and Hannah had failed. Failed in a long line of failures.

Now she lived her life in fear and poverty, looking over her shoulder, always afraid the police would catch up with her and arrest her, or worse, Carrick Manly would locate her and . . . Well, she didn’t know what he would do, but she would never make the mistake of underestimating him again. She’d given the injection, but he’d replaced the medication, knowing full well what would happen.

He had killed his own mother.

She turned onto the street lined with cars and houses, old bungalows guarded by high, dense hedges, mixed with a few brand-new McMansions looking dominant and out of place. The neighborhood was in transition, run-down and yet in demand because of its proximity to downtown. She stopped under a huge old live oak, taking a moment to savor the shade and the peace of being away from demanding customers and her prick of a supervisor.

But almost as soon as she stopped, she caught a glimpse of a man walking along the sidewalk toward her.

In an instant, and with the expertise gained from eleven months on the lamb, she sized him up: midthirties, tall, fit, Hispanic, dressed in well-fitting jeans and an expensive golf shirt.

Her heart started the low, steady thump she had come to associate with danger. She wanted to run. Instead, she started toward him—better to pass him than to have him follow her. She kept her gaze away from his, yet observed him out of her peripheral vision. He had striking green eyes, and he was watching her, smiling pleasantly like a man who liked what he saw.

That wasn’t the problem. She was attractive. Men still looked at her. And this guy appeared to be decent enough—but what was he doing here? By Wal-Mart, by the bus stop? He was out of place.

He was about two car lengths away from her, still watching her, still smiling, when twenty feet behind him, another man opened the door of a parked car, leaned out and took aim with a small, lethal-looking pistol.

Hannah reacted purely on instinct. She screamed, “Down!” and dove for the pedestrian.

At the same time, he leaped for her. The gunshot sounded, a blast in the quiet afternoon.

He crumpled facedown on the concrete.

Something hit her left wrist—a ricochet, a rock, twirling her sideways, making her stagger into the hedge. Furious and frightened, she recovered and flung herself on top of the stranger. Her hands skidded across the blistering hot pavement, and knew she was going to feel it later.

But not now. Now all she could feel was the guy beneath her. He was still warm but motionless. Unconscious. Dead? Maybe dead.

Please, God, not dead.

The man in the car slammed the door, gunned the engine, and peeled away from the curb.

He’d be back. When he realized she was still alive, he’d be back.

TWENTY-THREE

Grabbing the wounded man—
not dead, please don’t be dead
—beneath the armpits, Hannah pulled. Hard. It hurt. Hurt her wrist so badly, tears trickled down her cheeks. She dragged him into someone’s yard, behind a high, dense hedge. She looked around, expecting to hear someone scream or shout, to come to her aid.

The house was lifeless. If anyone was on this street, he was hunkered down, terrified of the gunfire, just like her.

Fine. She would do this on her own.

She slid her hand around the man’s neck and pressed her fingers to his carotid artery.

His heart beat strongly.

He honest to God wasn’t dead. It was the best thing that had happened to her in almost a year. “And to you, too, I suppose,” she muttered.

She wanted to collapse in relief, but he was facedown in the grass with blood leaking from beneath his hip. She pulled off her backpack and rummaged through it, grabbing the first piece of cloth that came to her hand.

Man, he was bleeding all over the place. “Can you hear me?” she asked. “I’m going to press on your wound.”

She jumped when the guy answered her. “Is the shooter gone?”

“Yes.”

He lifted his head. “Do you see any more suspicious-looking characters?”

“Only you.”

He pushed himself over with arms and his good leg, and looked up at her. “Can you stop the bleeding?” He spoke quickly, tersely, like a guy who was familiar with situations like this. With shootings and violence. Maybe the nice jeans and name-brand golf shirt were merely a cover. Or maybe he could afford to dress well because he was a drug dealer. Maybe he’d been shot in some turf war.

And maybe it didn’t matter. As long as it was possible that he had been shot in her place, she would care for him.

Hell, she was a nurse clear down to her bones. She’d care for him no matter what the circumstances.

“Have you got a phone?” she asked.

He grimaced in pain as he dug into his jeans pocket and pulled out a cell.

“You call nine-one-one. I’ll bandage you, slow the bleeding.” She pressed the cloth—damn, it was her Usher T-shirt—under his hip, and realized the blood that covered his thighs came from the exit wound at the front.

She fumbled in her backpack again, grabbed another piece of cloth, and pressed it on the front wound, then pulled out her ball of twine. “Can you lift yourself?”

“Yeah.” He did, and while she wound the twine around his hips, he asked, “You carry twine in your backpack?”

“You never know when you’re going to need it.” When you’re on the run, she meant. She had a first-aid kit, too, but nothing in it would take care of a gunshot wound. “Nine-one-one,” she reminded him. “You’re going to be fine, but not if you bleed out here in the grass.”

While she tied the two shirts—the other was her plain white tee; this incident had put a serious dent in her wardrobe—he made the call.

“I’ve been shot,” she heard him say. “Pick me up at”—he glanced toward the house—“323 Wisteria. Green house, cracked paint. We’re behind the hedge of ligustrum.”

Ligustrum. She glanced at the dense green leaves. She hadn’t known what it was. So he must be from Houston.

But he hadn’t called emergency . . . had he? Was he a cop assigned to find her, bring her in?

He must have read her mind, because he cut off the call, took her good wrist in a firm grasp. “An ambulance would take too long. I called my chauffeur. He’ll be here in less than a minute.”

His chauffeur?
She stared into his green eyes. She didn’t know what to say.
So you are a drug dealer? So you’re rich? So you’re a rich drug dealer?

“I haven’t thanked you,” he said. “You saved my life.”

“No. Really, no, I’m sorry. I . . .”
I’m sorry. That guy was aiming for me and hit you.
Not the thing to say. “I know it hurts, but you’ll be fine.” Her wrist really burned, but she couldn’t look away from his hypnotic eyes. He held her with his gaze as surely as he held her with his grasp.

“If you hadn’t yelled, he could have killed me.”

“No, really, because—”
Don’t say it. Don’t tell him who he was aiming for.

“Then you shielded me with your body.” His other hand grasped her fingers, thoroughly keeping her in place. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

“No. No, I’m not. I had a responsibility because—”

Out on the street, a car pulled up. A door opened.

She tensed.

“It’s my car.” He smiled tightly, a man in pain, yet intent on reassuring her. “I recognize the sound of the engine.”

Footsteps sounded on the broken concrete sidewalk. A broad-shouldered black man dressed in a dark business suit stepped into the yard. He looked down at the wounded man, and in a tone of disgust, he said, “Hey, boss, I leave you alone for ten minutes, and you get shot?”

“Daniel, don’t nag,” her patient said.

“I’m not nagging. I’m stating the facts.” Yet as Daniel talked, he leaned over Hannah’s patient, running his hands over his bones, observing the bloodstained jeans. In a gentle voice, he told her, “I’m going to pick him up now. Won’t hurt him more than I have to, but he needs to go to the hospital.” She caught her breath as he hefted her patient into his arms.

The patient groaned, in obvious agony, then called, “Come on, girl. We’ve got to get out of here before they come back!”

All right. Good point. She didn’t want to be shot. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t know who this guy was, but if he could hide her away from Carrick and his lies and his assassins, she didn’t care. She didn’t have any scruples anymore. She couldn’t afford them.

“Thank God, miss, you were in the right place at the right time,” the chauffeur said. The back door of the car was open. Leaning in, he gently placed her patient on the leather seat. “Thank God you could care for him.” He helped her in beside . . . the guy.

She had to find out his name.

He must have been thinking the same thing, because he said, “Who are you?”

The chauffeur shut the door behind them. He slid into the front seat and started the car so smoothly she didn’t even notice they were moving.

She sat on the floor beside her guy. “I’m Grace.” She’d been using that pseudonym for the past year, because in Hebrew,
Hannah
meant
Grace
, and every time she said that name, it was like a prayer of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving because, by the grace of God, Hannah was still alive and free.

“I’m Gabriel.” Her guy offered his hand.

She placed her fingers in his broad palm and shook, then gasped and winced.

He held her firmly, gently, and turned her hand up to the light. “You’re hurt, too.” He sounded like he cared.

“I didn’t realize.” She scowled at the scrapes the pavement had made. They weren’t serious, but her other wrist . . . my God. The
pain
. In these circumstances, with Carrick onto her . . . this was unmitigated disaster.

“Hey,” Gabriel said, “it’s okay. We’ll take care of it.” She tucked her wrist under her arm, and looked around wildly. There was just so much blood. She hadn’t expected that much blood. She hadn’t expected to feel woozy from pain and shock.

Maybe he was going to die? From blood loss? She should reassure him, and urge the chauffeur to hurry because—she focused on the blood that blotted her clothes—because there was so much blood. “I just have some scratches. No biggie.” Her voice was fainter than it should have been. “It’s you we have got to get to a hospital.”

“We’re going to a hospital.” He was the one who was shot, and he was the one making the soothing noises. “It’s a private hospital where my friend works. He’s a doctor, and he’ll contact the police because it’s the law, and everything will be on the up-and-up.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t even thought about that. A gunshot wound had to be reported to the cops. And that meant . . . she couldn’t stay with him. She couldn’t rely on him to keep her safe from Carrick. She had to get away as soon as she could.

“I think maybe you’d better lie down.” Gabriel watched her from narrowed green eyes. “You look ill.”

“I’m fine. Really. I’m fine. I just . . .” Now that the trauma was over, she felt faint and sick to her stomach, and she wanted to put her head down on Gabriel’s broad chest and sob her heart out.

That would go over well.

But as she had so often over the past eleven months, she blinked back the tears. “It will be a relief to get you checked into the hospital and know you’re going to be taken care of.”

“Checked in? No, they’re not going to check me in.”

“Yes, they will.” This guy was obviously unclear on the concept. “You’ve been shot, and it’s not a minor wound, either. It’s a through and through.”

“I don’t care. They’re not keeping me. So I’m going to need a nurse.”