Heart Wounds (A Miranda and Parker Mystery) (30 page)

“Don’t need no bloody tool. I’ll keel you with me bare ’ands.”

And he’d do it, too. His grip was so tight around her neck she could barely breathe. Training had her hands groping at his wrists, trying to break his hold. But they were both too slippery with sweat.

Think. Think. Think.

What could she do? She didn’t have a weapon within reach. She hissed in a breath and air must have finally reached her brain.

Of course. What
had she been thinking? She’d forgotten all about the tool belt. She reached down, groped at her waist just as Shrivel began to shake her. Her head banged against the concrete. She couldn’t last much longer.

Her fingers
grasped at the loops, searching for…something. Anything.

Finally her grip landed on
the handle of something. She jerked it from its place. She was seeing stars now. Black spots, bright lights flashing in her head. She felt her eyes roll back.

But she managed to
force them open one more time.

She
lifted the tool, turned it where she could just see it. It was an awl. Kind of like a dagger. Fitting. This was it.

Summoning all the strength she had s
he jerked it back then drove the blade into the side of Shrivel’s head with all her might.

His grip
around her throat loosened. She gasped in air as she watched his mouth open and saw blood pour out of it and onto her shirt, mingling with the stuff gushing out the side of his head.

She pushed him off her and got up. His body rolled over onto the floor.

“That’s for Lady Gabrielle,” she said, and gave his corpse a kick.

She stood there, head spinning, sucking in air for what seemed like an eternity. Then she heard a funny noise.

Clapping.

She turned and squinted into the lights from the still running van, saw Parker sitting there, still bound to the chair. He hadn’t move
d, hadn’t acknowledged her at all. Was he already dead?

Scorpion stepped into the headlights, batting his hands together.
“Quite an entertaining exhibition, Ms. Steele. You’re very good.”

What?

She stared at his stocky body, his slicked back hair. He had on black slacks and a black dress shirt open to the waist. About three pounds of gold chain hung around his neck.

Shaking his head at the lump on the floor that had been Shrivel, he chuckled. “If only half my men could fight with such passion. But now, I’m afraid it’s back to business.” Slowly he drew a revolver from his waist.
Looked like a .357.

Terror braided her organs into knots as, still smiling, he slowly strolled over to Parker and put the gun to his head.

No. “Are you crazy?” she gasped.

He laughed. “We’ll see who’s the crazy one. All you have to do is tell me where the Marc Antony dagger is and your
partner lives.”

She blinked at him, wondering if she were having a nightmare. How could he think
she knew where the dagger was? “The police said Jewell sold it on the black market.”

He let out a low, ugly laugh. “Of course they do. They’re idiots.”

Parker must have made Shrivel think he had the dagger somewhere. It was how he got the thug’s attention. But that didn’t mean she knew where it was. Then she realized Scorpion couldn’t know whether she knew or not.

He was taking a
gamble, hoping Parker had told her.

It didn’t matter what she told him. If she convinced him she didn’t know
where the dagger was, he’d still kill them both. If she made something up, he’d kill them, too.

There was no way to win.

“You’re wasting my time, Ms. Steele.” She heard the click as Scorpion cocked the revolver. “I will kill him. You know I will.”

Yeah, she did. He was too far for her to try to get the gun away from him. He’d shoot long before she reached him.

She stood staring at the evil man, her chest heaving with terror. Was this the end for them? Failure and defeat? Would she never get home? Never see her daughter again? Never hold Parker in her arms again?

T
he sound of the van’s engine rumbled over her thoughts, ironically annoying her. Damn thing was still running. And then it came to her.

One chance. Only one chance.
She had to take it.

As fast as she could, she
spun and raced to the van’s door. She yanked it open, climbed inside, put the thing in gear, revved the motor.

“Let’s play a game of chicken, you slimeball.”

She hit the accelerator. The tires squealed and took off. Her gamble paid off. Scorpion was too shocked to pull the trigger. She watched the bastard’s face turn to horror as she headed right for him and Parker.

He didn’t move. He thought she wouldn’t do it,
didn’t he? But what did she have to lose? At least they’d go out in a blaze of glory.

A
s she barreled toward the pair, her courage wavered.
Move, damn it. Run
. Could she really run both of them down? Kill the only man who’d ever loved her? The front fender was inches away from its target.

And then
he caved.

Scorpion
dropped the gun and scampered away from the headlights like a roach crawling under the stove. She swerved, barely missing Parker, the tires crying out in protest.

In the headlights she caught
Scorpion running for the far wall. Now that was just perfect. She hit the gas and aimed straight for the concrete.

The
van lurched forward, slammed into his body with a loud thud, hit the cement wall with a crash loud as Judgment Day.

Miranda flew forward
banged her head against the windshield, cracked the glass. She was slung back again. She must have lost consciousness for a few moments.

When
she came to, she was sitting still, the engine sputtering against the wall, a burning smell in her nose. Scorpion’s dead eyes stared at her through the shattered windshield.

Outside she heard the whine
of a foreign siren. Wample or somebody was on the way.

She touched her forehead. Blood.
She couldn’t feel any pain. Yet. And then she woke up.

Parker. She had to get to Parker.

She jerked open the van door and ran across the floor, leaping over the debris.

“
Parker! Parker! Are you all right?”

She reached him just as som
eone broke through the window. “Police!”

“
Over here. We need an ambulance.” She grabbed his shoulders, saw his head roll back. “Parker,” she cried again, not daring to shake him. “Parker.”

But he didn
’t answer.

All hell broke loose.

Suddenly the shop was
flooded with people. Police shouting and trying to keep everyone away from the crime scene, officers yelling directions, medics trying to get to the injured.

Total chaos.

Someone found a light and switched it on and Miranda blinked dizzily at the bloody scene of gory violence and destruction around her.

But all she cared about was Parker.

Three paramedics carefully cut off the duct tape binding him and took him away on a stretcher. Inspector Wample appeared out of nowhere and wanted a statement from her. She told him to fuck off and talk to her later and got in the back of the ambulance with Parker. They raced through the streets, sirens screaming.

Someone slapped a piece of gauze on her forehea
d, wiped the blood off her face, asked if she was in pain anywhere.

She waved
him away and stared at Parker lying there, motionless, strapped to the gurney. While the paramedics hooked him to a monitoring machine, stuck an IV into his arm, treated his wounds, all she could do was watch.

They were speaking in medicalese with British accents
, and her ears were still ringing with shock, but she caught snatches of what they were saying. Contusions, facial abrasions, head trauma, subdural hematomas. They were worried about brain damage.

Brain damage? Oh, God. That couldn’t be. She couldn’t lose him now.

If only he would wake up. Wake up, Parker. Please. But when they reached the hospital, he still hadn’t moved.

###

Inside the hospital, they rushed Parker away while nurses ushered her into a room. They cleaned her up, scanned her head, put a bandage over the cut on her forehead.

What were they doing all that for? She wasn’t the one with the problem.

“I want to see my husband,” she told a youthful looking girl in scrubs.

The girl
nodded, and when they were finished with her, she took Miranda to the waiting room near the trauma unit.

All they could tell her was that the doctors were still working on him and someone would be out to speak to her as soon as they were finished.

She stumbled into the room, sank down into a chair near a potted plant.

An hour passed. Two.
Assistant Chief Officer Ives found her, took down her statement, and she had to live the nightmare all over again. But he did his job quickly, thanked her, said she wouldn’t be charged and left.

As she watched his flowing raincoat disappear down the hall, she put her head in her hands and burst into tears.

It must have been an hour later when a blond-haired young man in teal scrubs told her Parker was being taken to a room.

He turned out to be one of the doctors that had worked on him. As he escorted her through elevators and a maze of halls, he explained Parker’s injuries.

She wished she had a medical dictionary but she understood the basics. Two bruised ribs, a dislocated jaw, a concussion. No brain damage.

No brain damage. Tears filled her eyes again.
Thank God, thank God. “Can I talk to him now?”

The doctor’s face grew grim but he nodded. “
You can see him. He hasn’t woken up yet.” He turned the knob to Parker’s door.

She stepped inside the room.

The lights were low. Parker lay on a standard hospital bed, with its head propped up.

His forehead was bandaged.
One eye was dark and purple, puffy and swollen shut. There was a tube up his nose, another in his mouth, an IV in his arm. Machines and monitors blinked softly and beeped away. The air smelled of antiseptic.

Quietly she pulled up a chair and sat down beside
him. She took his hand in hers.

No response.

“Parker,” she whispered. “I’m here. It’s Miranda.” He lay still, breathing in and out, in and out. “We got the bad guys.”

Nothing.

Tears began to stream down her face. She remembered the doctor telling her concussions were tricky. Couldn’t predict what might happen. Would he never wake up? What was she going to do if he didn’t?

No, he had to. He had to.

She brushed the tears away from her face and put both her hands on his. She traced the outline of his knuckles with her finger. This strong hand that had helped her out of so many jams. That had trained her, comforted her, soothed her, made love to her.

How could she lose him now? How could she live without him?
He meant the world to her. She didn’t know what to do. How long would she have to wait before he woke up?

He had to wake up. He had to. She had so many things to say to him. She had to tell him how much she loved him. She had to yell at him for going off on his own and getting himself into this fix.

Off on his own. Like she always did.

Was this what he’d gone through when she was in a coma? No wonder he was
always so protective of her. No wonder he always fumed when she went off by herself.

But he’d
been the one to do it this time, dammit.

What if their roles had been reversed
tonight? What if she’d been the one to go after those thugs? She would have if she had thought of it first. What if she were the one lying there. What if they had done God know what to her? What if they had killed her?

Parker would feel responsible. He was the one who’d brought her into the Agency, trained her, sparked her passion for this work, come up with the consulting idea. He’d blame himself if anything happened to her.
He’d never be able to live with it.

Why hadn’t she seen that before? Was it too late
to fix that? It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

She took his hand, squeezed it gently. “Parker, I get it,” she told him. “
I understand now.”

But he didn’t move.

Oh, God. She might never get to tell him. She might never get to hear his voice again. Never know the sound of that sexy southern rhythm. No, she couldn’t let that happen. She wasn’t going to let that happen. She’d think of something. Something. But right now, fatigue hit her with a sucker’s punch and suddenly she was spent. Exhaustion hung over her like a dark cloud.