alle fьnf Sekunden.”
I stared back at him and smiled grimly at the concentration camp survivor. “English, Doc.”
Bloomfield swallowed. “Once every five seconds.”
One.
I was now Mary’s lungs.
Two.
Her lips quivered, and she continued to try to gulp air-pushing out silent words past the tube in her throat.
Three.
I allowed Isaac’s hands more access to the wound, and I brushed her bloody hair back from the high cheekbones, driving my eyes into hers. I spoke from only inches away.
Four. “Not today you don’t.”
Isaac continued to dig into the wound with a hemostat in an attempt to find the artery responsible for delivering the bright red blood to her brain, as Vic conceded him her portion of the wound.
Five. I compressed the bulb again.
“Got it.” The old man’s voice was tired but steady. “Clamp, please, Janine.” Mary Barsad would no longer die from blood loss or strangulation. He looked up and through the still-crooked glasses, and maybe because the circumstance had been so dire, it was funny. “She kicked me.”
I smiled, but it didn’t hold for long. “I bet she did.” I looked down. Mary’s eyes were wide with the pupils contracted to tiny tunnels. She was trying to get to a place to which I wasn’t going to let her go.
I’d lost too many, and I wasn’t losing another.
October 30, 1:00 A.M.
I was tired when Vic dropped me off at the motel room in Absalom, but she sat there, lounging against the seat, and watched me. I leaned in the window and met her eyes with my one good one. “You’re driving my truck.”
“Yeah.” She ran the palm of her hand over the leather steering wheel. “Thought I’d see what it felt like.”
“Well, don’t get used to it too soon.”
She paused for a moment, and I had to admit that the big, three-quarter-ton truck suited her. “You want to give me a straight answer this time?”
I turned so that she would see the undamaged side of my face. “What?”
“Have you lost your fucking mind? A tough-man contest?”
I cleared my throat, which made my eye hurt-not a good sign. “I wasn’t an official entry.”
“And that makes it better?”
I fessed up. “I think Henry wanted me to get in a fight.”
“Why?”
“I’m just guessing, but I think it was his way of getting me all unballed-up from Cady, the election, the investigation-”
“And me?”
I nodded, and that hurt, too. “And you.”
“Wily devil, isn’t he?” She snorted and covered her face with her hand. “Unballed-up. Is that a technical term?”
She shimmied over and raised her hand, putting the cool of the back of her fingers against the skin next to the wound on my left cheekbone. It felt really good, and I was carried back to that night in Philadelphia when we’d become intimate in a way with which I was still unsure I was comfortable. As a symptom of that discomfort, I changed the subject to her brother and my daughter. “I assume you’ve gotten the word on the latest from our respective households, both alike in dignity?”
Her eyebrow cocked like a revolver. “I think Romeo’s being a tard, but who am I to stand in the way of true love?”
“So, if they get married, does that mean that we’re-”
“I don’t want to think about it.” She summarily pulled her hand away and rested it on my shoulder. “You know, I’d come in if I wasn’t afraid of blowing your cover.”
“Uh huh.” I folded my forearms on the passenger doorsill. “I’m not so sure I’ve got much of a cover to blow.”
She inclined her head and looked up at me through the open window and her dark lashes. “I could always come in and blow something else.”
I didn’t move for a minute, and I don’t think I’d been at a loss like that since junior high school.
I was saved by a loud crash. Juana had carried out a garbage bag of empty bottles and deposited them onto the boardwalk. She looked over at the two of us with a hand on her hip. “I let your dog out, twice.”
“Thanks.” I leaned against my truck and introduced the two women. “Juana Balcarcel, this is Undersheriff Victoria Moretti-Vic, Juana.”
She started over but then stalled out when she saw me. “ЎAy, mierda!” She took the step down to glance at Vic, but her eyes kept returning to the side of my face. “Are you all right?”
“Yep, I’m okay. How’s my adversary?”
She shook her young head, the dark hair swinging. “He was still unconscious when the EMTs loaded him out with a neck brace, but when he woke up, they gave him the cash, since you weren’t an official entry. I think that made him feel much better.” She reached in and extended a hand to Vic.
“Hi.”
Vic shook her hand and smiled. “How you doin’?”
I felt compelled to continue. “Juana’s almost got an associate’s degree in criminal justice from over in Sheridan.”
They both ignored me.
La bandita flicked her eyes at my caved-in face and then looked back at Vic. “Is he really the sheriff?”
The Italian beauty’s head dropped in silent laughter, then raised and considered me. “Yeah, and believe it or not, most of the time he acts like one.”
Juana looked at me again and then back at Vic. I felt like sonar readings were being made, but I wasn’t on the same frequency, even though I could see the pings bouncing back and forth between the two.
“If you’re going to stay, I’m going to have to charge you the double rate for the room.”
11
October 30, 9:58 A.M.
First there was pounding on the door, then Dog started barking, then my head fell off and rolled across the stained carpet and lodged itself in the corner against the chipped baseboard-at least that’s what it felt like.
I got up in my boxer shorts, appropriately enough, pulled on a T-shirt from my duffel, and stumbled over Dog toward the door. If it was Cliff Cly looking for a rematch, I was going back to my bag, pull out my. 45, and just shoot him.
I swung the door open and looked at a man with glasses and a graying beard with mustache to match who was wearing a ball cap that read COFFEEN DYNO-TUNE. The name Jim Rogers spiraled in white thread across the left chest pocket of his dark blue coveralls. “You Eric Boss?”
I stared at him. “What?” He looked at some of the other doors, and the number on mine, sure he’d made a mistake. I cleared my throat; what could it hurt? “Sure, I’m Eric Boss.”
“No, you’re not; you’re the sheriff from over in Absaroka County.” He studied my face, which still felt like it had fallen off. I glanced at the corner next to the baseboard just to make sure it hadn’t. “At least, you used to be.”
“And how do you know that?”
“I got a speeding ticket last year-it was that nasty little brunette deputy of yours nabbed me.”
The voice behind me was sharp. “You were doing seventy-three in a fifty-five.” I turned to look back at the
