To Die For

trunk, then ducked back down. “Of all the fucking times-”

“Do you see him?” I interrupted his muttered stream of profanity.

“Nothing.”

My mouth was dry, and my heartbeat was hammering wildly at the thought of the shooter rounding the car and firing at both of us. We were sandwiched between the two cars, which should have seemed secure, but instead I felt horribly exposed and vulnerable, with those unprotected spaces at each end of the cars.

The shot had come from across the street. Very few of the shops that lined the street were open on Sunday, especially this late in the afternoon, and traffic was almost nonexistent. I listened, but didn’t hear the sound of a car leaving, which to my way of thinking wasn’t good. Leaving was good; staying was bad. I wanted the man to leave. I wanted to cry. And I was seriously thinking about throwing up.

Wyatt glanced over his shoulder at me, his expression grim and focused, and for the first time, got a good look at me. His whole body stiffened. “Ah, shit, honey,” he said softly. He took another quick look over the trunk, then moved in a crouch to my side. “Why didn’t you say something? You’re bleeding like a stuck hog. Let me see how bad it is.”

“Not very, I don’t think. It just sliced my arm.” I thought I sounded just like a cowboy in an old western movie, bravely reassuring the pretty farm-woman his wound was just a scratch. Maybe I should get Wyatt’s pistol and return fire across the street, just to complete the illusion. On the other hand, maybe I should just sit here; it took less effort.

His big hand was gentle as he turned my arm so he could examine the wound. Personally, I didn’t look. With my peripheral vision I could see way too much blood anyway, and knowing it was all mine wasn’t a good feeling.

“It isn’t too bad,” he murmured. He took another look around, then briefly put his weapon down to take a handkerchief from his pocket and place it, folded, against my wound. He had the big pistol in his hand again less than five seconds after he’d put it down. “Hold this as tight as you can against your arm,” he said, and I reached up with my right hand to do as he’d directed.

I struggled not to feel indignant. Not too bad? It was one thing for me to be brave and dismissive about being shot, but how dare he? I wondered if he’d be that blase if it were his arm that felt as if it were on fire, if his blood was soaking his clothes and beginning to pool on the pavement.

Huh. That pooling on the pavement part couldn’t be good. Maybe that was why I felt light- headed and hot and nauseated. Maybe I’d better lie down.

I let myself slide sideways, and Wyatt grabbed me with his free hand. “Blair!”

“I’m just lying down,” I said fretfully. “I feel sick.”

Supporting me one-handed, he helped me to lie down on the pavement. The asphalt was hot and gritty, and I didn’t care. I concentrated on taking deep breaths and staring at the blueness of the late-afternoon sky overhead, and gradually the nausea began to fade. Wyatt was talking on his cell phone/radio, whatever it was, requesting medics and an ambulance. Already I could hear sirens as units responded to a call that their lieutenant was under fire. How much time had lapsed since the shot? A minute? No more than two, I was certain of that.

To one part of me, everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, but another part of me felt as if too much was happening simultaneously. The result was a total sense of unreality, but one in which everything seemed to be crystal clear. I couldn’t decide if that was good or not. Probably a little fuzziness would be nice, because I really didn’t want to have clear memories of this.

Wyatt crouched over me and put his left hand to my neck. Good God, was he coming on to me now? I glared up at him, but he didn’t notice because his head was up and he was checking in all directions, his weapon steady in his right hand. Belatedly, I realized he was checking my pulse, and he looked even more grim than before.

I wasn’t dying, was I? People didn’t die from gunshot wounds to the arm. That was silly. I was just a little shocky from losing blood so fast, the way I got whenever I gave blood at the Red Cross. It was no big deal. But he’d radioed for an ambulance, which to my way of thinking was for serious stuff, and I wondered if he could see something I couldn’t, like maybe an artery spurting out blood like Old Faithful. Not that I had really looked, because I’d been afraid I’d see exactly that.

I pulled the folded handkerchief away from my arm and looked at it. It was totally soaked with blood.

“Blair,” he said sharply, “put that back over your wound.”

Okay, so maybe I might die. I added up the pieces-a lot of blood, shock, ambulance-and didn’t like the picture. “Call my mom,” I said. She would be so royally pissed if I had a medical crisis and no one let her know.

“I will,” he replied, and now he was trying to sound soothing.

“Now. I need her now.”

“You’re going to be all right, honey. We’ll call her from the hospital.”

I was outraged. I was lying there bleeding to death and he refused to call my mother?! If I’d had more energy, I might have done something about it, but as things were, all I could do was lie there and glare, which wasn’t having much effect because he wasn’t watching me.

Two patrol units, lights flashing and sirens blaring, slid into the parking lot, and two officers, weapons drawn, bailed out of each. Thank goodness each officer driving killed the sirens just before stopping, otherwise we’d have been deafened. There were other units on the way, though; I could hear more sirens, and they seemed to be coming from all directions.

Oh, man, this was going to be so bad for business. I tried to imagine how I would feel if I belonged to a fitness center where there were two shootings in four days. Safe? Definitely not. Of course, if I died, I wouldn’t have to worry about it, but what about my employees? They’d be out of a job that paid above the average, plus benefits.

I had visions of the empty parking lot sprouting weeds through the pavement, windows broken, roof sagging. Yellow crime-scene tape would forlornly droop from poles and trees, and kids would walk by and point at the decaying building.

“Do not,” I said loudly from flat on my back, “string even one inch of that yellow tape in my parking lot. Enough’s enough. No more tape.”

Wyatt was busy giving instructions to the four officers, but he glanced down at me and I thought he struggled not to smile. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Here I was bleeding to death, and he was smiling. Smiling. I needed to start another list. Come to think of it, I needed to rewrite the one he’d confiscated. He’d distracted me with sex, but now I was thinking clearly again and the list of his transgressions would probably take up two pages-assuming I lived to write them.

This was all his fault.

“If a certain lieutenant had listened to me and brought my car to me on Friday the way I asked, this wouldn’t have happened. I’m bleeding, and my clothes are ruined, and it’s all your fault.”

Wyatt paused briefly in the middle of my condemnation, then continued talking to his men just as if I hadn’t said anything.

Now he was ignoring me.

A couple of the officers seemed to be coming down with something, because they had simultaneous coughing fits-either that or they were trying not to laugh in their lieutenant’s face, which I didn’t like because, again, I was the one lying there bleeding to death and they were laughing? Excuse me, but was I the only one who didn’t think it was funny that I’d been shot?

“Some people,” I announced to the sky, “have better manners than to laugh at someone who’s been shot and is bleeding to death.”

“You aren’t bleeding to death,” Wyatt said, his voice showing some strain.

Maybe, maybe not, but you’d think they’d give me the benefit of the doubt, wouldn’t you? I was