He started to plug in numbers, and I saw 7-7-1-9—
But then I saw something else.
Movement out of the corner of my eye. Someone coming up fast, and—a flicker of silver, metal gleaming in the moonlight—I reached under my dress, yanked out my gun, and ordered, “Behind me.”
“What?” Talbot asked.
I yanked him back from the box, put his body between mine and the car, then leveled my gun in the direction of the threat.
There was an ear-piercing scream as a man appeared out of the bushes, a knife raised above his head—
I fired.
Once.
The man got up, and the blade whizzed near enough by my head that I felt the rush of hair flying by my ear.
Then I felt the sting of that blade hitting my skin.
And I fired again. Then again. And . . . finally, the man collapsed.
I kicked the knife away, knelt next to him, my hands going to the wounds and putting as much pressure as I could muster before my gaze shot back to Talbot’s. He was uninjured, his face pale, his expression one of utter shock.
“Call 9-1-1,” I ordered, just as a flash of light nearly blinded me.
He reached for his cell, more flashes coming.
I looked in the other direction, and I saw a good dozen cameras pointed my way.
At me and Talbot.
One instant.
One reaction.
And I knew my life had just changed forever.
Chapter Five
Talbot
I was an actor.
I’d played a cop a few times.
But I was just an actor.
So, seeing what Tammy had just done left me shaken as I ran to the house for some towels to staunch the bleeding.
She’d moved . . . like liquid lightning.
Beautiful, capable, liquid lightning. One second, I’d been punching in my code, and the next . . . she’d been fighting off a knife-wielding man with her gun. A man whose life she was now trying to save.
I barreled up to my front door, my fingers shaking when I pressed the code into the keypad, my breaths coming in short, staccato bursts.
Then I was inside, lurching toward the half-bath just off the hall, grabbing all the towels I could find, and hauling ass back toward the front gate. Tammy was there, still on her knees, still with her hands over the man’s chest.
They were covered in blood, and I swallowed down a sudden burst of nausea before kneeling next to her.
“What do you need?”
“Put some here”—she nodded toward the man’s chest—“then fold one up and put it under his head.”
The flashes were still coming, all except from a slender brunette, her camera slung over her shoulder. She was the same paparazzo who’d told me that she’d already called 9-1-1, walking through the flashes to come stand next to Tammy.
“Here,” she said now, taking a towel and carefully placing it under the man’s head. Then grabbing another and using it to pick up the knife Tammy had knocked away from the attacker. “So it doesn’t walk away,” she murmured before stepping back again.
But I noticed that she didn’t pick up her camera, wasn’t shooting the gory scene like her compatriots.
Before I had a chance to consider that too closely, Tammy cursed, and I glanced down to see that the towels had soaked through. Quickly, I set another one on the man’s chest, used my hands next to hers to add more pressure.
Thankfully, I heard sirens in the distance, the blaring coming nearer.
An ambulance screeched into the drive less than a minute later, the medics appearing quickly, bags in hand.
“Male, mid-thirties, three gunshot wounds, two to the torso, one to the right arm,” Tammy said. “He’s lost a lot of blood, and his pulse is there, but thready.”
They took over, attempting to staunch the bleeding, administering drugs, then quickly loading him on a stretcher. But even as I watched that, the police rolled up, sirens loud enough to make me wince, flashing lights even brighter than the paparazzi’s.
Tammy had retrieved her badge, holding it up so they could examine it, and then quickly turning over her gun as she explained what happened.
They nodded, glanced from the gun to Tammy to me to the paparazzi, and then one of the officers stepped forward. “Let’s take this into the house.”
Her hands were covered with blood.
I glanced down, saw that my hands were equally coated as well, and felt bile burn the back of my throat.
Tammy was talking to the officer, who had urged us into the house, and he was taking notes on a pad as she stood there in her dress and heels with scraped knees.
And blood-covered hands.
I barely bit back my gag reflex.
Tammy’s head spun, her eyes locking with mine for one brief, intense moment, and then she was saying something to the policeman, before he nodded, and she crossed over to me.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Fine,” she clipped, snagging my arm and bringing me over to the large kitchen sink. The water turned on . . . and then she was scrubbing my hands in the sink, the stream turning pink then red then back to pink, until eventually it ran clear again. Soap into her palms, rubbing over mine, rubbing firmly until both of our hands were clean.
“There,” she whispered, snagging a towel and running it over my fingers and wrists. “Why don’t you sit down?”
My eyes were on my hands, on hers. “I’m okay,” I said.
Fingers on my jaw, drawing my gaze up to hers, those hazel depths searching mine, seeming to scour my very soul. Then she nodded and started to turn away.
And that’s when I saw the blood on her arm.
The gash on her arm.
My heart skipped, thudding in my chest, slamming against my ribs. She’d gotten hurt protecting me.
The bile disappeared. The shock flitted away.
Rage took its place.
“Your arm,” I said, snagging her wrist, drawing her to a stop.
“It’s fine,” she said, glancing back at me over her shoulder. “The medics gave me
