Killer on Call 6 Book Bundle (Books 1-6)

by Gwendolyn Druyor

  He shook his head again. This time it made his stomach spin. But he saw an ambulance pulling out of the parking bay and held his nausea in. He watched his own bloody hand as he tore it away from where it was holding pressure on the knife wound and used it to push himself to his feet.

  Then one foot at a time, each step moving faster, he chased the ambulance up the hill. He kept blinking to clear the floaters from his vision but he couldn’t focus enough to catch any of the numbers on the emergency vehicle. It drew steadily farther and farther away.

  At the top of the drive, he cut across the grass and tripped off the curb of the round driveway in front of the hospital. An officer in blue caught him before he hit the pavement.

  “Kee?” the man asked sounding as if he were under water. “Are you okay?”

  Avi looked at the cop. A man about his own age but half his size. A good officer, he thought, though he couldn’t remember his name.

  “Dispatch sent us when you called and didn’t say anything.” The familiar man took hold of Avi’s arms and noticed the knife wound. “Kee, what happened?”

  Avi looked down at his arm and remembered what he was doing.

  “Follow that ambulance!” He pointed at the tree lined entrance to the drive where more patrol cars were now racing in, lights spinning.

  The other officer turned and looked.

  “Which one?” he asked.

  Avi looked again and saw that what he had thought was a trick of his eyes was really three ambulances clearing the drive. Avi couldn’t see any difference between them. He slumped a little and then rallied.

  “All of them,” he said.

  “You need,” the officer began.

  But Avi cut him off. “Get her! She’s the bomber!”

  He tried to push past Clint Davies, relieved he’d remember the officer’s name, relieved his hearing and vision were both clearing. But the man wouldn’t let him go.

  “No. You stay. We’ll get her.” He waited until Avi nodded his compliance then ran around to the driver’s side of his cruiser, shouting into the radio on his shoulder. “All units, detain all fifty-twos leaving the hospital. Approach with caution. Driver suspected in code ninety-one.”

  Avi wanted to sit. He wanted to collapse right there on the curb and let others handle the clean up. But he didn’t know how badly Kissy had been hurt and Vanessa was getting away again. So he took a breath and staggered to the main entrance of the hospital.

  He didn’t have a radio but he could still call dispatch and describe Vanessa. He leaned against a wall in the lobby and reached into his back pocket to retrieve his phone. It fell to pieces as he pulled it out. Crushed between his backside and the building in the explosion. Avi stared at the exposed electronics until a nurse approached.

  “Sir? Let me take you to the ER.”

  Avi shook his head. He pushed past her, stumbling toward the lounge doors. “I have to find Kissy.”

  “I don’t know who that is, sir. You’re bleeding.” The nurse took his uninjured arm, insisting he go with her.

  “The ukulele player,” he said, ignoring her tugs.

  “Did you hit your head, sir?” The nurse caught her breath. “Your back!”

  Avi’s eyesight was diminishing again. Floaters ignored his blinking and his peripheral vision melted away. He kept his focus on the doors. And then it all faded into blackness.

  Twenty-four

  Tim had no intention of finding a sandwich. His only thoughts were for Kissy. He stepped out of the lounge, looked left, and was caught by the rhythmic pulsing of the automatic doors leading into the east wing. They couldn’t close because dozens of people and police streamed between the lobby and the emergency room. He hesitated, reluctant to wade into the sea of cops. So it was with a measure of relief that he spotted one particular cop staggering through the lobby. Within the chaos, he and one nurse seemed to be the only people to notice the tall, muscular black man about to fall down.

  “Avi!” Tim ran over and helped the nurse catch the cop. “I’ve got him. I’m sure you’re needed somewhere.”

  “It looks like I’m needed right here.” The nurse looked between the two of them. “You’re both covered in blood.”

  Tim looked at his hands, hooked under Avi’s arms. All the way up to his chest, he was painted in red. The sight stopped his breath for an instant.

  “It’s the singer’s. I was with the singer who was. . . Hurt,” Tim explained. “I’ll get this guy to the ER. He’s a friend. You go. Help someone who needs you.”

  The nurse glanced between the two one more time and then strode off through the glass doors to the east wing. Tim turned his attention to Avi. The big man’s eyes were open but not focused.

  “Hey. Hi there, Avi.” Tim got his attention with the name. “Can you stand?”

  Avi’s eyes cleared a little. Tim noticed his pupils were different sizes. As he revived, he used Tim for balance but was soon able to take his own weight. It took seconds longer for him to recognize the killer.

  “Kissy?” he asked, still trying to focus on Tim.

  “I’m looking for her.”

  Tim helped Avi stumble to a wheelchair abandoned along one wall. He lowered him to the seat and examined the new streaks of blood on his arms. Avi sat back and with a wince, leaned forward. Tim saw his jacket, shirt, and the skin on his back was shredded. The back of the cop’s head was a pulpy red mess.

  As he rifled through his satchel for a first aid kit, he quietly asked, “Vanessa?”

  Avi shook his head. “She got out in an ambulance. The police are stopping all of them.”

  “They won’t find her.” Tim looked at the sliding doors, in constant motion with the traffic.

  Avi tried to stand. “Let’s go.”

  But Tim turned back to him. “You’d leave while Kissy is in surgery?”

  “You’d leave with a stab wound and bleeding from the skull?” a voice asked, approaching from the lounge. “You’ve had quite a day Officer Kee.” Dr. James, Julia’s orthopedist and latest crush rolled the wheelchair away from the wall and examined Avi’s back. “We’re gonna take you to the ER and make sure all of your insides stay there.”

  Avi reached down and locked the chair’s wheels. He stared daggers at the doctor. “How badly is she hurt?”

  “Excuse me?” Dr. James asked.

  “Kissy.”

  Tim answered, “She’d be dead if Ella hadn’t distracted Vanessa.”

  Avi’s eyes grew wide as he took a good look at Tim. “Oh my god.” Avi stood again, reaching out. “What happened to you?”

  “What?” Tim looked down at himself. He shook his head. “I’m fine. This is Kissy’s blood.”

  “Where is she?” Avi asked.

  Tim helped Avi back into his seat. “She was unconscious when they took her away, but she was breathing. I think she’s gonna be fine.”

  Both men looked up as Julia’s doctor gasped.

  “What?” Tim asked.

  James looked away and slipped a mask of professional concern over his features. “She was cut pretty badly.” He spoke in an official voice. “And drugged before that.”

  “What are you not saying?” Avi insisted. “Where did they take her?”

  James avoided both men’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Kissy is in Room One.”

  The End

  Valium

  Killer on Call

  book four

  by

  Gwendolyn Druyor

  KillerOnCall.com

  Copyright © 2015 by Gwendolyn Druyor

  One

  Tim had only himself to blame. This was his plan. He’d made it up as they’d run from the ambulance thinking only of the women and what might happen to them if Randall’s buyer got there first. Had he stopped for one moment to think of himself, he might not be shivering here in the stormy moonlight with a sharpened boat propeller blade held to his throat. He might have put on more clothes than just a pair of red boxer briefs.

 
Thunder crashed overhead and Tim found himself counting the seconds. He’d barely reached four when lightning cracked open the sky, showing a flash of rain pouring down into the roiling water and bouncing sudden shadows off the few dozen old cargo containers lined up along the wharf. Metal and a large body of water; two things you really wanted surrounding you in an electrical storm.

  “Keep moving!” The blade cut into the skin of his jaw line as Randall dragged him from the cement dock out onto the wooden planks added as a walkway around the defunct shipping center known as the dead docks.

  Tim pushed back as he stepped down onto the new surface pretending to trip. Randall pushed forward. Tim started to really fall. He sucked in all the power of his six-pack abs and stretched to his full five foot eleven to keep his neck from truly being sliced on the makeshift weapon.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he protested as he found his balance. “It was an accident.”

  “Right,” Randall growled. “Don’t fucking try anything else. We’re just gonna wait here until my buyer arrives.”

  Another crash of thunder sounded overhead. The lightning followed three seconds after. Right now Tim’s skin was slick. His moisturizer would soon be washed away. Right now, he still had control of his muscles. But if he had to wait much longer in this freezing cold November rainstorm, his muscles would seize up and be as useless as his nuts which had crawled up and were hiding in his gut. He had to speed things up.

  “Your buyer isn’t going to arrive,” he told Randall. “He’s already been intercepted by my army.”

  “You don’t have an army.”

  Tim’s eyes were caught by movement. The silky blue fabric he’d been kneeling on as he picked the second padlock on the shipping container was twitching. His eyes naturally followed the line of cloth disappearing around the right side of the container and he breathed a sigh of relief to see the motion. Then his killer instincts kicked in.

  “Really?” Tim scoffed loudly, obnoxiously. “You think I took out your three bodyguards all by myself?”

  The blade lowered a fraction of an inch as Randall relaxed.

  He laughed. “I have four guards.”

  A grunt sounded from just beyond the left side of the shipping container, followed by the sound of a body being slammed against the hollow metal. Randall grabbed Tim’s bicep. His grip slipped but he caught a firm hold just above his elbow. Tim forced himself to relax.

  “Here comes the cavalry,” he murmured.

  “You think they can save your life?” There was a catch in Randall’s voice despite his tough words. “I have a blade to your neck.”

  Tim shimmied a little, leaning gently back into his captor’s chest. “I like a little foreplay.”

  As hoped, Randall let go of his arm. Tim saw the silk twitching more violently but Randall’s attention was captured by the large, muscular cop stepping out of the shadows on the other side of the container. He was a disturbingly sexy man dressed appropriately for the weather down to the rubber galoshes over his department issue oxfords and the plastic cover protecting his cap. Tim wouldn’t have been surprised to see a boy scout sash draped over his chest.

  “Halt!”

  “Oh, thank god, officer.” Tim leaned sideways to give the man a better target. “Shoot him.”

  A deafening thunderclap broke through the night as Officer Avi Kee looked Tim in the eyes. Then Avi’s eyes shifted to Tim’s captor.

  “I’m sorry it took so long to get here, Mr. Crella,” he said. “Is this man trying to rob you?”

  Tim’s heart caught in his throat as a bolt of lightning crackled right overhead.

  Two

  Tim pulled the front door to Circus Freaks open with his foot and hurried in before it slammed shut behind him. He carried the crates of bottles and glasses confidently through the dark entryway. Just beyond the swinging doors that separated the foyer from the open main room he set them next to a wall and stood to get the next load.

  Julia had told him to wait until she’d turned the lights on. But Tim knew that if he waited, she would try to help him unload the car. Not one week earlier, Doctor James Fuller had demanded she take it easy when he finally agreed to remove her second cast. Tim knew first hand because Dr. James had insisted she bring her brother to the appointment. Like Tim had any control over his big sister.

  Still, if Tim could unload the car before his sister got back from the power box stupidly located beside the back door of the gym, maybe he could save Julia from a third cast.

  So Tim settled his satchel on his back, brushed his white blond hair out of his face, and hurried back to the foyer. And nearly got a face-full of swinging door.

  “Whoa there!” He shouted as he scrambled backwards.

  A forty-something looking woman carrying a crate of napkins and bar tools stopped too short and was hit in the rear by the return swing of the door. She quickly looked away from Tim’s eyes, curling in on herself as she apologized with a squeak.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Tim thought she looked like a kicked puppy. She wore a perfectly tailored designer yoga outfit that would look at home on a power Pilates ball buster and yet her French manicured fingers gripped whitely on the box in her arms and her dyed-gray hair fell forward hiding her face. He wanted to leap in, take the box, and hug her. But he was sure that this woman wouldn’t react well. So he took a step away in the guise of grandly ushering her into the room.

  “Welcome to Circus Freaks.” He said, looking away into the looming darkness. “Which will look much more impressive when we have lights.”

  “Well,” the woman offered nervously, “let there be light?”

  And at that very moment, the room was flooded with light at the fluorescents flickered on far overhead.

  Tim turned to see a stunned look on the woman’s face. He burst out laughing and after a bit, she joined him.

  “Hi,” he risked when they’d both wiped tears from their eyes. “I’m Julia’s brother. Can I take that from you?”

  “Oh no. Just show me where to put it.” She looked around and spotted the crate he’d set along the wall.

  Tim stepped back to clear the path. “Thank you.”

  She bent at the knees and carefully set the box against the wall, adjusting it until the crate was perfectly lined up next to Tim’s. “I’m learning to be an independent woman and do for myself.”

  “You’re actually doing for me, at the moment.” Tim pointed out as she stood.

  This stopped the woman in her tracks. She gave Tim the once over; from his white blond hair, down along his slim, trim, lives in the gym body, all the way to his boyishly charming Chuck Taylors.

  “A man who wears red sneakers needs all the help he can get.” She finally replied.

  Tim laughed and stuck his hand out. “Tim.”

  “I’m Evelyn Crella.”

  She touched his hand with her fingertips and quickly drew her hand back to finger comb her hair back into place behind her ear on one side and in front of an eye on the other. Tim barely recognized her.

  “We met at Dr. Fuller’s office, didn’t we?” He asked as he held one half of the swinging doors open for her.

  She nodded, keeping her head turned away as she headed through the entryway with him. “Yes. Poor Julia.”

  “Ha!” Tim retorted. “Julia could have been out of that cast two months ago. Poor,” he searched for her son’s name, “Mason. He’s just a kid. He should be running around having fun, playing in the snow.”

  Evelyn reached the front door first and she stepped through, then held it open for Tim. She held her head up and looked him straight in the eye as she said, “he will be soon.”

  Tim smiled at her sudden confidence. Evelyn Crella had a secret. Tim pulled a box of glasses out of the trunk and handed it to Evelyn. He stacked the last three crates and lifted them out himself. Evelyn pulled the linens out and piled them on her box. Then she followed Tim to the door. They worked together to get it open and carry their bundles throug
h.

  With the lights on, they spotted a counter and set the bar supplies down there. Tim watched, while Evelyn straightened the boxes on the counter to line up perfectly.

  “Can I ask you something, Evelyn?”

  “I’m sorry.” She pulled her hands away from the crates.

  Tim strode over to grab the crates of bottles he’d set by the wall. “What’s with the open bar?”

  “These ladies give larger checks when they’re soused.” Evelyn explained breezily.

  Tim set the crates on the counter. He pulled a bottle of whiskey out of the top crate and unscrewed the cap. “But this is just a committee meeting to plan the fund raising party, right?”

  Her eyes widened as he took a swig straight from the bottle. “Yes. And to see if this location will work well.”

  “Okay.” Tim wiped the lip of the Jameson’s and handed it to her. “So what’s with having an open bar?”

  Evelyn took the bottle gingerly. “We need money to pay for everything we’ll need to throw the party to earn money to pay for the Fight Childhood Obesity programs.”

  Tim waited until she took a tentative sip but didn’t take the bottle back when she offered. “The space is being donated. You’re getting a great discount from the Freckled Dog Pub on the booze. The entertainment is free. So all you’re paying for is decorations.”

  “Oh no, my housekeeper’s sister owns the party store. She’s donating the decorations.” Evelyn took another sip and leaned in to whisper, “her seven year old is a tubby kid.”

  “So what are you getting the money for?”

  “Well, I could really use some cash.” There was more than a little crazy in Evelyn’s laugh and she covered it by taking another nip off the bottle. “They won’t want to get drunk at the fund raiser because then they wouldn’t be allowed to play on the trapeze. So we need to get some big checks tonight if we’re gonna hit my goal.”

  Tim pulled the car keys from his pocket and headed for the doors again, spinning around to promise, “I’ll do my part. I do a mean sexy bartender impression and you can have all my tips.”