“I think it was cement. Wet cement.”
The headlights of the minivan bobbed in our wake, then went sideways as it hit the patch. We descended to the street with a neck wrenching lurch, then he punched it, throwing me back against the seat as the car surged forward.
“Time to lose those clowns.”
We had a slight lead and he took advantage of it, executing a series of lightning, frightening turns that finished in a dark driveway. He pulled deep into the shadows beneath a stand of trees and shut off the engine. Something wet landed on me. I looked up. The sunroof was still open and it was snowing again. Through the opening, there came the unmistakable sound of an approaching vehicle.
“Is it—them?” I huddled down in the seat. Let the elements come as long as the bad guys didn’t.
“Maybe.”
What, he couldn’t trot out a comforting lie?
His arm brushed against mine, his clothes rustling. He pulled something from inside his coat, something that gleamed dull and dangerous in the deep darkness. He held it up and checked the magazine, slid it back into the base, loaded a bullet into the chamber, then settled back in the seat, his face turned toward the street.
A sheen of sweat gave definition to the determined angle of his jaw. His eyes glimmered with a determined light that was comforting until a tremor passed like quicksilver along his jaw. He swallowed and shook his head, then rubbed his eyes like they hurt him. Or he couldn’t see.
The hand holding the gun quivered, then started to shake. He rubbed his face.
The van idled closer to our hiding place.
He shuddered, his body hunching over as if in pain. “Sorry—”
He slumped against the door.
The hand holding the gun went slack.
The thunk of it against the floor coincided with the arrival of the van at the foot of the driveway.
THREE
My life started to flash before my eyes, but I got bogged down coming up with explanations for some things that God might not understand. Above the frantic thump of my heart I heard the hum of an engine. The metallic creak of an opening door was followed by the scrape of cowboy boots against pavement.
I abandoned explanations and went for the gun.
As I groped across his unconscious body, snowflakes drifted down, settling on my exposed neck like tiny, icy fingers that turned into rivulets trickling down my back. Fear made a knot in my stomach above the spot the gear shift was digging into.
If I got out of this alive, I was never driving manual again.
I scrabbled harder, pushing my face into Kelvin Kapone-with-a-K’s side, groping along the side of him and the car’s floor. So intent was I on weaponry, at first I didn’t register the wet warmth against the side of my head where it pressed into his stomach. Even before I lifted my head for a look, I knew what I’d find. He wasn’t the type to pass out from fright. The hot chocolate I had swilled earlier signaled an urgent request to—like Elvis—leave. Talk about coming to a sticky end.
The sudden blast of light was startling, painful after the near black I’d been straining to peer through. Had a heavenly apparition appeared to save me?
Only if the angel was disguised as a skinny, bald guy in a bathrobe holding a shotgun. He peered into the dark outside his stoop, his hands working the firing mechanism. Cowboy boots didn’t linger to see if the bald guy was serious. He just scuttled back down the driveway.
I wanted to enjoy the moment, feel the relief, but my companion was bleeding to death all over my sister’s car. Despite my lack of a Florence Nightingale gene and for the honor of my sex, I mentally ran down the list of what I was wearing that could be converted into a bandage.
Bra was out. Dispensable, but minuscule. Non-absorbent sweater. Take too long to get down to my panties because of tightness of jeans. That left my thermal top. I eyed him for a few seconds before turning my back on him and shedding the woolly sweater, then the top. Between the chill of the night air on my semi-bare upper body and fear, my teeth were chattering up a storm before I got my sweater back on and turned toward my patient.
It didn’t take long to apply the starkly white thermals to his manly, bloody chest. I had to use my chin to hold the top in place while I shoved both my arms and its sleeves behind his back and knotted them. Despite the seriousness of the situation, I felt ridiculous crouched over the gear shift, chin deep in blood, hugging an unconscious man so I could tie my underwear around his mid-section. Dignity has been mostly missing in action in my life. I write about a roach. I live with my mother. But that doesn’t mean I’ve given up all hope. There’s a sliver of it down there somewhere.
He started to stir while my arms were still wrapped around him and I felt the sliver leave, too. I opened my mouth to babble an explanation, but only managed a squeak before he reciprocated the wrapping of arms and upped the stakes by nuzzling my neck with his mouth.
I would have struggled, but I was so shocked. Then, well, the feel of his mouth on my skin, his warm breath stirring the tendrils of my hair felt—good. Besides, if I struggled it might loosen the underwear. Not struggling was the righteous thing to do.
It was darn near noble.
His mouth shifted half a tantalizing inch and I had another thought. Could this be research for my novel?
“Ummmm,” he murmured, the pleasure sound came from deep in his throat, “you taste good.”
“Really?” Trembling heat from his mouth tangled with trailing chills from the snowflakes drifting through the sunroof onto my exposed neck. It would have been better without the gear shift digging into my bladder, but sin—research I corrected—had a price tag.
Sweet…research.
He found a sensitive spot just under my ear and proceeded to nibble there, overpowering the effect of the flakes and the gear shift. My bones dissolved, like an Alka-Seltzer in water, swirling around, tickling my insides with aching pleasure. His mouth moved higher, tasting and tantalizing, on a collision course with my mouth. I pursed my lips in preparation. It seemed like the charitable thing to do.
Instead of lip locking, he looked up, taking away the warm and letting the chill back in. I un-pursed my lips and looked up, too. A fat, wet snowflake landed in my eye.
“It’s snowing.” His voice was a husky murmur, setting off a landslide of shivers along my spine.
“Yes.” I blinked away the water blur. He was quiet, but I could feel his mental wheels starting to crank up. We were that close. This seemed a good time to deny complicity in the embrace. “Could you let me go? The gear shift is giving me another navel.”
His hands fell away. “What—”
Back in my cold seat, I squirmed. “I was just trying to bandage your wound and you got…confused.” That sounded better in my head than it did out loud.
He produced a slight smile and a slight dimple. “What happened to the van?”
“They left. This bald guy in a bathrobe scared them off with a shotgun.”
“I see.” He didn’t sound like he did, but that didn’t stop him from reaching for the keys. “Let’s get out of here.”
I covered his hand.
“This time I drive. I’m more likely to stay conscious.” We traded places the usual way, though the walk around the car cost him. He faded out on me before I got the car started. When I backed out of the driveway I saw a police cruiser turn the corner ahead of us, which could explain why the minivan was nowhere to be seen. That didn’t stop me from checking all possible directions during the endless drive to the hospital, all the time praying my underwear would hold out.
I was so busy checking for danger, I missed my turn and had to backtrack to the hospital from a different direction. Even then I almost didn’t see the minivan lurking in the shadows near the emergency room door, positioned to cover the direction we would have come if I hadn’t muffed it.
I don’t know how they knew that he’d been injured, maybe he’d left a blood trail in the house. I just knew we’d never make it inside those
doors.
* * * *
It would never have occurred to me to take him to my vet if I had another option. But I’d watched enough TV to know how dangerous hospitals are when you’re being stalked by killers.
I met Mike Lang when I adopted Addison—over the stringent objections of my mother. She doesn’t like anything that licks its butt or smells hers. Mike doesn’t mind either of these things. He’s easy going and a bit like his doggy patients, large and shaggy with dark eyes, a slow, deep voice and endless patience.
He needed that patience when he got me and my dog. I’m the first dog owner in our family. Not a natural at dog owning, I had a lot of questions which Mike answered without any indication that he thought they were dumb. I like that in a man.
He’s also patient with the strays I have a bad habit of picking up and bringing to him. I try to stop, but he doesn’t make it easy. He attached his practice to his house, so I know right where to find him. Though I’ve never brought him a stray this late before. Or this particular breed.
The heat from my passenger’s nibbling had faded, leaving me feeling cold and not too steady on my pins when I scrambled out of the car in front of Mike’s house. I retrieved my jacket from the back seat and pulled it on for the walk to Mike’s door. After pressing the bell, I sagged against the door frame and took a brief nap.
“Stan?”
I opened my eyes to find Mike towering over me, his hairy legs planted like twin tree trunks. He was wearing an elegant robe that opened to expose dark, curling chest hair all the way to his navel. I averted my gaze from the vee because I was already in a weakened condition.
“Do you know what time it is?”
I shook my head, feeling a strange detachment. “Not a clue.”
Mike’s eyes narrowed and he grabbed my chin, turning my face towards the mellow porch light. He rubbed a thumb across my temple, then examined the dark smudge it had acquired. I looked at it, too.
“Blood? Is Addison hurt?”
“No—” I hesitated, not quite sure where to start. The beginning wasn’t good. The middle was worse and the ending…
He gave a huge sigh, almost breaching the fragile closure of his robe. I’d never noticed what a nice chest he had. Course I’d never seen it uncovered until now.
“If you don’t stay away from strays, you’re going to get hurt.”
“No kidding.”
“Where is this stray of yours?”
“In Rosemary’s car. Though there’s something I should mention—”
He moved away, his long legs using up the distance between his door and Rosemary’s car. I trotted after him like an apologetic mongrel.
“I just hope it’s not rabid.” Mike bent and grabbed the door handle.
The door opened, the interior light throwing a ghastly glow on the man slumped in the seat. His dark coat and darker suit jacket were open, giving us both an unobstructed view of my no longer white underwear and his no longer white shirt. Scarlet trails also dripped from his limp hand onto the concrete between Mike’s feet.
I smiled weakly. “Pretty sure he’s not rabid.”
* * * *
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this!” Mike’s face was an unfamiliar grim as he eased Kelvin Kapone-with-a-K onto the examining table.
“I’m sorry, Mike, but I couldn’t take him to the hospital in this condition. They’d have killed him.”
Mike looked at me for a moment. Opened, then closed his mouth, clearly struck dumb by my masterful logic. I guess, I decided with a spurt of pride, I wasn’t as tired as I felt.
He switched on the harsh, overhead light and turned to his new patient. Since this was my first opportunity to see my passenger in good light, I turned toward him, too. I half expected to be disappointed, but even with the color gone from his face and his chest covered in blood, he didn’t disappoint. Broad shoulders, lean hips, good bones and taut flesh in an attractive package.
His hair was more blond than I’d thought, his skin lightly tanned, as if he’d just come back from a sunny climate. His mouth—I realized I was rubbing my neck where his mouth had been and yanked my hand down. What kind of Baptist checks out an unconscious man? My mother had raised me to be Fundamental, not elemental.
Mike laid bare the wound. He looked up, his face grim. “This is a bullet wound.”
I tried to look surprised. I don’t think I succeeded.
“You’re telling me you didn’t know?”
I avoided his gaze. “I didn’t see him get shot, though I am aware people were shooting at him.”
“Oh. And that makes a difference?”
“No.” I shook my head, feeling an attack of profound coming on, but I was in no condition to stop it. “Life is just too weird. I mean, little tiny things, like a simple phone call can just send your life spinning right off the track.”
“What?”
I stared at him owlishly. “Do you know that if Mrs. Macpherson hadn’t gotten the flu, we’d both be snug in bed right now and…” And I would never have met Kelvin Kapone-with-a-K. Funny how that seemed worse than getting shot at.
Mike’s expression lightened. “Snug in bed…together?”
I gave him the Look.
“Or did you mean the boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” Darn it.
He looked pleased. “So what is he?”
“What is he?” My eyes widened, my mouth opened, I hesitated, and then shrugged, trying to act casual. “He’s Kelvin…” It didn’t seem wise to mention the Kapone-with-a-K part. Mike would probably have the same reaction to the name I’d had. “…my friend. Kelvin. That’s who. My friend…”
“…Kelvin,” Mike finished, looking suspicious. I didn’t blame him.
“Yes. He’s my friend.”
I tried to look innocent, but it didn’t work either, so I turned and picked up the bloody suit jacket Mike had tossed on the floor. The fine dark wool was as soft as baby skin and gave off a faint whiff of something exotic, as if it routinely went places I could only dream about.
“Do you really know this guy?”
“I don’t know him well.” I felt as defensive as if he were my mother. “It’s just that, well, I met him recently, after choir practice. Church choir practice.”
When being deceptive, it’s better to be truthfully deceptive.
I gave the coat a hearty shake, releasing a tiny shower of white cards. Business cards? I knelt down, swept them into a tidy pile and gathered them up.
“So what does this guy do, when he’s not getting shot?”
The cards fanned across my hand. They all bore the name Kelvin Kapone. It really was with a “K.” But each card seemed to be for a different business or job. Import-export, travel agent, engineer—
“Portable toilet sales?” I let the words out involuntarily. In the corner was a sketch of a little tiny outhouse. “Potties-Are-Us?”
Mike looked surprised, then pleased. Maybe it was a guy thing, a vet being higher on the pecking order than a toilet salesman. I shoved the cards back in the pocket, folded the jacket and lay it across a metal chair, my gaze returning to the man lying still on the table. It didn’t take that many brain cells to know the one thing he wasn’t was a portable toilet salesman. Whatever I’d gotten mixed up in, it had nothing to do with bodily functions. At least not that kind.
He was pale. A piece of his hair had fallen forward and now curled, appropriately enough, into a question mark. I wanted to smooth it back and take his hand, but I didn’t have the right or the necessary nerve.
“Is he going to be all right?”
“It looks worse than it is. The bullet just raked the surface of the ribs.” Mike was quiet for a moment, then burst out, “I can’t believe I’m saying this. This man was shot!”
“I know, I can’t believe it either.” If we’d made it into the hospital, I’d be trying to explain all this to a policeman and I didn’t have a clue what all this was about. And now I’d involved Mike, too
. “I suppose you have, like some hypo—whatever oath to report this?”
“Vet’s don’t take the Hippocratic oath, but I do have to file a report if he has rabies.”
I gave him another Look.
“We’re both culpable if we don’t report a crime!”
“I know that. I just think he should report his own crime. He knows more about it than I do. I’m Jane Innocent Bystander here.”
Mike stared at me, then gave another one of those robe popping sighs, but he was behind the table so I didn’t have to avert my gaze.
“Then I’d better get him fixed, hadn’t I?”
I couldn’t help myself. “Fixed? Isn’t that a little drastic?”
“Why don’t you go do something?” He tried to sound annoyed, but I could see the twinkle creep back into his eyes.
“Like mop up Rosemary’s car?”
“Please.”
* * * *
There was a flashlight in the glove compartment. It even worked. I used it to give the outside of the car a once over. It was easy to see the scratches in the dusty surface of the car, impossible to tell if they went through to the paint. I found at least one bullet hole, low on the right side, just above the bumper. I knew there had to be one, maybe two or more.
Inside, it was even harder to assess the damage. The upholstery was dark, so how was I supposed to tell which spots were snow water and which were blood?
It was cold and my hands were turning numb. I pushed the seat forward and scrabbled around until I found my hat and gloves on the floor on top of my purse. My purse? I hadn’t brought my purse, just shoved my driver’s license into my pocket.
I bent to push the purse under the seat. It was an open invitation for theft and I didn’t need to have a smashed window added to my list of car crimes. But when my hand slid across the cheap plastic surface, I hesitated. Rosemary had traded up from plastic years ago. And it was too maroon and small to be my mother’s. On one side was a jagged tear.
I undid the clasp. There was no ID inside, just a shopping list and some coupons, an invitation to a meeting for something called PT-PAC, a typewriter claim ticket issued by Kenyon Business Machines, my ex-in-laws’ company, and a matchbook from the Tandoor Club, which claimed to specialize in Moroccan cuisine and exotic dancers.
The Spy Who Kissed Me Page 3