Sorority Secrets (Campus Love and Murder Sorority Eyes Romance Book 2)

by Ciara Christie

  I went back to Michael. I felt his pulse. For a moment I couldn’t find it. Then after ten seconds a faint tremor appeared on his neck.

  If I didn’t get him a blood transfusion he was going to die. Only thing was, that was beyond my knowledge and experience.

  NINETEEN

  Alice’s Journal

  My only hope of keeping Michael alive was to take a crash course on blood transfusion. I needed an Internet connection. I found an office on the ground floor with a laptop sitting on an old rustic desk. I powered it up and searched.

  The lack of blood and massive dehydration were the two most likely things that would kill Michael. Not of course counting any infection from the bullet.

  I dragged Michael to the small hospital room where I left him on a gurney.

  I removed his shirt with a pair of surgical scissors. I cut away the tourniquet. His blood around the wound had clotted. The bullet was embedded deep into his shoulder. It would have to wait until I’d begun the re-hydration and blood transfusion.

  Following the directions on the Internet I inserted a plastic tube into a vein in his arm. From the end dangled two separate lines. One for blood, the other for saline.

  With a direct line to his blood stream now available I needed to flush it clean with a syringe of saline. Ten millimeters did the trick. It was all I had time for.

  I ripped open a white paper package that contained a blood transfusion set. It had two lines. One for the blood and one for saline. I closed the clamp on one line and spiked a bag of saline with the line. Once line and saline bag were attached I hung the bag from a rack. I then removed the clamp on the saline line and allowed gravity to force the solution to flow down the line. Once it began to drip at the far end I waited until it half-filled a filter tube.

  With the filter primed I now needed to attach the line to Michael’s arm. I set it to run at twenty five milliliters an hour and attached the saline line into Michael’s arm.

  Now to find a blood bag. I turned the medical room upside down. Nothing. Now what?

  I remembered we shared the same blood type. I inserted the blood line tube of the transfusion set into the vein in one of my arms. I set the flow rate at one hundred and twenty five milliliters to begin with and connected the blood line to Michael’s blood line.

  As my blood flowed out of my body and into Michael I sat on the edge of his bed. I began to clean around the wounds in his arm and shoulder without disturbing the clotted blood.

  I scrubbed my hands vigorously for a couple of minutes. I decided one of the bullets might be too dangerous to remove. The other was wedged deep into muscle and nowhere near a major blood vessel.

  I sterilized a pair of homeostatic clamps and closed off the blood vessels around the shoulder wound. The tail of the bullet was visible. I found a pair of talons and clamped them around the bullet. I twist it and pulled.

  I sowed him up as my head began to swim. Feeling faint I sat back down on the bed for the next few hours, forcing myself to stay awake.

  I contemplated my next move and decided it was all entirely up to Michael and whether or not he survived the next twenty four hours.

  TWENTY

  Alice’s Journal

  After six hours I came off the drip. As for food, there was a pantry of tinned stuff. I didn’t have the energy to venture into the nearest town. That would have to wait for a day or two.

  I checked in on Michael. He was peacefully asleep, with no apparent side effects. Certainly no fever and fingers crossed, no infection had set in, so far.

  I considered phoning Robyn for help, but I had to work through how best to extract the information I needed from Michael and having the proverbial cavalry charge in to rescue us might back fire and cause Michael to clam up for good.

  First things first. Get the lay of the land, by searching maps on the Internet and then explore the grounds, including the house. Once I felt I had a fairly good idea of the nearby villages and towns, I went exploring the house itself.

  I found a key ring of sturdy keys hanging on a hook in the kitchen.

  It was a rambling three story property, at least several hundred years old. It was simply, tastefully decorated with pastel colors and sturdy antique furniture.

  Preserved, it seemed, to appear like a working farmhouse. Almost captured in time and bottled. I found what I thought might be Michael’s childhood bedroom.

  It had posters on the walls of soccer heroes. Otherwise it was simply decorated and the most striking feature was the polished wood floor and the small but extremely comfortable bed.

  I opened the large closet. A long rack of shirts and nothing much else awaited me. I selected a soft cotton rustic shirt that I thought would look good on Michael and closed the door.

  On my travels I came across a locked room on the ground floor. I tried all the keys on the kitchen key ring one by one. But none of them opened the door. Suddenly my interest was piqued more than a little.

  While Michael slept this might be my one and only opportunity to discover whatever secret lay hidden behind that door. But how did I enter?

  I went back to the small office on the ground floor. I opened one of the window shutters to let in light. I sat down in front of the sturdy antique desk and tried all the drawers. They were mostly empty, but for a few reams of printer paper. I looked about. There were a few original paintings on the primrose yellow walls. Idyllic country scenes painted by an unknown artist who signed her name simply as Catherine X.

  I needed a fresh angle in which to investigate. I did an Internet search on local artists by that name and found only one entry referring to a local artist now deceased. Apparently there was a gallery in the nearby town with a permanent exhibition.

  I made a mental note to visit it. But having distracted myself from the current problem in hand I now turned back to it. I took another look at the desk. Pulled out all the drawers and looked them over. Nothing stuck to the backs or underneath. I replaced the drawers.

  I then climbed off my knees and looked about the room again. I took the first painting of two boys and girl splashing about in a river and lifted it off its wall hook. I turned it over and found taped to the back of the canvas a house key.

  “Voila!” I said proudly to myself.

  Carefully, I removed the key so as not to disturb the canvas and replaced the picture on the wall. I then went to the mystery door and slid the key in the lock.

  That’s when I heard a floor board creak. It could only be Michael. I sincerely doubted he’d want me poking my nose in the mystery room so I quickly relocked it and slipped the key into my jeans pocket. I headed back to the kitchen just as Michael turned the corner and faced me.

  He wore a blanket over his bare shoulders.

  “What are you doing here?” he said.

  I didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Then I had to remind myself that I was confronting a gunshot victim who had suffered significant blood loss and could well be experiencing further trauma.

  The gentle approach was what seemed necessary. “What’s the last thing you remember?” I asked.

  He rubbed the bandage I’d placed on his forehead hours earlier.

  “Did we drive all the way here from Paris?”

  “By ‘we’ I think you mean me.”

  He shrugged as he leaned against the corridor wall for support. “You called out the local doctor?”

  “No.”

  He frowned and pointed at the tube in his arm. “Then you’re responsible for this?”

  “It’s called saving your life and you are most welcome.”

  His pale face flushed hot and gave him the first sign of health I’d seen in almost a day.

  “You should have left me,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You shouldn’t have got involved in this, Alice,” he said. “I don’t need your help.”

  I felt stung by his reaction. “Excuse me, Mister, but what part of leaving you to die is so damn attractive to you?”
>
  He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant, Alice. I’m sorry, but you’re a fool to be involved in my business. You should go. Now.”

  “I didn’t exactly have a choice, did I? And if your memory needs refreshing we were fleeing from a gun crazy kick-ass martial arts psycho ninja bitch from Hell and her two trigger happy cop friends. Ring any bells?”

  “All I’m saying is I don’t want you to...”

  His eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped down the wall. I leapt at him and caught his head in my heads before he smacked it against the hard wood flooring.

  “Feeling dizzy?”

  He groaned and murmured an affirmative. He rested his head against my breasts, and I felt a strange tingling sensation in my nipples as I cradled this tall athletic and virile man who had been brought to his knees.

  “You lost a lot of blood,” I explained. “I had to replace it.”

  “With whose blood?” he asked.

  “You see anybody from the neighborhood clamoring to give theirs?”

  “Your blood?”

  “Who else?”

  “I guess I should thank you.”

  “Bit late for that.”

  He chuckled and placed his full pouting lips close to one of my stiffening nipples. I wanted him there, but equally I didn’t want him to know how much I wanted his lips on my breasts. In fact, I wasn’t comfortable in myself with this new found knowledge of my feelings for him.

  “Alice, I didn’t mean what you thought I meant when I chastised you.”

  “Yes you did. You like your independence and fiercely protect it from anyone. I get it. I’m the same.”

  He lifted his head from my breasts and I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment.

  He looked me in the eyes. “I simply meant I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Hurt by who?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “From where I’m sat, we’ve got nothing but time.”

  He sat up. “Help me stand, would you?”

  With my help we got him on his feet. With his arm over my shoulder I led him back to the kitchen where he sat at a large oak table.

  He shivered.

  “Hungry, Michael?”

  He nodded. “I could eat a horse.”

  “Seriously?”

  “You’ve never tasted horseflesh?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t tell if you’re pulling my leg,” I said.

  “It’s like a cross between beef and chicken.”

  I shot him a look.

  “There will be no equines on the menu while I’m chef of this house,” I said and pushed across the table a couple of tins.

  “On the menu today,” I said, “we have a choice of canned peaches or the house specialty of canned meatloaf.”

  He pursed his lips together. “My God, where did you get such culinary delights? Can we have both?”

  I nodded and with a fake chef voice said, “One peach meatloaf for the spoilt rich brat at the end table. Ten minutes suit you, sir?”

  He laughed until he choked. After the coughing fit subsided he looked up from his seat with glistening eyes. He sat before me with the blanket at his feet and his naked torso on display.

  To say he was athletic was an understatement. His powerful physique made me weak at the knees.

  “Put on the shirt,” I said.

  He struggled to lift one arm. “I’ll need some help, nurse.”

  I helped him dress. “Just so you know, this doesn’t get you out of doing the dishes, Mister.”

  “The Maddox men don’t do dishes,” he said.

  I knew he was trying to bait me. Probably the last thing to die in him would be his arrogant streak that I loathed.

  “Do the Maddox men also starve?” I asked.

  He looked at me blankly.

  “Then the current Maddox head of the family does dishes,” I said.

  He smiled.

  “Where have you been all my life, Alice?”

  I felt my skin burn. I concentrated on opening one can with an antique can opener. “What?”

  “Name any of my restaurants,” he said, “and I’ll make you head chef there at once.”

  I opened up the can lid and threw a peach at him. “I resign. My boss is a bully who demands my blood every day.”

  “Ouch,” he cried. “I guess I deserved that one.”

  “I haven’t started yet, Mister Maddox.”

  He sat patiently as I heated up the meatloaf in an oven that made no sense to me until he explained it was a wood burning stove common in these parts.

  I set the table around him and half an hour later, when the peaches were all gone, I served the meatloaf.

  He’d found an old bottle of red wine for the meal. Uncorked it and poured two glasses.

  “Wine with your meatloaf?” he asked.

  “Is it vintage?” I asked. “After all I only drink the best with my meatloaf.”

  “For you madam,” he said in a connoisseur’s mock voice, “only the best is served.”

  We chinked glasses.

  Through the raised wine glasses he held my gaze just a little too long.

  “Here’s to more fun times,” he said. “But less bullet holes.”

  I swallowed hard. “I’ll drink to that.”

  I let the wine go down in three hard swallows. It was very smooth. “I needed that.”

  “So I see,” he said with a bemused look and poured me another.

  I watched it rise to half a glass. “That’s enough, thanks.”

  “The woman with no limits to her talents finally knows her limitations,” he said.

  “Just eat your meatloaf before you end up wearing it,” I said.

  He laughed and skewered his meatloaf with his fork.

  I watched him devour his half of the meatloaf and as he finished his last piece, I said, “I have a confession, Michael. You’re not going to like it.”

  His smiling face dropped. “What?”

  “I forgot to check the use-by date on the cans.”

  He shrugged. “I was going to mention the first peach tasted a little furry.”

  “I meant the meatloaf.”

  Without dropping a beat he said, “Got a pen and paper?”

  “For what?”

  “To dash out my obituary, of course. Saved from bullets, brought down by meatloaf.”

  We both laughed.

  “Also, I’ll have to change my will,” he said. “I hereby bequeath all my ill-gotten billions to the woman who stole my life.”

  “I don’t want your money,” I said just a little too forcefully. “But there is something you can do for me.”

  He shrugged, “Don’t think I quite have the stamina to accommodate you yet, Alice.”

  “Not that,” I said flushing hot once again.

  “Then what?”

  I pushed my empty dish at him. “As head chef I hereby nominate you as number one dishwasher.”

  He groaned. “I guess I should concede you that one.”

  He washed the dishes in the sink as I took the first opportunity to admire the view beyond the kitchen window. Though I was distracted by the view of his tight ass in those perfectly custom made jeans accentuating every sculptured of his strong muscles. I found myself thinking of his supremely toned and naked, throbbing glory in the hotel suite.

  “Done,” he said and turned to catch my eye. “Enjoying the view? Great isn’t it?”

  I swallowed hard. “I would be if the idiot dishwasher would kindly get out of the way.”

  We both laughed.

  A heavy silence grew between us.

  I sighed. “So, Michael, perhaps you better explain what we’re doing here?”

  “We’re just chatting like old friends.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He sighed. “Men are after something I stole from my former company.”

  “They appear to want this thing back real bad. Must be worth a lot. Considered returning it to th
em?”

  “In the wrong hands it’s very dangerous,” he said. “And theirs are most definitely the wrong hands.”

  I thought about that. “It doesn’t sound like a cure for the common cold.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Then what?”

  “The cure for the entire human condition.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m referring to the extinction of the human race. A virus that can be tailored to destroy any pre-programmed D.N.A. sequence. A million people or just one. A viral bullet if you like.”

  This was far from what I was led to believe. I suddenly felt an urge for another glass of wine and poured one out.

  “And you have it?”

  “I do.”

  “Here?”

  “In person.”

  “And your company designed this Armageddon formula?”

  “It was designed as a way to eradicate viral disease once and for all. A magic bullet to the world’s worst killer diseases. But apparently it also has military uses too.”

  “Why steal it? Why not just destroy it?”

  “Rightly or wrongly I still believe it can be a force for good.”

  “But you’ll most likely be dead before you can use it to help people.”

  “Most likely.”

  “And that doesn’t scare you?”

  “It scares me, but it’s the right thing to do.”

  “Not if the wrong hands get a hold of it. And from personal experience I’d say they almost did. Three times.”

  “Would you like to see it?”

  “Sure.”

  Michael stood and offered his hand. “Follow me.”

  He led me to his office.

  “Nice paintings,” I said. “Who’s the artist?”

  “A friend of mine.”

  “Local? I’d love to meet her.”

  “She died,” he said dryly and reached for the table lamp. “Close the shutters, we need it to be dark.”

  “Huh?”

  I complied. Once the shutters were fastened I turned back to him.

  Michael unbuttoned his shirt and let it slip down his arms.

  “What the Hell, Michael?”

  “Patience. You want to see it or not.”

  “Are we talking about the same thing here?”

  “Relax, I don’t have the energy even if I wanted to jump your bones. Which I don’t.”