"One ex-fed to another?" Parker asked.
Scaffe smiled and continued to back away. "Semper fi, right? We soldiers have to stick toget—"
He came to an abrupt stop when the barrel of a gun touched his temple. "Semper fi is the marines, dip shit, and you ain't no marine. I should shoot you for the disrespect alone."
It was Elmo. He looked at the man on the floor, then up at Parker. "I thought I told you to wait for me before you started shooting?"
"My finger slipped."
"Likely story. You always were impatient. And if I didn't know you, I'd think you were a little bit trigger—"
Scaffe suddenly swung an arm back, a blade flashing in his hand. I had no idea where it had come from—his sleeve?—but he buried it in the side of Elmo's neck, then pushed him away and started running.
I screamed as Elmo grunted and grabbed at the knife. He yanked it free and fell to the floor, blood spouting. Parker fired several shots at Scaffe then lunged, sweeping past Olivia Brandon as he dove for his fallen friend.
"No, no, no!" he shouted, and clamped a hand over Elmo's wound. He turned to me. "Get an ambulance out here!"
I nodded and fumbled for my phone, but before I could get it out of my pocket, Olivia Brandon shrieked and sprang forward, tackling me to the floor, her eyes filled with the kind of hot white rage usually reserved for crank heads.
She pinned me down with weight and adrenaline, screaming, "You can't have him! You can't have him! You can't have him! You can't have him!" then raised the drill and squeezed the trigger.
I don't know what kind of drugs this Hollywood crazy was taking, but she needed an antidote, fast.
I struggled to break free, but she was stronger than she looked. The drill bit started spinning, the motor whining again, Ethan's blood dripping in my face as she lowered the bit toward my left eye.
I yelped and bucked beneath her, trying again to shake her loose, but damn if she didn't have me pinned down good. I whipped my head from side to side as the drill bit closed in, the rage in her eyes morphing into glee, and—
—suddenly, thankfully, I heard the sound of metal hitting bone—a chair swinging straight into Olivia Brandon's skull, knocking her sideways. The power drill flew from her hand and landed with a thump on the floor as I scrambled to my feet, expecting to find Parker there—
—but it was Ethan. Ethan. Standing there on his mangled and bloody feet, the chair he'd been sitting on held loosely in one hand.
Then he said, "Sorry, Pooks," and collapsed to his knees.
I wasn't sure what he was sorry for, he had just saved my life, but I couldn't think about that now, I had a phone call to make.
I pulled my cell from my pocket and dialed 911, rushing over to Parker and Elmo as I waited for the line to connect.
EPILOGUE
Days of Future Past
THIRTY
If you're worried about Elmo, don't be.
He lost a lot of blood, but it turned out there was a hospital nearby and the ambulance got there in record time. I'd had to go out to the main gate to wave them inside, but thanks to Parker's magic grip, Elmo held on long enough for the paramedics to get there and stabilize him.
They stabilized Ethan, too, although his life wasn't threatened, only his ability to walk again. The crazy bitch from hell had drilled four holes in his left foot and two in his right.
When the paramedics saw her and Scaffe's partner, who had finally passed out from the pain, they ordered up more ambulances to cart everyone away—including the three thugs we'd neutralized outside.
Scaffe himself was nowhere to be found, and his SUV was gone, but we later spotted blood on the floor near the entrance to the sound stage and knew that one of Parker's bullets must have hit home.
As they carried Ethan into the first ambulance and put him on a gurney next to Elmo, he mumbled something I didn't understand. I climbed in next to him and asked him to repeat it.
The words came out in a croak. "…I told him."
"Him?" I asked. "You mean Scaffe?"
He nodded, weakly. "…I told him where the diamonds are…"
Then he proceeded to tell me and when the cops came—and boy did they come, at least a dozen of them—I told them where they were likely to find the Cat Eater in the not too distant future.
Then more cops came, and the FBI, and we spent the next several hours being split apart and interrogated and intimidated and threatened with prosecution until all the stories had been told.
Contrary to our promise to Wilky, we let them listen to the streaming broadcast and Wilky was immediately taken into custody. Later that day, Scaffe himself was picked up at a strip mall in Sugar Land, where he was caught trying to break into a post office box at EZ Shipping and Mail.
He was dripping blood from a wound in his shoulder.
After the cops reluctantly let us go, we spent the rest of the day at the hospital, holding vigil for Elmo. He had helped us when he didn't have to, and we felt responsible for what had happened to him.
I took a break and went to see how Ethan was doing—knowing that despite everything, I owed him my life. But I was turned away, told that he was still being attended to. The doctor assured me that while his wounds were severe, there wouldn't be any lasting damage and he would walk again.
And he walked all right. Right out the door that very same night, as soon as he was patched up. I don't know how he had managed it in that condition—and with a cop outside his room, no less—but Ethan was a resourceful guy. Maybe he had charmed a nurse into distracting the guard—I don't know. But that seemed the most likely scenario.
I didn't expect to ever see him again.
When we were certain Elmo was out of the woods, we finally went home, very late that night, and headed straight the kitchen, searching for some much needed fuel.
"This hasn't quite been the weekend I was expecting," I said as I foraged through the fridge.
Parker grunted in agreement. "Let's hope they're few and far between."
I found some string cheese and a couple beers and handed him a bottle. "I have a feeling that as long as we're together that may be wishful thinking."
He looked at me. "What do you mean?"
"We seem to invite trouble. Or it sure knows how to find us."
His brows went up. "Hey, don't blame me for any of this, you're the one who likes to live dangerously. And you know how I feel about that."
"Don't start," I said, taking a bite of cheese.
Parker set his beer on the counter and pulled me close, pressing a kiss against my forehead.
He came away frowning.
"What's wrong?"
"You still have some dirt on your face."
We laughed, and I said, "I feel like I'm covered in dirt. Why don't you skip the beer and go start a shower? I'll be up in a minute and you can help me wash it off."
"I like the sound of that."
He started toward the stairs, then stopped and turned. "Oh, by the way, I talked to one of my cop friends before we left the hospital, and guess what?"
"What?"
"You know that P.O. box they caught Scaffe trying to break into?"
"Yeah."
"Your ex-boyfriend lied. It was empty."
We laughed again—I wasn't sure why—then Parker turned and went up the stairs to start a shower.
I put the beers back in the fridge, finished off the cheese, and started to follow, when something on the counter near the fruit bowl caught my eye.
A small, note-sized envelope.
It hadn't been there when we left.
My name was written on it in a nearly illegible scrawl that I remembered as if I'd seen it only yesterday.
Speak of the devil.
Stifling my surprise, I picked up the envelope and saw the faint trace of a bloody fingerprint on the flap. I had no idea how Ethan was functioning in his condition, but it must have taken a lot for him to come here and break into our apartment. I wasn't sure if I should be impresse
d or alarmed.
I ran my finger under the flap, pulled the envelope open and found a folded sheet of paper that I expected to be another Sorry, Pooks.
But I couldn't have been more wrong.
What it said, in Ethan's familiar scrawl, was:
I wasn't lying, Kelsey. I meant every word. I know I don't deserve you, but maybe one day you'll change your mind.
And sitting in the fold of the paper, sparkling up at me in the overhead light…
…was a single two carat diamond.
THANKS FOR READING
PRESENT TENSE
We hope you enjoyed this edition of the Parker & Coe, Love and Bullets series.
Parker & Coe will be back again soon, in Cruel Bounty. In the meantime, if you haven't hand a chance to read their first adventure, Identity Unknown, click here to purchase a copy.
A short excerpt follows.
Identity Unknown
Parker & Coe
No. 1
Excerpt
ONE
The last thing I expected was to get shot at on a city bus.
I like to think of myself as an unassuming girl, one who asks little of the world and is quite content to earn her keep. I do my job, go to school, often smile when I feel like screaming, and generally don't raise too much of a fuss when things aren't going my way.
But dodging bullets was never part of the bargain. Dodging bullets is supposed to be for cops or soldiers or spies or super heroes, not for 24-year-old, fun-loving grad students from Hunter City, Texas.
Of course, dodging bullets was only the start of it all.
I also met Parker that night.
And things quickly went downhill after that.
TWO
It was a Tuesday and Tuesday meant Zumba.
Unfortunately, my boss was late with the revisions on the Sandler appeal, and since I was the lowly office temp, I was the one who had to stick around until the copies had been corrected and prepped for court. Which took all night.
So Zumba was definitely out. But that was fine by me, because I'd loaned my Civic to my BFF Emily, and was stuck using public transpo for the next few days. Getting to the campus gym would have required two transfers and a four block walk, and to be honest, I hadn't been too thrilled about going in the first place.
I'd met Emily in that class just two and a half months earlier, and knew immediately that we'd been separated at birth. We were both natural blondes, had both been through recent break-ups, both loved gorging on smoked gouda and Triscuits, and both held the opinion that snarky jocks driving overpriced sports cars were to be avoided at all cost.
So when Emily's father died and she needed to get to Houston, I didn't hesitate to loan her my car. She was like a sister to me now. The sister I'd never had.
I'd only been in the Great State of Texas for about six months, and had been temping at the Law Offices of Mercer, Klein, Anderson and Bremen for less than two, filling in for a part-time file clerk who had left to have a baby.
So, naturally, all the drudge work came straight to me.
I didn't mind staying late, but with Emily gone, I had no one to call to break the bad news to and that made me feel a little inadequate. Not that I needed some testosterone driven grad student to complete me, but after my breakup with Josh—(or his breakup with me, to be precise)—I was feeling lonely and unappreciated.
I carried that loneliness with me at the end of the night as I gathered up my things, locked the office and headed two blocks north to the nearest bus stop. It was just after eleven p.m. and all I'd had to eat were stale cookies from the break room vending machine, so I was anxious to get home, get some food in me, and settle into bed for a good night's sleep.
The bus arrived on schedule, rolling up to the curb with a loud roar and a hiss, then the doors flapped open and I climbed aboard, not surprised to see it was nearly as empty as my bed at home. The only occupants were the driver—who was blocking out the world with a pair of earbuds (was that even legal?)—and a couple of teenagers planted on the rear seat. Their tongues were so far down each other's throat that a stopped-up nose would surely lead to severe oxygen deprivation.
I watched them with a slight twinge of envy as I made my way to the middle of the bus and sat down, sliding over to the window. There was something beautiful about Hunter City at night, and the thought of watching the lights go by as the rumble of the engine filled my ears was a comforting one. But just as the doors were about to close, someone shouted and a figure stepped into the door well.
My heart kicked up as a guy in his late twenties climbed onto the bus, dropped his coins, and headed down the aisle to find a seat.
Oh. My. God.
The guy—if you could call him just a guy—was broad-shouldered, with narrow swimmer's hips, nicely cut jeans and pair of hands that served as proof that he wasn't a man of leisure. His skin was textured and tanned and well lived in, his short but stylishly unkempt hair framed a face that was David Beckham handsome, and he was tall enough that his head nearly touched the ceiling as he worked his way toward a seat.
I'm not the kind of girl who usually embarrasses herself by openly drooling, but after weeks of self-induced carnal deprivation (save the occasional solo adventure), it took every bit of my waning willpower to keep my chin dry.
He glanced at me as he approached, transmitting an electric charge that rocketed straight through my central nervous system, and if he'd asked me right then and there to engage in the kind of activity that was currently in progress at the back of the bus—well, I'm not entirely sure I would've said no.
Seriously.
He was that good-looking.
But a glance was all it was, showing me the bluest of blue eyes I'd ever seen. Then a moment later he turned and sat, putting his back to me as if I were about as significant as the ad for pest control posted above his seat.
Just for the record, I don't consider myself an unattractive girl. Oh, I have my bad days when I look in the mirror and think my nose could be a little shorter and I could stand to lose a few pounds. I might even consider getting a boob lift now and then, but at the end of the day, I think I look pretty damn good. And to say I didn't feel a bit slighted by this guy's disinterest would be a flat out lie.
But there it was, and there I was, getting all riled up over something that was never going to happen. His obvious disinterest aside, I allowed myself to fantasize a bit, thinking of beaches and bare chests and six-pack abs and sinewy hands that knew just what to do and where to do it.
I was working those images pretty good, thinking I might forego dinner and get reacquainted with my Hitachi Magic Wand tonight, when the guy suddenly turned and looked at me again, his gaze hard and uncompromising.
"Don't get too comfortable, Duncan. We're getting off at the next stop."
I blinked at him.
Say what?
Was he talking to me?
I didn't know anyone named Duncan, so I turned my head to check behind me. But all I saw were the two teenagers still going at it as if nobody else in the world existed.
I was about to throw an "I beg your pardon?" at the guy, when I heard a loud roar just outside my window, and a big black SUV rolled up alongside us.
This, in itself, was nothing out of the ordinary, but what happened next certainly was.
The rear passenger window of the SUV slid downward, revealing a man with very cold eyes who pointed the muzzle of an enormous black gun in my direction.
Holy Jesus.
Someone shouted, "Get down!"—
—then the muzzle flashed and hands grabbed hold of my jacket, yanking me toward the floor, the contents of my shoulder bag spilling everywhere as the window next to me shattered into a million and one pieces.
And in that moment, the world as I knew it changed forever.
We hope you enjoyed this excerpt from
IDENTITY UNKNOWN.
Click here to purchase a copy now.
CONTENTS
Title Pag
e
Copyright
Books by Alana
Present Tense
PART ONE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
PART TWO
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
PART THREE
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
PART FOUR
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
EPILOGUE
THIRTY
Thanks for Reading
Identity Unknown
Present Tense (A Parker & Coe, Love and Bullets Thriller Book 2) Page 11