Dark and Deadly Read online

  The driver looked at her like she was insane. “That’s gunshots, lady.”

  “What? Gunshots?”

  “Gunshots. I’m a South Philly boy, born and raised. If I tell you somebody’s shooting at us, then somebody’s shooting.”

  “Good God!” Torie gasped, frantically looking around.

  “Stay down,” the man hissed. “Cops’re coming but we don’t know where this guy is. He may be gone, but we can’t take a chance.”

  No sooner had the words left his lips, than another snick and pop sounded, and she smelled a hard, sharp scent.

  “Move!” The driver was up and running for the dubious safety of the building. “C’mon, lady!” he yelled over his shoulder. “That hit under the hood, it could blow!”

  Blow? Shit. As in blow up?

  Still dragging her bags, she sprinted after the driver. She stumbled and fell as she passed him, scrambling up to huddle under the metal stairs. Her knees stung, as did her hands, but she dug out her own cell phone. Her fingers were shaking so badly she misdialed four times, but the sound of sirens helped her steady.

  “Paul?” she whispered. “Paul, are you there?”

  She thanked heaven when he picked up. “What’s up, Torie?” he sounded impatient. “Why are you whispering?”

  “Someone shot at us outside the hotel. The driver’s called the police but his car…his car is all—”

  The explosion was enormous. From more than forty feet away, protected by the stairs, she could feel the heat. The noise was a terrible roar.

  “Torie? Torie?” Paul’s voice seemed to be tiny, mouselike and far away. “Torie! Talk to me!”

  “Car blew up,” she squeaked. “Can you—”

  “I’m on my way. Sit tight and don’t talk to the police about anything. Nothing. You hear me?”

  “Hear you.” Oh, God. Someone wanted her dead. Someone wanted to not only ruin her life and destroy her things, but kill her. She’d done the impossible as well.

  She’d called Paul Jameson for help.

  “The devil, you know,” she whispered to herself as she watched the flames engulf the car. “The devil, you know.”

  “Well, we are certainly not happy to see you again, young lady.” The nurse who had been on duty when she came in before greeted her, pulling the curtain closed. “What’s up this time?”

  “Someone, someone shot at the car I was in,” Torie said, her voice hitching. Reaction was setting in. The ambulance arrived before Paul, and the officers and EMTs insisted she be checked out. She’d dragged her luggage to her room, thrown it inside, then gone back downstairs to comply. When they discovered she’d been in the hospital with a concussion, the EMTs loaded her into the ambulance, and sent her to the ER. Torie was too shell-shocked to disagree.

  “Shot at you? Good heavens. And weren’t you in a house fire? Girl, you are not in a happy way, are you?”

  “Nooooo. I feel like I’m in a movie.”

  “A bad one, yeah.” The nurse stepped in to shine a light in her eyes, flicking it to either side. “Do you have any cuts, or bruises? Does your head hurt?”

  “No, but my hands do.” Torie held out her palms, which were scraped and scratched. Her manicure was toast. “I fell when I was running away from the car.”

  The nurse was cleaning her hands when she heard Paul’s voice outside the curtain.

  “Torie?”

  “I’m here, Paul.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “Attorney.”

  “Ah.” The nurse grimaced as she twitched the curtain aside to let Paul in.

  “You okay, Torie? How bad is it?” He directed the last question to the nurse. The nurse’s eyebrows winged up, but she kept her voice level as she answered.

  “She’s got some scrapes on her palms, but there’s no evidence that the concussion has been triggered again, or that she’s in any pain or distress.”

  “Of course she’s in distress,” he argued. “Someone just shot at her.”

  The nurse took a deep breath, shooting Torie a look. “Yes sir, but what I meant was, medically, she’s not in any distress.”

  “Oh, okay.” The reply was lame, even to Torie’s ears. Before she could think anymore about that, however, he stepped to her side. “Who have you talked to, Torie?”

  “No one. I put my stuff away and got in the ambulance. How’s the driver?” This time it was Torie who directed a question to the nurse. “I think he got hit with some flying glass. Is he okay?”

  One more person hurt by her curse.

  “He’s fine. Hasn’t stopped talking on that cell phone, though. Trying to get the insurance company to come in the morning to see the car, get it replaced,” the nurse said as she bent to examine Torie’s palms. She applied a cool gel as she spoke. “This is an antibiotic ointment. It’s also got an analgesic, should take some of the sting out.”

  “He’s an industrious guy,” Paul said of the driver, without taking his gaze from Torie. “And a tough one. It’s also his livelihood. I’m sure he wants to get back out there as soon as possible.”

  “I’m going to get the doctor to stop in so we can release you, Ms. Hagen. And please,” the nurse said, smiling to take the sting from the words, “don’t come see us again, okay?”

  “I’ll do my best.” Torie managed to return the smile, but lost the will for it as soon as the woman disappeared.

  “You didn’t talk to the police? To the EMTs?”

  “No, Paul, I didn’t. You said not to. Besides, I didn’t have time.”

  “That’s good.” He ran a hand through his hair, then dropped it into his pocket to jingle the change that rested there. “We need to get you moved out of that place. Whoever’s after you obviously knows where you’re staying. It isn’t safe for you. Do you have a place you can go tonight?”

  Torie shook her head. “No. I’m not endangering anyone else I know just for a room for the night. I’ll switch hotels if I have to, but I’m not staying with anyone who could get hurt,” she said, thinking of Pam. Pam would be pissed not to be called, but between her interest in Dev and being friends with Torie, Pam was in enough danger.

  Paul looked exasperated. “Just for the night.”

  “No. I’ll find another hotel, or just go back to the one I’m at. Surely whoever it is wouldn’t do it again, in the same night? I mean,” she said as she closed her eyes, thinking about what had happened, “he could have just as easily killed me tonight. He shot the car first, but I was standing outside it, on the sidewalk.”

  “Don’t even think that,” Paul said, gripping her arms. “Much less say it.”

  “What?” Torie was baffled. “Say what?”

  “That you could have been killed.”

  “But…I could have.” Torie stopped. The blazing anger in Paul’s eyes brooked no argument. “Okay. So, maybe you could talk to the police. I’ll call the insurance agent.”

  “Insurance?”

  “I gotta know if I’m covered on the move.”

  “Torie, if it’s a matter of money, I’ll pay.”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s making sure about the house. It’s all connected,” she said, frustrated that she was too tired to make sense. The way she said it made it sound like she was some penny-pinching miser, but the truth was, she was learning that the insurance was tricky on what it covered when it came to the house.

  “The insurance can wait. Don’t bother checking out, just go to another hotel for now. I’ll book the room.”

  Too weary to argue, Torie just nodded. Having gotten that acquiescence, Paul left her alone.

  The beeping and droning of machines, the wails of a baby, and the curses of what sounded like a teenager all closed in on her. She wanted to curl up and go away, leave the ugly reality of what was going on behind. With all that had happened, as bad as it had been, even in college, she’d pushed through it, gone on with her life. This was almost more than she could bear.

  For the first time in her life she understood why someon
e would take Valium or get high on something. Escape. Oblivion seemed pretty appealing because right now, reality just plain sucked.

  Before she could give that any more attention, she heard Paul’s voice arguing with other people.

  “She didn’t see anything.”

  “We’d like to hear that from her, Mister Jameson.”

  “Of course.” Paul’s voice was cold, hard. She knew that distant, professional tone. It was usually directed her way, so she could easily imagine the icy stare that accompanied it.

  “Ms. Hagen? May we come in?”

  Torie nearly laughed at the request. As if there was a door. Right.

  “Sure.”

  The officers introduced themselves, and Paul moved to her side, making his allegiance obvious. “I’ve already given them the names of the officers working on the other cases, Ms. Hagen,” Paul said, fully in the role of professional counsel. “I’ve informed them that you didn’t see anything.”

  Torie didn’t like anyone speaking for her, but in this case, she was grateful. “He’s correct, gentlemen. The only thing I saw was flying glass from the windshield. The only way I knew I was in danger was because of the driver. His quick action saved my life. He told me to get down. There were more shots. When one hit the hood and he said to run, I ran. We both saw the explosion. He said a bullet must have hit the battery. I didn’t see any other people, or cars, or anything. I was just too tired to be paying attention.”

  “Tired?”

  “Ms. Hagen had just returned from a long trip and had been in our offices for a meeting for at least an hour. I arranged for the car to take her back to the hotel. As I mentioned, this is the second attack. Her home is still an unreleased crime scene. You’ll want to talk to Sorrels and Marsden from Arson Investigation.”

  Torie winced at the mention that her home was off-limits, especially to her. It just added insult to injury that the officers were nodding, already familiar with the situation.

  “We’ll confer with the arson team in the morning. In the meantime, Ms. Hagen, we need to ask that you not leave town again. Will you go back to the hotel?”

  It was Paul who answered. “Only long enough to gather some belongings.”

  “We’ll need to know where you are, Ms. Hagen.”

  “You can contact my office.” Paul pushed a higher degree of authority into his tone, handing them his card. “Obviously, your department has been leaking information as it is, given the Black Widow inferences I’ve already seen in the press. I don’t want to give her attacker any further chances to utilize loose gossip to get another shot at her.”

  Torie let the battle of words rage over her head. They were arguing technical points, like boxers, or umpires. She just wanted to go home.

  Which was impossible, of course. Home didn’t exist.

  That thought brought her right back to thinking Valium was a good idea.

  “Excuse me, but I need to get to my patient,” a brisk voice said, as a short dark-skinned man pulled on the curtain. “All of you need to leave.” In the face of his cross-armed stance and obvious medical authority, the police officers cleared out. Their parting shot was melodramatic, like something out of Law & Order.

  “Stay available, Ms. Hagen.”

  “Yeah, right,” Paul muttered, mustering a smile for her behalf.

  “You need to leave, too, sir, unless you are family or her husband,” the doctor stated.

  Paul winced. “No, just her attorney.” To Torie, he added, “I’ll be right outside. I’ll get you where you need to go.”

  She managed a nod, then looked at the doctor.

  “Good, now that they’ve all gone, perhaps you can tell me if your head hurts? Your eyes, are they sensitive to the light?” He flicked the tiny flashlight into her eyes, as the nurse had done. “No? Good. Our lovely Nurse Pickering has dressed your hands, yes? Let me look.” She held out her hands and he peeled back the dressing just a fraction. “Good, good. Now, here is a prescription for a good antibiotic ointment. Some of those scrapes are sure to be painful, but they’ll heal quickly. Probably won’t even need the bandages by day after tomorrow. However, we don’t want infection.” He ripped a paper off and handed it to her. “There. Fill that tomorrow. But for now, get some rest. You look terrible.”

  “Thanks a lot,” she muttered sarcastically, sliding off the table.

  Grinning, he put out a hand, steadied her descent. “You’re welcome. I always try to tell my patients the truth. You need sleep, and probably a good meal. Make him stop and get you something, yes? And wait.” He pulled the curtain, but went behind the nurse’s station, got the nurse to retrieve some tablets. “Take this. It will help you sleep. You won’t need more than one, yes? But get some sleep tonight.”

  He pressed a two-tablet blister pack into her hands. Tylenol Three with codeine. Oh, yeah, she’d sleep. The stuff knocked her out.

  “Thanks, Dr. Paresh.”

  “Most welcome. Now go.” He handed her a sheaf of papers with his signature scrawled along the appropriate lines. “Get out of here before you catch something.”

  The doctor’s humor was appreciated, but Torie couldn’t even muster the energy to laugh. She managed to get out to the waiting area where Paul was talking to the police. He hurried to her. “You okay?”

  “I guess.”

  “Let’s get you out of here.”

  “Mister Jameson,” one of the officers protested. “We need to—”

  “You can talk to her tomorrow, my office. Ten A.M.”

  Paul hustled her out to a sleek Mercedes sedan and, holding open the door, held her purse as she got in. She’d never experienced Paul in this kind of solicitous mode. Gone was the joking or angry man. Here he was all concern.

  “I made a reservation for you. It’s under my name for now. I don’t want anyone to be able to call around and find you.”

  “Okay.”

  She managed to answer his other scant questions, but was worn out by the time they pulled up under the portico of the Hilton.

  “Wait here.”

  Like she could move.

  Paul took care of the mundanities of checking her in. When he came back, he helped her out of the car and got her settled in her room.

  “Give me your key to the other room at the Suites. I’ll go get your bags from your trip. If you want to, go on to bed. I’ll just set them inside the door.”

  “You’ll need a key.”

  “I got one for this room, too.”

  “Oh.”

  “Go on. Get yourself to bed, Torie.”

  At this point, she couldn’t find words to protest. She just nodded and headed for the bathroom. For once, she didn’t mind following someone else’s orders. With everything topsy turvy in her world, she just wanted to sleep.

  Paul eased the door closed on the hotel room. He wished he could lock it from the outside, giving Torie another level of protection. Whipping out his PDA as he walked, he began texting, then calling the people he needed. With that done, he headed to the Extended Suites to get Torie’s things.

  A crowd of bystanders lurked beyond the yellow tape at the hotel, most of them holding beer bottles or soft drink cans. They were trading theories about the car, and what had happened.

  “Yeah, I heard it blow,” one young man drawled. “Didn’t know it was a car though. Sounded like something bigger.”

  “Uh huh,” his companion replied. “I didn’t hear it, had my ’phones on.” He pointed to the dangling ear-buds attached to his slim music player. “Saw the flash. It was awesome.”

  Paul wanted to smack them both for being so nonchalant about what had happened. Another part of him reasoned that they had no way of knowing that it had been gunfire, or that his…client had nearly been killed. He had to keep thinking of her as his client, not as anything else. She’d looked so vulnerable, so young.

  The memory of her, younger and equally vulnerable, rose to haunt him. He’d rescued her then. History seemed to be repeating itself.
<
br />   “Jameson?”

  Paul turned to see the same officer from the hospital standing by the curb.

  “Yep. Any new info?”

  “No, but we’re pinpointing where the shots came from. We’ll get the crime techs to pull the bullets out.”

  Looking at the burned car, Paul was dubious. Then again, you never knew what forensics could do. “Be interesting to see if they match the gun that killed my friend.”

  “Nah. I looked it up. Your church friend was killed with a small caliber weapon. This had to have more oomph.”

  “Looks like both my friends are targets.”

  “You’d better be careful, too, Jameson.” Another voice joined the conversation. It was Tibbet, the detective who’d broken the news of Todd’s death. “Looks like someone doesn’t care much for your friends.”

  “You’re right, Tibbet. And that worries me.”

  “Where’s the woman, Hagen? Wasn’t she here? They keep her at the hospital?” Tibbet was asking his officer, but Paul answered.

  “Treated and released. I moved her to another hotel.”

  Tibbet took out his notebook. “Glad she’s back in town. We’ll need to contact her in the morning. Where can I reach her?”

  “My office after ten.”

  Tibbet frowned. “I need her whereabouts, Jameson.”

  Paul shook his head. “I don’t think so, Tibbet. Doesn’t seem like your people can keep anything quiet. Who let the info out about what’s happened to her, eh? No one should know that. I think you’re the only one. Haven’t you and your people totally compromised any effort at protecting her?” Paul stepped in towards the man angry now on Torie’s behalf. “I brought her back for you, but for what? So she can be hounded by the press? Do you know what it took to get her out of the airport?”

  “Act of Congress?” Tibbet quipped. “Look, Jameson, I don’t make the rules, nor do I dictate the Freedom of Information Act.”

  “Bullshit. Information in an ongoing investigation isn’t subject to the FIA. You can’t tell me someone didn’t leak that, because I know better. Only Torie and your staff knew about the guys she dated, and what happened to them. And how could The Inquirer have gotten all their names without access to someone in your office?”