Page 109 of Dead Girl Running

“When it comes to Mara, you’re not the only fool. She played me.” Kellen’s temper rose, and that seemed to ease her breathing. “I never even suspected…” She turned to Max. “If she wakes up, promise you’ll hit her again.”

“If she wakes up, this time I get to hit her,” Carson said.

Kellen indicated at the body sprawled in the entry. Nils. “Is he alive?”

Max checked for a pulse, lifted his eyelid, slid his fingers along his neck. “He’s alive.”

She was more than a little angry with Nils, and more than a little worried at his continued unconsciousness. She told Max, “He’s not one of the bad guys.”

“I know. But he made me think that you and—” Max caught himself in midsentence. Going to the couch, he grabbed a throw and tossed it on Nils. “She hit him a good one. He’s out cold. Concussion. When we get the power back, we’ll get him to the hospital. They’ll check him out. He’s going to have a headache tomorrow.”

“You sure know a lot about head wounds.”

“I learned everything I could about them when you…” He choked.

She saw a tear.

No, don’t do that.She eased herself into a more comfortable position against the wall.

Max hurried over and knelt at her side. “Can you move?”

She wiggled her left hand, moved the uninjured fingers of her right hand. The little finger was swelling, throbbing and crooked, and she used her other hand to crunch it back in place. It was still broken, but as the joint slid back into place, the relief was immediate.

“Your legs?” Max insisted.

That took more concentration, but at last she shifted her feet, pulling them toward her, then using them to leverage herself into a sitting position.

He watched, offering no assistance, and if ever a man showed terror, it was him. She knew why. He feared she had survived, only to live a life without dance, without speed, without motion. Unlike hers, his memory of her time spent unconscious and recovering in the hospital would be whole and unbearable. He feared history was repeating itself.

“I’m not paralyzed.” She put her bruised and broken hand to her shattered chest. “I am in a lot of pain. Do you have an aspirin on you?”

He sighed in relief. “Stay still. Stay quiet. We’ll get a helicopter here to lift you out.” He pulled out his phone, tried to dial and swore virulently. “Someone put some kind of damper on the system.”

“Mitch did it.” She took a breath. “Birdie killed Mitch. And I did.”

Carson said, “I don’t know much about electronics, but I know where the server center is and I can try to figure out how Mitch sabotaged it.” He moved like a man who’d been bound and tortured, like a man in pain. But his eyes sparked, his forehead scowled, his mouth sneered and, at the same time, gave the tiniest twist of pain. Kellen could see why the man had won his Academy Awards. He knew how to express emotion, and he knew the right emotion to express.

“There’s a CB radio in Annie’s office,” Kellen said.

“Right. Good! CB radio first. Then restore communications.”

“Then—” she met his eyes “—my friend Birdie…”

“I know Birdie. She has driven for me.” Carson spoke too quickly. “What’s wrong with her?”

“She was hurt. Badly. I sent Sheri Jean to her, but…can you check…?”

“I’ll check. She’s too wonderful to lose.” As Carson made his exit, she wanted to clap in appreciation of his ability to show her her own face, her own feelings.

Max disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a roll of gauze. “Let’s see what we can do with this.” Gently, he wrapped her little finger to her ring finger to hold it in place.

“Better,” she whispered.

He fetched a cashmere throw off the couch, and as he wrapped it around her, he whispered, “Do you remember?”

As soon as he spoke, that sense of being in two places returned: the cool metal of the pistol, the man springing at her assailant, the blank nothingness of…of what?

She broke a sweat, a fine sheen all over her body.

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