Page 79 of Shattered Secrets

Ice raced down Scarlet’s spine.

She reared back as if the man had struck her. She could only stare at him in shock.

He groaned again, and she realized she’d let up on the pressure. Correcting her mistake, she found her voice. “What did you call me?”

“Don’t matter. They want her.” His body seized, and his eyes nearly rolled into the back of his skull. When the shaking stopped, he whispered, “They blame you, and they’re coming. Not long now. They know. One for one?—”

The front door to the diner burst open, and two EMTs—Nora and Colton—rushed in.

“We’ve got it from here, Scarlet,” Nora said, gently pushing her aside.

Someone gripped her by the elbows and eased her to standing. She didn’t know who. Didn’t care. Her mind was in chaos.

She glanced back at the man. They’d put an oxygen mask on his face, and his eyes were shut. All the blood rushed from her head. She reached out and grabbed the nearest person.

“I got ya, darling,” Ray said, wrapping his arm around her waist.

Ray and Martha continued to speak to her, but Scarlet didn’t hear. The only noise in her ears was the erratic thumping of her panicking pulse. Because she’d realized something. The man being attended to, the one Nora and Colton were loading onto a backboard?

He was the mystery man who’d been looking for her.

“Honey, are you okay?” Martha’s voice sounded far away, like she was at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

Scarlet shook her head.

Sienna.

The man had called her Sienna.

Vomit surged up her throat, and she slapped her hands over her mouth.

“Matt,” she croaked, battling the nausea. “I need Matt.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“Pause it,” Matt instructed Bean. The figures on her left monitor froze. “There.” He pointed at the woman carrying a black duffle bag. Turning to Bean’s center right monitor, he pointed again. The same woman, but eight minutes earlier. “Look at the duffle bag. Look how in the later video, the handles are strained.”

“Holy shit,” Bean said with a sigh. “She took the kid out of the house in a damn duffle bag?”

Matt frowned. It never failed to amaze him how sick and fucked up some people were. “It’s looking like it.”

“That’s absolutely fu?—”

A sharp knock interrupted Bean, and the door to her office swung open.

Matt’s heart stopped.

Gavin stood in the doorway with Scarlet tucked against his side. She was wearing her pink waitress uniform, but the entire front was soaked in blood.

Matt was in front of her on his next breath.

“Scarlet, baby,” he murmured as she threw herself into his arms. “Sweetheart, are you hurt?”

“The blood’s not hers,” Gavin said.

He met his friend’s gaze over Scarlet’s head, silently imploring Gavin to continue.

“A man was stabbed multiple times in the abdomen. Witnesses confirmed he stumbled into the diner, presumably for assistance.” Gavin nodded to Scarlet. “She was the first to help. Ray called 9-1-1 while she applied pressure to his wound. The blood is the guy’s.”

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