Page 47 of The Daring Times of Fern Adair
“No, it’s okay. I…I have a cab.”
Though she’d taken far longer than she’d anticipated, the cab was still sitting along the curb. Cal walked behind her out the front door. The driver had gotten out and was leaning against the checkered strip along the passenger door, arms crossed. When he saw Fern, he jumped to and put out his cigarette.
She forced herself not to glance back at Cal as her heels clicked along the sidewalk. If all went well, this would likely be the last time she saw him. She didn’t want him to think she was hesitant about it. She shouldn’t have been hesitant about it at all.
The driver opened the door to the backseat. Fern lifted her head at the squealing of tires down the street. The roar of an automobile engine. A loud, single pop, like a party balloon pierced with a needle. Then more pops, and Cal’s shouts coming from behind her.
“Fern! Fern, get down!”
Something hard collided into her back, shoving her forward and onto the concrete.
13
Her elbow jammed into the sidewalk, and her head smacked hard as more snapping noises—gunfire,Fern sluggishly realized—erupted all around her. She screamed at the short cracking bursts, at the pinging of metal and shattering glass. A heavy body pinned her to the ground; it was Cal. She could trace his cologne when she dragged in a breath.
The engine of the car driving by roared again, the tires peeling as they spun, and the gunfire stopped. The only sounds were the ringing in her ears and Cal’s voice.
“Fern? Damn it! Open your eyes.”
She had them squeezed shut. When she opened them, she saw the running board of the cab and sparkling, broken glass on the curb next to her face. Her cloche too. Cal took her shoulders and rolled her onto her back. His black hair hung down across his forehead, and blood smeared his right cheek.
“You’re hurt,” Fern said, her throat cinched tight.
“Are you hit?” he asked, his hands patting her down.
“No, no.” Although she couldn’t feel any part of her body. Except her head, which throbbed with bright pain.
Shouting came from all around them. Screams.
“Get up, come on,” he said, breathless as he pulled Fern upright. Her shoes were only half on her feet. As she wiggled her heels back into them, she saw the cab driver and retched. He lay sprawled on the sidewalk. Blood smeared his shirt; his body had been riddled with bullets. A chunk of his forehead from his brow to his temple was missing.
“Don’t look, Fern. Don’t look.” Cal spun her away from the driver toward the building’s front doors. The panels of glass had shattered. The blare of sirens tunneled into her ears as people along the sidewalk slowly closed in on the gruesome scene.
Immediately, Cal stumbled. Fern clutched at him, trying to keep him on his feet. That’s when she saw it: a dark red stain blooming on his white shirt under his suit jacket.
“You’ve been shot,” she hissed, her whole body flashing cold, then hot.
Cal put a hand to his stomach and drew it away, staring at the blood on his palm. “Shit.”
Blood quickly spread through the fibers of his shirt on the left side of his abdomen.
“We have to get to a hospital.” Although she had no idea where it was. Fern turned to shout for someone to call for an ambulance when Cal pulled her back to him.
“No hospitals,” he said, his voice husky. He tugged her along with him toward the back lot of the factory.
“But you’re bleeding!”
Her ears still rang with the phantom sounds of gunfire, and when she looked over her shoulder, back toward the cab, her vision blurred. The driver had a circle of horrified onlookers now, but they were also watching Fern and Cal with alarm. Knew they were somehow involved and perhaps to blame. Her stomach heaved. The driver had only been waiting for her because she’d asked him to. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been here when the shots erupted. Sirens wailed in the distance.
“I got a doctor,” Cal said as they finally stumbled around the corner of the building and out of view. More people were running toward the bullet-riddled Checker taxicab. Cal tugged the suit jacket panels closed to hide his bloody torso.
“Where?” Fern asked.
“On Evergreen, a few streets over from here. He’s close,” he said, breathless. He coughed and groaned, then swore a string of oaths under his breath.
He reached into his pocket and, with his bloodied hand, slapped a ring of keys in her palm. “You’re driving,” he rasped. “I don’t think I can.”
He then broke away from her and leaned against the creamy yellow paint of his Roadster. It was parked in the lot with dozens of other cars, rather than in the elevator lift. Fern’s heartbeat raced and stuttered.
