Page 36 of Lock ’N’ Load

“I’m fine,” he said, although his voice was rough from coughing. He turned to search the yard for Poofy. “You guys see a cat?”

“Yeah. Over there.” The fireman pointed to a clump of bushes.

Matt made his way slowly to the bushes, again being cautious of scaring the animal and having to chase it all over the neighborhood. He caught sight of Poofy and managed to grab him before he could take off.

At the street, Jake stood by the open doors of an ambulance. Matt made his way toward him, cradling Poofy tightly to his chest. Inside the ambulance, Trista lay on a gurney, an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. But when she caught sight of Poofy in his arms, she sat upright and tore the mask from her face.

Matt stepped into the ambulance and handed the cat over to her.

With a look of relief, she held out her arms. “Poofy.” Then she cuddled the cat against her breasts and smiled.

That smile did something to his heart.

“Hey,” one of the medics blustered. “You can’t have a cat in here.” He stood and was about to take the cat from Trista, when Matt shot out a hand and grabbed the guy’s arm.

Shaking his head, he gave the medic a stern look. “Let it go.”

Reluctantly, the medic dropped his hands and resumed tending to Trista by placing the mask back on her face.

Tears ran down the sides of her soot-stained cheeks, but Matt couldn’t decipher whether it was from the smoke, or because her cat was alive. He turned to leave, stopping at the sound of her voice.

“Matt,” she said from beneath the mask. “Thank you.”

For several seconds, their gazes locked. Even covered in soot with an oxygen mask over her face, she was lovely. He gave a quick nod, then turned to find the medic extending another mask in his direction. Ignoring the offer, he stepped outside. He hadn’t inhaled nearly as much smoke as Trista, and conferring with Jake was more important.

Matt didn’t understand the unexpectedly protective thoughts he found himself continually having where Trista Gold was concerned. All he knew was at that moment, he felt a hundred feet tall.

“This was no accident,” he said to Jake.

Jake nodded. “I agree. A Russian hit man going after her, then her house goes up in flames. Any idea what she’s working on for the CIA?”

“Not specifically, but I will find out.” Even if he had to beat it out of someone.

“Can you follow us to the hospital?” Matt glimpsed a patrol car pulling to a stop across the street. “Just in case.”

“Already planning on it.” Jake nodded to the two uniformed officers stepping out of the vehicle. “I need to ask her some questions.”

“Join the club,” he muttered. Something big, bad, and ugly was going on here, and he was dead certain the agency knew more than it was letting on.

He closed the ambulance doors, not wanting to leave them open in case Viktor Solonik or someone else was hiding somewhere, waiting to take a pot shot. When the ambulance began rolling down the street, Jake got into his Charger, and Matt hustled to his truck to follow them to the hospital. Along the way, he called his boss.

“Buck,” he said when his boss’s groggy voice growled in his ear. “We’ve got a problem. Someone just tried to murder Trista Gold. Again.”

Chapter Eleven

“We’re just about done here,” the nurse said as she cleansed away the last of the blood from Trista’s arms and legs.

Glass shards from the basement window had gouged into the tender undersides of her arms and the tops of her thighs. Luckily, the wounds were superficial, stinging only slightly, and none of them needed stitches. That, and her asthma hadn’t kicked in again, despite the stress.

Still clad only in her cotton camisole, she shivered at the continuous blast of cold air coming from the overhead vent, but it was the only thing keeping her awake. It was three fifteen in the morning, and with the adrenaline rush quickly ebbing, she could barely keep her eyes open.

Through the gap in the ER curtain, she glimpsed Matt, Detective Sorensen, and Matt’s boss, Buxton McIntyre, with their heads together. Discussing her, no doubt.

The nurse emptied the silver tray containing a pile of bloody gauze into a red biohazard container on the floor, then grabbed a tube of something from a drawer. “How are you feeling?”

She nodded. “Good.” Relatively, that was. Considering someone tried to burn me alive. Her throat felt dry as a desert, but at least she no longer felt the need to breathe through the oxygen mask.

The nurse began dabbing ointment on the tops of her thighs. “As soon as your chest X-rays come back, the doctor will be in to speak with you and listen to your breathing one last time.”