AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“Okay, if you need anything, feel free to call. Even if it’s just somebody to drink with.”
“Are those drinking hours billable?”
“Normally. This car won’t pay for itself, but in your case, yeah. Just keep the legal talk to a minimum.”
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.”
M
argot trudged up the stairs to her place on the second floor. At one time the place had a slither of beach view, but a new condominium development took care of that. She stepped inside and noticed the kitchen light was on. She knew she had turned off all the lights before they arrested her. She wished she had her purse and the small arsenal she kept inside, but it was on the dining room table. It wasn’t that far, only a small living room between her and her weapons, but if someone was inside waiting for her—hiding in the place's only bedroom perhaps—they’d intercept her before she made it.
She shut the door quietly so if there was someone still there, they might not know she was home and then ran for the purse. She got there without a problem. She pulled out the short-barreled pistol and the telescoping baton and then moved on to the bedroom.
The bedroom was clear, but Mal was laying on the floor in the bathroom.
When Margot reached him she could see the lower half of his shirt was covered in blood and his skin color wasn’t quite right. She put down the baton and pulled up the corner of his shirt and saw he’d put some gauze and tape over some kind of wound. Whatever the wound was, it was still bleeding. Neither the tape nor gauze was white anymore.
“Can you hear me, Mal?” she asked, but he didn’t answer.
Margot put down the gun and took her phone out of her back pocket. She’d hit the nine and the one when Mal sat up and said, “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? You need a hospital.”
“Then after that, I go to jail. Then after that, someone shanks me and I die.”
“If I don’t make this call, you’re going to die anyway.”
“If I’ve got to go, I’d rather die on your bathroom floor than county lock-up.”
“I’d rather you didn’t die at all.”
“Yeah, me too, which is why you’re going to stitch me up. The bullet went straight through. If it hit anything vital, we wouldn’t be talking. It hit me in the love handle, nothing there but fat. If I’d stuck to my diet and got to the gym more this month, he would have missed me altogether.”
“You can’t be sure.”
“I’m sure I don’t want to go to a hospital.”
“Okay, why do you think you’ll go to jail? What did you do?”
“All I did was get shot.”
“I know the cops hate you, but getting shot isn’t a crime, not even for you.”
“It is when the bullet comes from a murdered woman’s gun.”
Chapter 5
Margot stepped back and admired her work. She wasn’t a doctor by any stretch of the imagination, but she did a decent job sewing Mal’s wound shut. The exit wound was messier and took a few more stitches, but after she was done, Mal wasn’t leaking anymore.
“What would you have done if I didn’t know how to do this?” she asked him.
He looked over the stitches, “Probably bled a lot more. You never told me where you learned this shit.”
“No, I didn’t,” Margot replied. She never planned too either.
Mal let it go, he had a pretty good idea. Her mom was a nurse, but she didn’t like to go to hospitals either. He figured Margot’s mom had taught her oldest daughter some things so she could get treated for her wounds at home where she didn’t have to explain how she got them.
