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“Detective Stratford from the organized crime bureau?” Spencer asked as the crew came off the pumper. “She called me to vouch for Sierra earlier, after the motel shooting.”
“Sierra didn’t mention the name,” Ace said, “but you’re probably right.”
“I’ll give the detective a call, see if I can get anything more on what we’re dealing with. But right now I’m damned worried. Because my instincts tell me that these kinds of hired killers aren’t the type that give up easy—that until Sierra’s dead, they’ll keep on coming, no matter who stands in their way, to collect the bounty on your bounty hunter.”
Ace opened his mouth, meaning to argue, She’s not my bounty hunter, only to shut it firmly as an idea struck him. An idea that just might be the solution to their problem, if only they could pull it off.
“So what if somehow we did convince these hit men, and everyone else, that tonight’s attack in the parking lot succeeded in its mission?” Ace suggested. “What if we somehow coordinated things with the hospital and Detective Stratford and then you set up a press conference—a news briefing condemning Sierra Madden’s murder right here in Mustang Valley?”
“You’re talking about faking Sierra’s death? Do you have any idea how hard something like that really is to pull off? How many levels of authority I’d need to run this past, how many people would have to sign off to coordinate—”
“Let me ask you, then, Spencer, these so-called authorities, are they going to be the ones cleaning up the bloody mess, putting out the fires and notifying next of kin when more people end up hurt or killed in the crossfire? And are they going to be ready to deal with me if I do end up losing a woman I’ve very much come to care for, after I’ve already lost so much?”
* * *
Sierra couldn’t understand why, before they’d buried her, no one had made sure her mouth was somehow sealed shut. Dry and dusty as her throat was, she imagined it was full of grave dust. The dirty, gritty taste of it, along with a sudden, overwhelming revulsion, woke her, stomach heaving, and a firm but steady hand helped her as she rolled to one side.
“That’s it. Just take a sip of water, and you’ll feel so much better,” said a female voice, kind and reassuring and definitely alive, the same as she apparently was.
Still, the sound exploded in her head and the room’s lights—so many lights in this room—felt like spikes of pure pain driven through the back of her skull. She threw up into a shallow basin held by a woman in large glasses and matching raspberry-pink scrubs, whose platinum-streaked hair was shaved on one side of her head and chin length on the other.
When the nurse, whose lopsided hairstyle confused Sierra’s vision somehow, started talking again, the words looped back onto themselves and tangled into gibberish. The one word she did make out, concussion, had her shaking her throbbing head and struggling to rise from what she realized was a hospital bed, which took up most of a small room, whose lack of windows left her even more disoriented, not knowing whether it was day or night.
“I can’t just lie around here, waiting for a bunch of tests and—what if someone else ends up hurt?” Images streaked like meteors through her memory: black car, gun muzzle flashes, a shiny dark smear on the pavement. Her pulse bumped at her throat.
“Where’s Ace?” she cried, panicked at the thought there was something she was forgetting. Something bigger, something worse. “Where is he? Is he—did they—” Staccato bursts of gunfire echoing in her ears, she couldn’t stop the hot tears from streaming down her face. “They shot him, didn’t they? Was he—is he still—”
Firm hands pushed her gently back down. “Settle down, Miss Higgins. Now, don’t you remember? We’ve been through all this before already. Mr. Colton’s fine. He’s just stepped out for a few minutes to make a phone call. You’re in a secure room at the hospital. There’s no need for you to be frightened. I’m here to stay with you until he gets back.”
Sierra didn’t remember any previous discussion and couldn’t understand for the life of her why this woman was calling her by a stranger’s name. But Sierra was distracted from that question by the thought of a male boxer from her gym, who’d ended up sidelined for weeks, unable to drive or work at his day job or even watch TV or read the paper after a serious concussion.
Her blood ran cold at the thought of being so helpless—a sitting duck for whoever walked through that door, intent on finishing what the gunmen in the parking lot had started.
“I have to get out of here,” she said, breaking free of the nurse’s grip and attempting to thrust her feet over the bedside. A raised railing blocked her, so she pushed herself upright, explaining, “I have to leave before they—”
With the abrupt change of her head’s elevation, a dark wave overrode her doubled vision. Pain and nausea collided, and she grasped the railing and closed her eyes, needing a moment to ride out the churning storm.
“They’ll hurt you, too, when they barge in. Get away from me,” she warned, forcing her eyes open.
The nurse moved fast—a raspberry-pink blur—through the doorway to call into the corridor, “I need some help here—another sedative!”
Ace passed her, saying, “That won’t be necessary. I’ve got this.”
His gaze latching on to Sierra, he raised his palms, his expression both concerned and calming. “You’re fine now. We’re safe. I’m right here with you, and that’s where I intend to stay.”
Though it still beat much too quickly, her heart resettled into her chest when he came close, so warm and real and solid as he enfolded her hand in his and squeezed it gently.
“I thought—” she began, voice breaking with emotion. “I thought the nurse was lying. I thought I’d gotten you killed, just like I did that guy with the camera.”
“I ran into that photographer’s husband out in the parking lot, while I was out making my call where I could get a halfway decent cell signal,” Ace told her, “and he said how grateful he was that you helped him hide underneath that pickup. He came out of surgery just fine last night.”
“Last night?” she interrupted.
Ace nodded, scrubbing a hand over a lightly shadowed jaw. “You were out briefly at first, sleeping off and on since. But it’s almost eight-thirty in the morning.”
As she grappled with the loss of time—and wondered if part of her wooziness and memory issue might be related to some drug or another she’d been given, Ace continued speaking.
“The cameraman’s recovering from a gunshot wound to the shoulder, but he will recover—because of your quick thinking.”
