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I shivered, relief overwhelming me. A five or ten-minute reprieve from telling my friend that his father was a psycho iceman seemed like a lifetime.
I stood. “Sorry. I’ll be right back.” I walked, more slowly than usual, to the door. I opened it.
Talon stood on my front deck.
“Hey, Tal. What’s going on?”
He walked in, his eyes laced with fire. “Mills and Johnson matched another set of fingerprints on that business card of Morse’s we found in Jade’s old room.”
“Great. Whose are they?”
He turned to me, meeting my gaze. “It’s not good news.”
Chapter Eight
Melanie
When I woke up, I was in an ambulance, an oxygen mask over my face, an IV in my arm. A paramedic was working on cleaning the cuts on my right hand.
I made a small croak.
“You’re awake? How are you feeling?” The paramedic removed the mask.
“About how I look, I’m sure.” I coughed.
He placed the mask back over my nose and mouth. “Don’t try to talk. We’re almost to the hospital. They’ll take good care of you there.”
“The cop?” I tried to choke out.
But he was clearly done listening to me. He didn’t remove the mask.
When we arrived, I was laid on a stretcher and taken into the ER at Valleycrest.
“We have a female, twisted ankle, multiple lacerations on her hands and arms. Says she’s been exposed to CO. No ID. We’re guessing in her thirties.”
“Thank you,” a male voice said. “Get her in room five. We need to draw some blood.”
Within a few minutes, I was in one of the ER exam rooms, and a nurse entered.
“Hello, ma’am, I just have to take— Dr. Carmichael?”
I looked up, my vision fuzzy. I recognized the nurse but couldn’t place her name.
“Is that you, Dr. Carmichael?”
I nodded and moved to remove the mask.
“No, keep that on. I’m going to take some blood for testing. My God, what happened to you?”
I couldn’t answer, and not because of the oxygen mask.
Blackness descended like a curtain around me.
* * *
I awoke again in a hospital bed. I quickly looked at my bandaged hands. No handcuffs, thank God. After the nurse—what was her name?—had identified me, I hoped the officer would believe my story. Seemed that he had.
I quickly pressed the button on my remote control to call the nurse.
