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As she reached the back of the carriage house, she saw a stream running through the edge of the property. A scrap of bright yellow drew her attention, and she spotted Kelly’s shirt. She ran to her side and knelt. “Kelly?” She touched the arm that was flung over Kelly’s face, and Carly’s hand came away wet and sticky with red. Blood?
Carly moved Kelly’s arm. A red stain spread over the front of her shirt. Kelly’s face was much too pale, and her lids fluttered but didn’t open. Carly rose to go call 911, but Kelly’s hand shot out and grabbed hers.
“Carly,” she groaned.
“I’ll be right back. I need to call an ambulance.”
Kelly frowned and her lids fluttered quickly before she managed to get them open. She clung to Carly’s hand with surprising strength. “My baby.”
“I found Caroline. She’s fine.” Carly tried to extricate her hand from Kelly’s grip, but the other woman clung tenaciously.
“Take care—Caroline.”
“I’ve got her. She’ll be all right. I need to get help for you.”
“Wrong, so wrong. Knew he’d find me.”
Carly froze. “Who found you, Kelly?”
“Knew he’d kill me. Wrong. Sorry. Sorry, Carly.”
“Who, Kelly?”
She tried to move. “L-look under me.” Her eyes closed again, and her breath eased from between her lips. Her grip on Carly’s wrist loosened.
Carly ran her hand under Kelly’s back and felt the soft edges of paper. She pulled it out and stared at the small leather folder. She sprang to her feet and sprinted to the back door to call for help. She found her purse and dug out her phone, then dialed 911 and asked for an ambulance. “She’s bleeding. I think she’s been shot.”
“Stay on the line, ma’am. Help is on the way.”
“I can’t. I have to take care of the babies and get back to Kelly. We’ll be in the backyard. Hurry!” Carly ended the call and went to pick up Caroline, who had fallen asleep after emptying the bottle.
Noah was sleeping too. She couldn’t leave him, though, not with an intruder out there. How could she manage two babies and get out to Kelly?
She saw a stroller by the front door and retrieved the babies. They were small enough to snug them close together in the stroller. She thrust the folder she’d found into the depths of the stroller, then wheeled it to the kitchen to grab a clean towel for Kelly’s wound.
Outside, she found Kelly had moved a foot closer to the house. She was on her belly now with one arm flung out in front of her. Carly rolled Kelly over to her back again so she could apply pressure to the bleeding wound. The front of Kelly’s blouse was more drenched than before, and Carly lifted her top to take a look.
The hole in her chest still pumped blood, and she put the towel on it and pressed down as the wail of an ambulance blared.Please, God, let her live.
Twenty-Six
Carly would be the death of him.
Lucas parked behind Carly’s car at the address he’d been given. Police cars and a forensic van crowded the drive as well. A tech rounded the end of the house ahead of him, and he followed. He heard a baby crying and picked up his pace past a couple of gardenia shrubs at the side of the house.
He heard Carly’s voice, quivering with distress, before he saw her. She sat on the back deck with two babies in her arms. She rocked back and forth a bit as she talked with the detectives standing in front of her.
He spared a glance toward where gloved techs roamed the area bagging evidence. What had happened here? When Carly called him, he’d been in a meeting and she’d been dumped into voice mail. All her message said was that she’d found Kelly shot in the backyard of her home.
When Carly spotted him, she started to rise but stayed put when he headed her way. He bounded up the steps of the deck and put his hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”
“Fine. I didn’t see the attacker. It had happened before I arrived.”
Lucas turned to the Savannah officers and showed them his ID. “What do you have?”
“Ms.Cicero was shot with a .44. We found the casing in the grass. We don’t know much more yet.”
So she’d been shot outside. Had she run from an intruder in the house, or had she been outside for something else? “The ambulance already took her?”
