The Shack series

Chapter 29

Damn, it was good to be working with an experienced professional. I was impressed as hell at how she pulled off that teenager vibe. "I found stick-on RFID trackers in the slide and grip of my service g*n, so I had to ditch it. I bought new clothes and changed into them a few hours ago. New underwear, purse. Everything. Only thing left is the vest, and that just came out of the armory. It wasn't assigned to me; I pulled it off the shelf myself, and I never took it off. Unless they tagged every vest at the FBI, there's no chance it's hot."

She glanced at me. "Shoes?"

"Those too. Dropped everything in a dumpster in an alley."

"You better be clean. If this blows back on anyone, Needles will absolutely lose his f*****g mind. You don't want that. Nobody wants that. That man has serious f*****g anger issues."

She sure as hell sounded like she meant it, but she almost sounded proud of it at the same time.

"No chance."

"In the glove box, there's a bottle of Naprosyn. You better take a couple." She reached behind my seat and pulled out a bottle, shoving it into my hand. "You need some pretty solid swallows of this."

I looked at it. A pretty fancy whiskey bottle. Cask Strength. "Seriously?"

"I'm pretty f*****g sure open container laws are the least of your problems right now. That should be some pretty good stuff. You wanna get some in you because they think you might have a collapsed lung and when we get where we're going... let's just say it's gonna hurt like f**k. You wanna take the edge off it."

It was pretty damn smooth. Drinking was tough, though. I just couldn't seem to get enough air.

The houses were starting to get fancier and farther apart as we drove. She glanced over at me. "Any good?"

"If I live through this, I'll hunt some of this down."

Her grin flashed in the light from the dash. "I knew it. That's why he kept it on the top shelf. Hundred dollar a bottle s**t up there."

"Needles?" I shifted and regretted it instantly, wincing in pain.

"No, Eric, Tiffany's husband."

"Tiffany?"

She suddenly fell silent, then sighed. "If you get rolled up, keep them out of it. They're not supposed to be part of this; I just don't have any other choices right now."

"I don't want to drag any innocent bystanders into this either." I had to pull air in with each breath.

"With that hole in your chest, we have to. But then we get out and get f*****g gone." She turned down a genteel road lined with massive brick McMansions. "We're almost there."

"Pretty upscale for a safe house. I was picturing seedy motel rooms or the backroom of some bar."

She pulled into a long drive, reaching up and pressing a button on a remote to open one door of the three-car garage. "This isn't the safe house; we're just here to get you patched up. She makes me park inside when I visit so I don't bring down her property values."

Before I could ask, she was out of the car and helping me get out. She took me into the main house, into an enormous kitchen, all dark wood and gold-flecked stone counters. Pointing to a center island the size of an aircraft carrier, she gestured for me to get up on it, then handed me the bottle of whiskey again. "I'll be back in a couple minutes."

She slipped up a broad set of marble stairs just outside the kitchen.

I pulled off the shawl and folded it as best I could, trying to keep blood off the countertop. Probably due to whiskey and blood loss, it took me a moment to notice an intense discussion in hushed tones drifting down the stairs she had gone up. After a long few minutes, my rescuer came back down the stairs, leading a pretty, heavily pregnant woman in a silk nightgown and robe.

There was enough resemblance to explain why she was helping. They were obviously related.

The pregnant woman glanced at the operative, then looked over at me with pursed lips, narrowing her eyes. "Get your vest and shirt off so I can see what we're dealing with here."

She started pulling a bunch of things out of drawers: hand towels, Glad Wrap. "Get some sheets and a stack of towels out of the linen closet, and go get my emergency bag out of the Lexus." She looked at me. "I'll be right back. Don't fall off."

I managed to strip down, dropping the b****y vest to the floor with the shawl and shirt, then settled back onto the broad kitchen island.

That's when I knew I was dying. Black rimmed my vision as an invisible boulder crushed my chest. I tried to sit up but couldn't get enough air, enough strength, to push up. Clammy sweat was running off of me, and my heart felt like it was spinning out of control. Panicking, I weakly tried to push myself off the island.

Suddenly I was sitting upright, the pregnant woman gripping my hair with surprising strength.

"That settles that."

The operative was staring at us from the door to the garage. "What the hell, she's fucking... gray."

"My fault. I should have told her not to lie down." The woman shook her head. "God, I hate this not-drinking-coffee stuff. I'm still waking up. Give me the stethoscope out of the bag." She examined the dressing for a second. "That's good work, Delaney. Kind of full circle. Nurses in World War One used wound dressings as disposable sanitary pads."

At least I had the operative's name. Delaney. Delaney nodded, and I could see her repeating the doctor's words back to herself under her breath. I got the impression she was scribing that into her memory.Tiffany listened to my breathing. "There's no sound on the right. Sucking chest wound...pneumothorax -- that's a collapsed lung. No other wounds...no exit wound?" She looked down at the vest. "If it went through that vest..."