I’d felt blood before.
Lots of times.
Never my own blood, though.
It felt like warm syrup.
Sticky like it, too.
Then the pain hit me, dropping me to my knees.
Then further to my back.
That’s when I saw Corrinne standing over me, a proverbial smoking gun in her hand.
“Why?” I rasped.
She didn’t answer, instead bending down with a packet of something in her hand, and pouring it over my wound.
“Don’t want you to die on me too fast. That wouldn’t work out well for either of us. I’m gonna need you,” she said cheerfully.
I blinked. Then blinked again.
“What?” I rasped, belly stinging from whatever she’d poured on it.
Then I was unceremoniously kicked to my belly where the same burning sensation started on my back.
What was she pouring on my wound, salt?
It wouldn’t surprise me if she had.
Cola whined, licking my face, and the tears I hadn’t been aware I was shedding.
I turned my face to see her pace away from me, only able to see the bottom half of her body as she made what I assumed was a phone call.
I was proven right in the next moment when she started to frantically speak into the phone about ‘gunshots’ and ‘a crazy lady shooting.’
She dropped the phone, which I distantly realized was my house phone, and went down on one knee beside my head.
She looked down at me with hate-filled eyes.
“Why?” I asked tiredly.
My mind was sluggish from what I guessed was blood loss, but I wanted to know. No, needed to know.
She smiled savagely.
“You nearly talked him out of it,” she said. “You had him telling me he was leaving me. Had I not convinced him otherwise, you would’ve ruined my life.”
I shook my head in denial. “How is it ruining your life to help someone get away from a psycho like you? You’d have just found another poor soul to do your bidding.”
“Because I was on the fast track to jail. He had money to pay the people off, and I needed it quick. I’d nearly gotten him to propose when you showed up with your high and mighty self. Lucky for me that you weren’t as good as a convincer as you thought you were,” she sneered.
I didn’t say anything, deciding that maybe it’d be best if I just didn’t say anything at all.
“And what are you going to do now? You’ve lost. I just heard that this afternoon,” I said weakly.
Corrinne moved down, placing her face close to mine.
“Yeah, I just heard that, too. From Buck, when he told me he was leaving, and taking all my money with him,” she hissed. “Which is why I’m at plan B.”
Plan B.
Wonderful. Shooting me was Plan B.
“And what now? What’s the play now?” I asked, coughing slightly.
My stomach screamed in protest, only making me cough all the harder.
Which was when I tasted blood.
The coppery taste made my stomach roil, and I knew that I only had an hour, at most, to live.
Coughing blood up was a bad thing.
“Now I just take you both out. Hostage situation means he’ll come. You’ll live long enough for him to get here, then I’ll take you both out. Then there’ll be no one left for Reagan but me,” she declared.
Was this woman insane?
She really had to be.
No sane person would think that something like this would work.
Bennett wasn’t stupid, and anyway, he’d proven just how much I meant to him in the past couple of weeks.
“It won’t work,” I promised.
She was bonkers.
She sneered, and I heard the first siren.
“Watch and learn,” she said, standing up and going to the table.
“What are you doing?” I asked when she went for my phone.
She grinned manically as she came over to me, snapped a picture, and then said, “I’m sending this to your boyfriend. I think the blood pooling around you adds a nice effect.”
I tried to sit up and grab the phone from her, but the minute I put pressure on my belly pain bloomed like an out of control fire, centering in my belly and radiating out so that I felt it in the tips of my toes.
My God, who knew that being shot hurt so fucking much?
“Trouble in paradise? I don’t see him in your phone!” She jeered.
I refused to even answer her.
God, how do I get into these things?
“Now the fun begins,” she smiled widely, and pointed the gun at my face. “Good thing I know the number.”
Bang.Chapter 19Grab a straw, because you suck.
-Lennox to Bennett
Bennett
“What do you mean she moved?” I asked in surprise.
Why had she moved?
Probably because you’re a dumbass and have been ignoring her for the last month.
I winced at the course of my thoughts.
I had done that.
But only because I needed time.
Time to figure out this mess. To get that fucked up woman out of my life. To move on with Lennox.
She was probably pissed as hell.
“From what I gather, she had strange men showing up at her house,” Michael said slowly, watching my face.
“What?” I barked, moving to my feet.He nodded. “Yeah, so I called the chief on the way here and asked him if he could look into it. Apparently, a couple of uniformed officers responded to a call about men not leaving her property when responding to a Craigslist ad.”
My hands went up and spiked through the hair that’d grown back in the month that I hadn’t seen Lennox.
God, what had I done?
“Is she okay?” I asked, coming to a decision.
“Yeah, she’s fine,” he answered, watching me shove my feet into my boots and lace them up with a knowing smile on his face.
As I stood, I offered him my hand. “Thanks man. I don’t think I would’ve pulled my head out sooner if you hadn’t said something.”
He took my hand. “That’s what a partner is for. To have our backs.”
I’d just stepped over the threshold of the door to my house when our pagers started going off, causing me to curse.
“Fuck!” I roared, pulling the pager off my belt loop and looking at it in disgust. “You could’ve gone off anytime, but you choose now?”