Sara had to swallow past her grief. “He needs a stimulus.”
Carter slapped him again. “I’m fucking stimulating him.”
“Stick your finger in the bullet hole in his shoulder.”
“Yeah, that’s working out great for him.”
Sara studied Vale with a cold eye. His wheezing had turned sporadic. His lips were tinged blue. His nostrils collapsed and expanded as he desperately tried to bring air into his deflating lungs.
“Hey,” Carter said. “I think he’s waking up.”
Dash’s eyelids began to flutter. A rumble came from deep inside his throat. He raised his hands, the right higher than the left, fingers spread, like a marionette doll.
“What’s he doing?” Carter was alarmed.
Sara kept her silence. She tried to find Michelle again, but the woman had returned to her cowered position.
Carter demanded, “What’s wrong with him?”
Dash’s eyes had opened. The rumble in his throat turned into a murmur. He blinked once. Twice. Slowly, he took in the passengers around him. Michelle. Carter. Vale. He looked at Sara, confused.
“Who fhee?” His words slurred. “She. Who if—”
“We p-picked up a doctor,” Carter stammered. He was clearly scared, which meant that Dash was important. “We lost Hurley and Morgan.”
“What—” Dash tried. “Wha—”
“We took a doctor.” Carter didn’t answer the implied question. “I got a fucking knife in my crotch. Vale’s not sounding so good.”
Dash blinked again. He was still disoriented, but coming around.
Sara lied, “His pupils are fixed. He’s probably bleeding into his skull. An aneurysm or—”
“Fuck.” Carter wiped sweat off his face. He scanned the side of the road.
Dash cleared his throat. “What happened?” He looked at Sara. “Who is she?”
“I told you—” Carter gave up. He asked Sara, “What’s wrong with him?”
“Post-traumatic amnesia.” She tried to think of a way to scare him into dropping Dash by the side of the road. “It’s a sign of a deep brain injury. We need to leave him at a hospital.”
“Fuck-fuck-fuck.”
Dash’s hand went up to his face. He touched his cheek with his fingers. He squeezed his eyes shut. He would be feeling nauseous, disoriented. But he was coming back into himself. She could tell by the controlled movements. The way his eyes were focusing on fixed points.
“Dammit.” Carter was looking out the front windshield. “Don’t even think about waving this guy down.”
There was a lone squad car coming from the opposite direction. Sara held her breath, waiting for the cop to recognize the BMW from a system-wide alert.
Dash reached clumsily between the seats and rested his hand on her arm. “Stay cool, miss.”
His voice was soft, but his authority was clear. Vale was the whiner. Carter was the hothead. Dash was the man they all obeyed.
Sara watched the cruiser disappear in the side mirror. No brake lights. He wasn’t slowing down. There was a license-plate scanner mounted to the front and rear of his car. The system would’ve pinged her plate.
Which meant that the BMW was not in the system.
“Carter.” Dash winced as he leaned back. He looked older now that he was awake. Fine lines wrinkled from his eyes. “That bullet still in my shoulder?”
“Yeah,” Carter said. “Blood ain’t flowing as much.”
“Well, that could be a good thing or a bad thing.” He carefully enunciated each word. He wasn’t 100 percent, but he was trying to make them think that he was. “Isn’t that right, Doctor?”
Sara did not answer. The shoulder was mostly bone and cartilage. The bullet would’ve been white-hot going in, cauterizing the tissue.
Bad for Sara. Good for Dash.
He groaned as he crossed his leg over his knee. “Carter, use my shoelace to strap the knife to your leg. You don’t want it to do any more damage. Paracord snake knot lanyard.”
Carter started unlacing the boot.
Dash said, “Doctor, we need medical attention. All of us.”
“I’m a pediatrician,” Sara said, which was technically true. She was also a board-certified medical examiner and crime scene investigator. “I’m not a surgeon. These are serious medical issues.”
“They are in-geed.” Dash was losing control of his words again. His eyes were watering. The sunlight was too much stimulus. He was clearly concussed. Sara had no idea how badly. Every brain reacted to trauma in its own way.
Dash cleared his throat. He rubbed his fingers into his eyes. “Carter, has it occurred to you that we’re in a stolen, traceable vehicle with a GPS system?”
Carter was focused on tying the lanyard. “We didn’t have a lot of options. We had to get out of there. Right, Vale?”
Vale mumbled a non-answer. His index finger was still deep in the hole in his side. His other hand gripped the grab bar. Sara studied the revolver trapped underneath the seat belt. Carter’s hands were busy tying down the knife. Dash’s reflexes were compromised. She could—
“Miss.” Dash put his hand on Sara’s shoulder. He said, “Follow that van, please.”
A white van was turning into a strip club off of Moreland. The sign outside showed a scantily clad woman beside the words Club Shady Lady. Work trucks filled the parking spaces. The white van braked, then took a right turn behind the building. There was a Lay’s Potato Chip logo on the side.
Dash said, “Ah, that’s lucky. Keep following.”
Sara drove slowly into the narrow alley. She took another turn. The building was on the right, a thick stand of trees on the left. There was no way she could reach over, unlock the glove box and retrieve Will’s gun without being shot. She could open the door, roll out. Carter couldn’t chase her with the knife in his leg. Vale was too terrified to move. Dash was in no condition to pursue her.
Would Michelle help? Or would she just wait for the bad things to happen?
The white van was parked beside the service entrance. The delivery man got out. He gave them no more than a glance as he opened the van doors and started pulling out boxes.
“Stop here,” Dash ordered.
Sara put the gear in park. The music from the strip club was so loud that she could feel it in her chest.
She looked at the glove box again.
“Vale,” Dash said. “I wonder if you can fetch me whatever is in that glove compartment our friend seems so interested in.”
Sara looked out the window at the trees. She could hear the lock click open. Vale’s gasp of shock when he saw Will’s service weapon.
Dash took it from him, saying, “Thank you, sir.”
Sara closed her eyes. She thought about the BMW’s safety features. The doors locked automatically when the speedometer hit fifteen miles per hour. The handle required two pulls to open. Could she do it fast enough to escape?
Dash seemed to realize something. “Where are Hurley and Monroe?”
“Dead,” Carter answered. “We had to leave them. Fucking guy came out of nowhere. It was like punching a sack of rocks.”
Sara looked at him in the mirror. His head was down. He was still tying the knot.
Dash asked Sara, “What’s going on with our friend in the front seat?”
“I don’t have the correct diagnostic equipment,” she said, implying it was necessary. “My best guess is his lung is collapsing.”
Dash asked, “Pardon me again, but can’t you put in something hollow, bring air back into the lungs that way?”
Sara didn’t know if he was testing her. Saran Wrap would’ve probably helped make a seal around the wound, and she had an IV needle in her medical bag that could deflate the tension.
She decided to answer the question with a question: “Would you put a hollow tube in a flat tire to re-inflate it?”
Vale sucked in a shallow breath of air. He was trying to follow along. He still had his finger uselessly sticking into the hole in his side. She wanted to tell him to stick it in farther. If the shock didn’t kill him, the infection would.
“We should get to know each other,” Dash said. “What should I call you?”
“Sara.” She watched the driver of the white van. He was doing his job, stacking boxes onto a dolly, checking the order on his tablet.
“Last name?”
Sara hesitated. He wasn’t asking to be sociable. He could look her up online. Sara was listed on the GBI’s website as a special agent attached to the medical examiner’s office. There was a big difference between kidnapping a pediatrician and kidnapping a government agent.
“Earnshaw,” she said, giving them her mother’s maiden name.
Dash nodded. She could tell he knew she was lying. “You got any children?”
“Two.”
“All right, Dr. Sara Earnshaw. I know you don’t wanna be here, but lend us your chauffeur services for a little bit longer and we’ll get you back to that husband and kids of yours.”
Sara bit her lip. She nodded. She could tell he was lying, too.
Dash opened the car door. The thumping bass of the club music shook her eardrums.