Drop Dead Gorgeous (5 page)

That realization shot up to a seven on my Piss-O-Meter.
Maybe an eight.
My plans for Wyatt were totally screwed if my face was scarred and I was covered in peeling road rash, because how could he possibly go blind with lust looking at that?

At least he wasn't with me this time. He'd been right there both of the other times when someone tried to kill me, and it had played hell with him on all sorts of levels. As a cop, he'd been infuriated. As a man, he'd been outraged. As the man who loved me, he'd been terrified. Naturally, he had shown all this by becoming even more arrogant and overbearing, and considering what his base level was for both those characteristics, you can imagine how unbearable he became. It's a good thing I already loved him, or I'd have had to kill him.

Thinking about Wyatt wasn't going to get help to me any faster. I was really good at putting off unpleasant stuff, but I couldn't put this off any longer. It was going to hurt, but I had to force myself to move.

I was lying on my left side, with my left arm pinned beneath me. I planted my right hand about even with my shoulder and awkwardly levered myself up until I managed to get propped on my left elbow. Then I paused, fighting nausea, fighting the horrible pounding in my head, waiting until the worst of it passed before I struggled into an upright position.

Okay. Nothing was broken. Having had experience with broken bones, I could tell that much.
Scraped, bruised, jarred, and concussed, but not broken.
Probably if I'd been in fear of my life I could have jumped up and run like hell, but the bitch who had almost run me down had evidently taken her road rage to, well, the road. Not having that pressing need, I sat there and used the hem of my blouse to wipe the blood from my eyes so I could see. I also used that time to reassure myself that my head wasn't going to explode or fall off, though it felt as if it might do both.

With my vision less blurry, I found my purse. It was hanging from the bend of my right arm, and it was tangled with some of the plastic bags that I likewise hadn't dropped. The tangled straps had been hampering my efforts to move my arm, and the bags themselves were woven around and under my legs. How about that? My purchases might have provided my skin with a little extra protection. I took this as a sign that God wanted me to shop.

Buoyed by this spiritual support, I clumsily fished in my purse for my cell phone and flipped it open. The blessed little screen lit up, so I punched in 911. I've called 911 before, when Nicole Goodwin was murdered and I thought the shots were being fired at me, so I knew the drill. When the dispassionate voice asked the nature of my emergency, I was prepared.

"I've been injured. I'm in the mall parking lot—" I told them which mall, which store, and which entrance I was lying outside of, though technically I was now sitting outside of it.

"What is the nature of your injury?" the voice inquired, without the least bit of urgency or even concern. I guess the 911 operator figured that if I were calling, I couldn't be hurt that
much,
and I guess she was right.

"Head injury; I think I have a concussion.
Bruises, scrapes, general battering.
Someone tried to run me down, but she's gone now."

"Is this a domestic dispute?"

"No, I'm heterosexual."

"Ma'am?"
For the first time, the operator's voice had some expression in it. Unfortunately, that expression was confusion.

"I said, 'she's gone,' and you asked if it was a domestic dispute, so I said no, I'm heterosexual," I explained patiently, which, considering I was sitting on the nasty pavement bleeding, was an example of my self-control. I really try not to piss off people who might be coming to my rescue. I say "might" because so far the rescuing hadn't happened.

"I see. Do you know the identity of this person?"

"No." All I knew was that she was a psycho bitch who shouldn't be allowed to steer a wheelbarrow, much less a Buick.

"I'll dispatch a patrol car and medics to your location," the operator said, having regained her professional distance. "I need more information, so please stay on the line."

I stayed. When asked, I provided my name and address, my home phone number, and my cell number, which I think maybe she
already
had, because of enhanced 911, plus my cell phone is one of those with a GPS locator in it. I had probably been triangulated, located, and verified. Inwardly I winced. My name was already going across police radios, which meant one Lieutenant J. W.
Bloodsworth
would hear it and was probably already leaping into his car and turning on his blue lights. I really hoped the medics could get here before he arrived, and clean some of the blood off my face. He's seen me bloody before, but still… it's a vanity thing.

The automatic door of the department store opened and two women came out, chatting happily as they carried out their booty and started up the aisle of parked cars. The first one to see me shrieked and stopped in her tracks.

"Don't mind that noise," I told the operator. "Someone was startled."

"Oh my God!
Oh my God!"
The second woman rushed toward me. "Were you attacked? Are you okay? What happened?"

Let me tell you, it's really annoying when help shows up once you no longer need it.

The parking lot was full of flashing lights, cars parked at odd angles, and uniformed men mostly standing around chatting. No one was dead, so there wasn't any sense of urgency. One of the vehicles with flashing lights belonged to the medics; their names were Dwight and Dwayne. You can't make this stuff up. I don't like the name "Dwayne" because that was the name of the man who had killed Nicole Goodwin, but I couldn't say that to this Dwayne because he was a really nice man who was calm and gentle as he wiped away blood and bandaged my scalp wound. My forehead was scraped, but my face wasn't cut, which I guess meant that I'd sort of had my head tucked down when I landed. Good news for my face, bad news for my head.

They agreed with my diagnosis of concussion, which on one level was satisfying—I like being right—and on another disheartening, because a concussion would seriously interfere with my schedule, which was tight enough without having this kind of handicap thrown into the mix.

One of the patrolmen was Officer Spangler—I knew him, from when Nicole was murdered. I was lying propped on a gurney and he was taking my statement while the medics efficiently wiped and bandaged and got me ready for transport when Wyatt drove up. Even without looking I knew it was him, because of the way his tires squealed, punctuated by a slamming car door.

"There's Wyatt," I said to Officer Spangler. I didn't turn my head, because I was trying very hard not to move.

He glanced in the direction of the new arrival, and pursed his lips a little so they wouldn't smile. "Yes, ma'am, it is," he said. "He's been in radio contact."

There had been some conflict between Wyatt and some of the older guys in the police department, because he was promoted ahead of them. Officer Spangler was fairly new, and young, so he was free of that resentment. He stood and gave a respectful nod as Wyatt approached and stared down at me, his hands on his hips. He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved dress shirt with the cuffs rolled up over his forearms. His service weapon rode in a holster on his right kidney, and his badge was clipped to his belt. He carried a cell phone/radio in his hand, and he looked grim.

"I'm okay," I said to Wyatt, hating that look on his face. I'd seen it before.
"Kind of."

He immediately switched the
laserlike
focus of his gaze to Dwayne. Dwight was fiddling with their medic cases, putting stuff back, so Dwayne was the target. "How is she?" he asked, as if I hadn't even spoken.

"Probable concussion," said Dwayne, which was likely against some sort of regulation, but I supposed most of the medics and cops knew one another, and maybe cops could get all kinds of info that was supposed to be private.
"A lacerated scalp, some contusions."

"Road rash," I said glumly.

Dwayne smiled down at me.
"That, too."

Wyatt squatted beside the gurney. The bright light the medics had set up for their work threw harsh shadows on his face. He looked tough and mean, but his hand was gentle as he took mine in it.

"I'll be right behind the ambulance," he promised. "I'll call your mom and dad on the way." He shot a look at Spangler. "You can finish taking her statement at the hospital."

"Yes, sir," said Officer Spangler, closing his notebook.

I was loaded into the back of the ambulance—to be precise, the gurney was loaded in the ambulance, but since I was on it, the end result was the same. The guys closed the double doors, and the last sight I had of Wyatt was him standing there looking both cold and fierce.

Then we pulled out of the parking lot, lights flashing but no siren wailing, for which I was grateful because my head ached so much.

Well, this was familiar. And in this case, familiarity sucked.

Chapter Four

Wyatt was the last thing I saw before the doors to the ambulance were closed, and the first thing I saw when they were opened.

He looked so grim and cold and furious, all at the same time, that I reached for his hand again as I was unloaded from the back of the vehicle. "I really am okay," I said. Except for the concussion, I really was. Banged up, but okay. I wanted to sound brave, which would convince him I was fine and was putting on a false front to garner sympathy, but my head hurt too much for me to muster the energy, so instead I sounded sincere, so of course he didn't believe me.

The man/woman jockeying-for-position supremacy thing was too complicated for me to deal with right then. You'd think he'd be relieved, but no, I could tell by the way his jaw clenched that instead he was worried as hell. Men are so perverse.

I mustered my strength. "This is
all your
fault," I said, with as much indignation as I could manage.

He was walking alongside the gurney holding my hand, and he gave me a narrow-eyed look.
"My fault?"

"I was shopping tonight because of
your
stupid deadline.
If
you'd listened to me I could have shopped during the daytime, like civilized people, but no, you have to give me an
ultimatum
, which forced me to be in the parking lot with a road-rage-crazed psycho bitch in a Buick."