Final Stand Read online

  Her worst fears materialized as the men started down the steep incline.

  Terrified, certain that she’d been spotted, she turned blindly into the darkness and began running.

  8

  1:07 a.m.

  Once they returned inside, Gray handed Sasha her glass and directed her toward the hallway.

  “What for?”

  He understood her wariness, realized she wasn’t convinced that, despite what he’d said earlier, he wasn’t ordering her to his bedroom to take up where Frank had left off. In his opinion, he was probably the safest male in Bitters tonight, as physically spent as he was emotionally finished, and from more than wrestling and playing verbal chess with her.

  It had been an altogether shitty day thanks to Dub Witherspoon’s favorite cow needing help in delivering a dead bull calf. Dub hadn’t taken “I don’t do house calls anymore” for an answer. As a result, all Gray wanted when he got home after the nine-hour ordeal was to get quietly drunk and escape from that latest scenario and the scent of death.

  But to his unwelcome and reluctant houseguest, he merely said, “You’re under my roof, you don’t take foolish chances with infection.”

  To his surprise, she went without any additional lip.

  In the bathroom, he motioned for her to hop up on the vanity, then shut off the water she’d left running and squeezed out the washrag. Afterward, he locked the window. Replacing the screen would have to wait until morning. He hoped she was intimidated by him; he didn’t think he was in good enough shape to do many more rounds with this spitfire.

  With her semi-safely perched, he opened the linen closet to rummage through the offerings there. Most of his medical supplies, even those appropriate for humans, were in the clinic, so he settled on hydrogen peroxide, antibiotic ointment, cotton balls and whatever he had in the way of gauze pads and bandages.

  He set everything beside her. “You’ll have to lift your shirt again and open the jeans.”

  Hardly voiced as a request, he accepted that she first took a good swallow of her drink. The wound had to be giving her more trouble than she wanted to admit—denim tended to be abrasive even without a pair of male hands working it like sandpaper against tender skin—but he knew it wasn’t pain alone feeding her reluctance. It was him. He’d proven to be not much better than Frank. She had to detest him for that.

  When she finally relented, Gray grunted at the inflamed slash marring the left side of her small waist. In this brighter light, the shocking contrast against skin otherwise flawless filled him with an even deeper outrage. He understood too well the brutality behind such an assault, and how lucky she was to be sitting there shooting mental arrows into him.

  All he said, though, was, “Roll the waistband down a bit more, or I’ll get this crap all over everything.”

  “Just do the best you can.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  He opened the new package of cotton balls and the peroxide and went to work.

  “You took a huge risk not bothering to get this tended to properly.”

  “I’ve been a little busy.”

  “How did it happen?”

  She acted as though she’d suddenly gone stone deaf, which was just as well. The condition of the wound demanded his concentration. And although peroxide didn’t usually sting—at least not in comparison to what he should be using—this abrasion was no simple scratch. It was also inflamed, the tissue swollen. That meant his slightest touch had to sting like a needle in the eye, and Gray thought she did pretty well to simply stiffen and suck in a sharp breath with every new dab.

  “Hang on. I’ll finish as fast as I can.”

  Like a model posing for a sculpture, or an assassin contemplating a target, she simply stared out into the dark hallway, lost in her own focus.

  Hoping she wasn’t plotting some new attempt to outwit or outmaneuver him, he said, “You need to know something. I may not like what you just pulled, but it doesn’t change anything. You’re in my home and that means something to me. Elias won’t touch you again.”

  “And who’s going to keep you in line, Doc?”

  “I did not take you down for a free grope. That tumble left me sore, too.”

  “I was on the bottom.”

  “You betrayed my trust.” Then Gray swore softly. Not due to her attitude, rather for the discoloration he noticed on the cotton. “You’d better take a bigger swallow of your drink, think up a few new expletives, something, because I’ve got to get a little rougher than I intended.”

  He held up the stained cotton for her to see and she gazed at it with eyes darker than New Orleans coffee, almost as dark as her lashes. Raising her glass to her lips, she murmured, “Do what you have to do.”

  The drink wasn’t as potent as a shot, and before Gray reached for another cotton ball, her hand was shaking enough to bounce an ice cube out of the glass. It skidded off the counter and directly into the commode.

  “Five bucks says you can’t do that twice.”

  For such rich-colored eyes, her answering look cut like a laser.

  “That’s what I like about you,” he countered. “You’re no chatterbox.”

  “And you were right to stay away from plastic surgery. At least you put the dog under before starting on her.”

  “That was a low blow, even if you are hurting, Officer.”

  “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

  “If only I believed you meant it.”

  “I—” Gasping, Sasha fell silent as she endured the most painful swab yet. “Believe this then…that money you found belongs to my mother’s lover. I figured it was small retribution for this graze. I also took it knowing it wouldn’t be smart to stop at an ATM machine.”

  Gray tossed the last soiled swab into the trash and washed his hands. “Is your mother okay?”

  “Do you think that son of a bitch would be alive if he’d hurt her?”

  God almighty, he thought. Who was this woman? “Has there been a murder?”

  “Not by me.”

  Maybe he was a fool, but he believed her. “So who’s Anna Diaz?”

  “My—best friend.”

  “Isn’t that a bit risky?”

  “She died just over a year ago.”

  “Then she’s in no way connected to whatever is going on?”

  “Not in the least. But we could pass for sisters, and I loved her as though she was. I wouldn’t have taken her identity if it wasn’t necessary.”

  Gray reached for the antibiotic ointment. “You shouldn’t have scratched the photo. I would only have glanced at it otherwise. The scratch made me look more closely.”

  “Uh-huh. You tackle like a pro, your observation skills are better than the average person’s…Anything else I should watch out for?”

  “As I said before, worry about it.” He spread the ointment, frowning at the unexpected pleasure he took from her curiosity and reluctant admiration. As a rule, he shut down any questions about himself or his past. Knowing how unwise this breach in pattern was, he attempted to alleviate that. “So where’s your mother?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He didn’t miss the lower pitch in her voice, the strain that lay beneath that admission. It had him thinking of what she wasn’t saying, and he didn’t like the possibilities, disliked them so much he abruptly wiped his hand in a tissue and took her glass out of her hand.

  “By all means,” she drawled as he gulped down the rest of its contents. “Help yourself.”

  “I’ll freshen it up when we get back to the kitchen.”

  Opening a pair of large gauze bandages, he secured them with several Band-Aids. “That should hold. We’ll have to repeat the process in the morning, though. You were a few hours away from a serious infection.”

  He tossed away the wrappings and washed his hands again, almost smelling smoke from the mental brakes locking in her head. That told him she still planned to be out of here by then. So much for thinking he’d gotten his point across.


  Taking up her glass again, he led the way back to the kitchen.

  Once there, he refilled both of their drinks. “About your mother…”

  “She’s not up for discussion.”

  “I’ll ask anyway. Are you looking for her? You said you don’t know where she is. And if you’re on the run because you stole her boyfriend’s money—”

  “Correction, he shot, then I took the money.”

  Gray slid her freshened drink toward her. “Then it’s reasonable to assume that he’s not too happy with her, either, if only because of her relationship to you.”

  Sasha ignored the offering and walked around the room like a caged animal. The way she slid her hand to her side told Gray that she could use the help against the pain. Guessing why she refused, he eyed his glass longingly, but slowly placed it down beside hers and tried a different angle of questioning.

  “Cops get shot at every day. Generally they’re seen as heroes not fugitives. Or is it just the gun-happy boyfriend you’re running from?”

  “How many ways do I need to tell you to butt out, Slaughter? I’m saying this for your welfare as much as my own.”

  “But you believe information can keep a person alive. Hasn’t it allowed you to assume another person’s identity?”

  Sasha laughed briefly, the sound hard. “Stick to vaccinating pups and kittens. Anna was an orphan. I’m not compromising anyone’s safety by using her ID.”

  “What about me? As far as I’m concerned, there’s no more vulnerable place to be than in the dark, where you’re leaving me.”

  She spun away from him to circle the dinette table. “I didn’t invite you to snoop around in my van. And I don’t—damn.” She grasped her side.

  “You’ll want to avoid sharp turns like that one, fast moves of any kind for the next several days,” Gray told her.

  Holding herself rigid and then sighing with relief, Sasha said with surprising mildness, “You’ve been decent, and I’m grateful. As for the subtle interrogation, forget it. I’m the best judge of what is and isn’t viable.”

  To hell with it, Gray thought, and swept up his glass. He welcomed the cold sting from the ice against his teeth as much as the bite from the alcohol. “This boyfriend has a record, doesn’t he?”

  Completing the turn around the kitchen table, Sasha stopped before him. “Look at me.”

  That was one thing he didn’t want to do, at least not when he wasn’t in his doctoring mode. Especially not when there was little more than his imagination between them. Because a god with a fondness for Mona Lisa–like smiles had designed Sasha Mills’s lips. Only he hadn’t been able to resist adding just enough fullness to trigger erotic thoughts. Perfect torment for melancholy bastards like him who thought they already knew all the tricks hell had to offer.

  “Now hear me, Slaughter,” she continued. “Once and for all—leave it alone.”

  “No can do. You ended up on my doorstep, and as you’ve already heard and surmised, I have too much time on my hands to weigh and analyze. Okay, so at least tell me this,” he said as she began to argue. “Are you, for want of a better word, AWOL from your job? I’m assuming your precinct commander doesn’t know your whereabouts?”

  “Every time I tried to talk to him, it almost got me killed.”

  Now he understood the hunted look in her eyes, the pacing and edginess. “What do you think has happened?”

  “I suspect someone I trusted sold me out. Nothing else I can think of would explain it.”

  “Call IA.”

  She lifted a finely arched eyebrow. “You know about police procedure?”

  “This may be the middle of nowhere, but not everyone living here is half-baked or on the fast track to senility. Why didn’t you call them?”

  “Because I am a cop. A city cop with all the pressures. If you know about IA, you know about the Blue Wall. You don’t go to Internal Affairs, not if you want to stay a part of the team. Besides, the word is that most IA people are political hatchlings eager to make their mark by feeding off carcasses. I’d prefer not to be their Thanksgiving turkey.”

  “You have to trust someone.”

  “First things first. I’ll reconsider that down the road.” But she shook her head as though the problem didn’t bear consideration.

  Gray’s instinct was to press onward. “What about your mother? Where does she fit in all of this? She’s got to be worried sick about you.”

  Sasha resumed her pacing.

  Mistake, Gray thought. He didn’t know if it was intuition or sudden deductive clarity, but he saw it—her predicament. “This isn’t about you or being a cop at all. Not directly. Even the money is irrelevant. You got sucked in trying to save your mother.”

  Sasha returned to the counter and reached for her purse. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take care of my bill and—”

  “Whoa.” He gripped her wrist.

  “Slaughter, enough,” she pleaded wearily. “I really, really have to get out of here.”

  “Think so? Regardless of what you’ve been through tonight, you’ve had minimal exposure to Frank. I’ve known him most of my life.”

  “Don’t tell me…he’s your in-law.”

  “He was once my best friend.”

  Groaning, she closed her eyes. “I should have stopped at the next convenience store, bought the dog a box of Band-Aids, me a bigger bottle of aspirin, and taken my chances on the interstate.”

  “Sasha.”

  “Stop it.” She tugged free and backed away from him. It cost her; she had to hold her side again. “Don’t you dare say my name as though we’re reunited soul mates.”

  “You can’t deny I’m a part of this now. It may not be what either of us wants, but I’m guilty by association, and it’s my right to decide how much deeper I want to go.”

  “My suggestion is to start backstroking, fast.”

  “Do yourself a favor and face down Elias tomorrow. Hell, I know you didn’t have anything to do with the fire. As I said, this area is a freeway for illegal aliens. When Frank gets his head screwed on straight, he’ll see that’s more likely what happened at the church. Despite what I said earlier to calm him down, folks have been bitching about the situation for years, and we’ve earned our reputation for being less than hospitable to that traffic. The fire could have been a ‘thanks for nothing’ message sent by a courier, a mule, someone traveling in the flow trying to look like a helpless migrant worker and finding his trails increasingly compromised. But you have to let Elias learn that on his own. And since you and the dog need the rest, what’s the problem?”

  Sasha smoothed back her long hair. “How about not wanting to wake finding a gun barrel pressing into my forehead?”

  He considered the scenario for a moment. “You believe someone is after you. Is that why you were on this smaller highway instead of the interstate?” When she failed to respond, he nodded, confident that he was close. “If this someone was hunting you, don’t you think they’d have made their move by now? At any rate, how far could you hope to get tonight feeling the way you do?”

  Her expression began to expose some doubt. After several more seconds, she said, “I’ll have to leave first thing in the morning.”

  “Right after you give your statement.”

  “You’re sure this lawyer you mentioned can help?”

  “He knows Frank every bit as well as I do. In the meantime, the guest room is yours.”

  She looked anything but reassured by that. “How about that room over your garage? How bad is it?”

  “Loaded with old crap that I haven’t looked at in over a year. I suspect field mice have turned the place into a nursery school.” When her expression remained dubious, he added, “If you’re concerned about being manhandled again, don’t be. I’m the guy who called Elias a pig, remember? In any case, I was serious about having lost my wife.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “Fourteen months.”

  The softening in her eyes and around
her mouth vanished. “Give me a break.”

  “You find that difficult to believe?”

  “The last grieving widower I met was when I was providing escort to and from his wife’s funeral,” she drawled. “He made a pass leaving the cemetery. ’Night, Doctor.”

  9

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  11:47 p.m. PST

  In the master bedroom of a warehouse office, the phone on the nightstand beside the king-size bed buzzed softly. With an animal-like growl, a naked man rolled off the blonde tangled with him in the black satin sheets and snatched up the phone.

  “What?” he snapped.

  Melor Borodin didn’t like interruptions when he was working, and as much as he enjoyed sex, this qualified as labor. The panting bleached blonde behind him didn’t come close to being his idea of a lover, and it would take more than a paper bag over her head to help. Aside from the caking makeup, her body was beyond the generous description of voluptuous—in a city renowned for stabling some of the most gorgeous showgirls in the world, no less. He was having to fantasize about the long-legged hostess he’d just hired at Red Square to keep an erection—and now some asshole was making that feat impossible.

  “Lev here.”

  Borodin sat forward, digging his toes into the plush carpet the color of the genuine elephant tusk stretching the length of the bar before him. “You have news?”

  “Da. Half of what you wait to hear.”

  He gripped the phone’s receiver tighter. “You disturb me for fragments?”

  “You said keep you informed,” came the hesitant reply. “We thought—”

  “Stop immediately.” Furious, Borodin pinched the bridge of his nose, struggling to harness the rage inside him. Mercurial from birth, his boiling point was dangerously low these days, thanks to this situation. But they were well into their third night of tracking the two bitches, and to his way of thinking, the delays and constant excuses would have pressed a monk’s patience.

  “I told you before,” he continued, his voice all but dripping venom, “thinking is not your job, it’s mine.” What he’d actually said then was that they had smegma for brains, and saw this call as verification that he was right. “Hold.”