Page 8 of The Woman Who Couldn't Scream
“Will do.” Bergen stepped back. “As soon as I see you get yourself out of the car.”
Cautiously she swung her legs around to the ground. Took a breath. Yeah, it was hot. Summer solstice, almost July, surprising for Washington State even-in-the-summer hot. Kateri put a hand on the door and one on the stick and tried to stand.
A few inches off the seat—and she dropped back.
Mistake. Such a mistake.
After The Earthquake, she had suffered so much pain, she should be inured to it.
Nope. Pain still hurt, and something about having stitches ripped out of already shredded skin nauseated her to the point of… She breathed deeply, staying conscious. “I’m not going in the damned ambulance,” she muttered.
Bergen swore at her in some Scandinavian-sounding language.
“Mean. Considering.” She crooked her finger to him, and when he leaned close she said, “Look. I’m not being stubborn or foolish. I was elected four days ago. By two votes. Had a drive-by shooting in the first few hours of my office. I was shot. Rainbow was critically wounded. Worse, the crime was committed by felons who escaped from custody. Tourists freaked out and left town. City council wants my head.”
“Like they didn’t already want it.” But Bergen was beginning to comprehend.
“Business owners are screaming. July fourth is in two weeks. If I don’t capture John Terrance, we’re going to have a financial disaster. And we just lost himagain.” She stared Bergen in the eyes. “I’ll go to the hospital, but not flat on my back in an ambulance. Get someone to drive me and I’ll by God walk into the emergency room under my own power. You stay and handle this situation. We have to catch that guy and not just for the tourist trade or to keep Virtue Falls citizens secure. You know why? For Rainbow. She deserves to have justice.”
Bergen stared right back at her. “You deserve justice, too, Kateri.”
He didn’t call her by her first name very often. Usually only when he and his wife, Sandra, had her over for dinner. Or in moments of great stress… Kateri supposed this boondoggle qualified asgreat stress. “We’ll have justice. Bergen, make sure the memory on this dash cam is safe. Back it up as many times as you can. When we capture John Terrance and he tries to sue us for running over his beloved son, that’s our insurance that we’ll come out clean.”
“Will do. I’ll make sure we’ve saved the memory on any other camera that might have captured the action, too.” He stood and glanced around, then leaned in briefly. “Someone’s coming who can help you get down to the hospital on your terms.”
“Thanks.” She closed her eyes, listened to Bergen shout instructions to the assembled police, and hoped the someone who would drive her was not Moen. With her ribs, she didn’t think she could survive a trip down the mountain at the same breakneck speed they’d come up.
A man’s warm, reassuring voice spoke close beside her, “Don’t worry. I’m here.”
Familiar, but definitely not Moen.
Without hesitation, the guy slid an arm around her waist, down under her butt andhandledher out of the patrol car.
She opened her eyes wide.
Oh. Now she knew who it was.
Stag Denali. Bouncer. Enforcer. A Native American with rumored connections to the Mob. A man who had served time for murder. The guy who was bringing a casino to the local reservation. Rainbow had once expressed a wish to see him running through the forest naked. Kateri had… in a figurative sense.
She looked up into those dark, inscrutable eyes… eyes she had seen wild with lust and need and satisfaction. “What are you doing here?”
His smooth tones held an undercurrent of amusement. “I was out for a pleasure cruise through the scenic Olympic Mountains and came upon this scene, and like any good citizen I thought I should offer assistance.”
“Bullshit.”
“Okay, you got me. I was listening on the police scanner and decided I wanted in on the fun.”
She judged that was bullshit, too. Stag Denali wasn’t one of those guys who needed to join a police chase for his jollies. He’d already had plenty of excitement in his life. “Citizens who impede police action are a pain in the rear.”
“I impeded nothing. Just tagged along and avoided the collision.” He led her toward a gorgeous sedan. Really gorgeous. A Tesla… Expensive, too. He stopped beside the passenger door. “Here we are.”
Stag’s car, like the Terrances’, was low-slung, fast and black, but where theirs had silver glitter in the paint, his was smooth with an undertone of dark, dark green that seemed to reflect the cool depths of the forest. “Nice,” she mumbled. “New?”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn’t drive it on gravel roads.”
“Today I got a chip in the windshield.” He opened the passenger door and supported her as she lowered herself onto the seat. He lifted her feet inside, took her walking stick and shut the door. As he walked around the hood, she watched and thought it was one of God’s little ironies to build a Native American into the living embodiment of John Wayne, all long legs, narrow hips, broad shoulders and calm confidence.
