Snow Blind - Lori G. Armstrong [80]
Anxiety rippled up my spine.
The door opened. Big Mike let me pass through first. I was starting to get creeped out, not from the safety precautions—those, I was used to—but from the unspoken tension.
After Big Mike secured the room by snapping the half-dozen locks on another reinforced steel door, he spun around.
The wariness in his eyes scared the shit out of me.
“What?”
“Julie, I have to tell you something. But I need your promise you won’t freak out.”
Then I knew why Tony hadn’t called me: something had kept him from calling me.
“What happened?”
“Can you stay calm?”
284
“Tell me right fucking now what the fuck is going on. Where’s Martinez?”
Big Mike and No-neck exchanged a look. Then Big Mike said, “Keep your voice down. You should sit.”
He gestured to the rumpled cushions of the sectional in front of the TV.
“The fuck I will.” I marched up to Big Mike and got right in his face. “Tell me what happened.”
“Tony was shot tonight.”
Everything went blurry. My knees buckled. Big Mike caught me. I couldn’t hear beyond my mental shrieks of NO NO NO and the instant vertigo. Someone dragged me to the loveseat and forced me to sit. My innards ripped like I’d swallowed a studded snow tire stuck on spin. Black spots wavered behind my eyelids. I couldn’t suck enough air into my lungs. I tried to put my head between my knees but the jackknife position gouged my stomach. A voice next to my ear said, “Breathe. Slow and easy. Don’t pass out on me, Julie. Come on. Tough it up.”
“Is he . . .” I couldn’t make myself think it, let alone say it out loud.
“No.”
My head snapped up and I blinked through the head rush. “Then where is he?”
“In the bedroom.”
I tried to stand.
Big Mike’s enormous palms clamped over my
285
shoulders and held me down. “First you need to listen to me.”
I stared at him, unable to speak.
“Here’s a brief rundown of his injuries. He was shot in the right thigh, above his kneecap. Another bullet grazed his ribs. The doctor’s been with him the last couple of hours, monitoring him since he removed the bullet from his leg.”
“So it’s not serious enough to send him to the hospital?”
“It is serious. But we can’t take him to the hospital—”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because cops ask questions about gunshot
wounds.”
Shit. “The Hombres doctor is a real doctor?”
“Yes, he’s fully licensed, a full-fledged Hombres member, and he makes house calls. He’s patched Tony up before.”
Not the last time you’ll deal with this, Julie.
“He’s done everything he can. Tony was just making him wait for—”
“For what?”
Big Mike studied me for several long seconds.
“For you.”
“What? Me? Why me?”
“He refused to take any painkillers until he saw you first.”
“Oh, Jesus.” I remembered the agony from the 286
bullet wounds I’d received last fall and my thigh throbbed in response.
“I’ll take you in to see him, but I need your promise you can hold it together until he takes the meds.”
“But—”
“No buts.” His blue eyes glinted a warning. “I’m not kidding. He has enough to worry about without worrying about you.”
I nodded and swayed to my feet. I shook off Big Mike’s oh-so-helpful death grip on my bicep when we reached the doorway. No-neck shuffled aside. I swallowed my fear, pushed open the door, and froze just inside the jamb.
Martinez lay flat on his back on the left side of the gigantic bed. Someone had stripped the puffy covers from the mattress and flung them in the corner. A metal IV rack loomed next to the headboard like a silver skeleton. Martinez’s face was ghostly pale against the white sheet; he looked dead.
The instant I cleared the threshold, his eyes opened and his gaze caught mine. “Blondie.”
Don’t cry. Jesus. Be strong.
“It’s not as bad as it looks.”
A small hiccupping gasp escaped my throat before I could stop it.
The doctor snorted. “Right. Luckily the bullet missed the femoral artery. If it would’ve gone half an inch to the left . . .”
Martinez would be in the morgue.
287
I reached