Catherine Coulter – FBI 3 The Target

He poured vodka over the wound. It burned like hell, but she was standing right there, so scared, her face whiter than high mountain snow, and he wasn’t about to yell. He gritted his teeth and kept pouring until he was as certain as he could be that the wound was clean. It probably needed to be stitched, but he couldn’t do that, no way, since he couldn’t sterilize a needle and thread. The last thing he needed was an infection. He pulled the skin tightly together over the gash, then put some sterilized gauze over it. Then he ripped some adhesive tape off with his teeth, stretched the tape tight to hold the edges of skin together beneath the gauze, and pressed it down. Pain hissed out between his gritted teeth. She made a small mewling sound. He saw her lay her hand on his right knee. “It’s all right. It just hurt a little bit, not bad. That was the worst of it, putting that tape over it.”

He laid down more tape, making it tighter. He rose slowly, turned slightly away from her, and pulled up his jeans. “Now, sweetheart, let’s get some aspirin down my gullet.” He took four generic aspirin from Clement’s and drank a full glass of orange juice. He laughed and wiped his mouth. “Vitamin C is good stuff, maybe even helpful for a gunshot wound.”

His leg hurt, but that was the least of his problems.

He knew she was watching him, fear leaving her face as pale as new snow. He locked the front door, shot home the dead bolt, and fastened the chain. Maybe later he’d go get that old.22 rifle. He knew the men weren’t coming back. They had no idea he had no ability to contact the outside world. They’d think he’d called in the troops immediately. He doubted they’d hang around. It would be too dangerous for them. Besides, they were both wounded. They’d have to get help. He had bought himself some time.

He looked down at her, standing there, not an inch from him, and he knew he had to deal with this and he had to deal with it now.

“Let’s sit down,” he said, and held out his hand. There were some flecks of blood on the back of his hand. He hoped she wouldn’t see it.

Slowly, she gave him her hand. He sat beside her on the sofa. He carefully moved the bowl of bloody vodka to the far side of the sofa.

“I don’t know who those men were,” he said, looking at her full face, willing her not to be afraid, not to worry so much. “Did you recognize either of them?”

She cocked her head to one side. She was thinking, he knew that look. He wore one remarkably like it on occasion. Finally, she shook her head, but he could tell she wasn’t completely certain. Well, that was good enough for now.

Maybe it hadn’t been just one man who’d taken her. Maybe it had been two men. Maybe it was the men who’d just shown up pretending to be drunk to get him out of the cabin, then shooting. Maybe they’d both stayed masked when they’d had her. That meant they hadn’t planned to kill her. What was their plan then? Keep her a prisoner and play with her until they were tired of her?

It made the blood pound in his temple. They’d been willing to kill him to get her back? But this time they weren’t wearing masks. They wanted her dead now?

That first shot they’d fired hadn’t been at him, had it? He couldn’t remember. He’d think about it later, go over his memories second by second. Still, it was weird. What was going on? How the devil had they found him?

He’d been a fool. He should have left her in the Jeep in town and told her to keep hidden. Well, he’d done it and there was no undoing it now. It was likely they’d seen him with her in Dillinger the day he’d bought her clothes, the day he’d had her with him, holding her hand while walking to the store, carrying her. He felt the aspirin kick in.

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