Mallory grinned. “Come on back to bed.”
Chapter Twenty-four
The black man with the gun pointed at Honey screamed, “I told you to shut up!”
“I…I’m sorry,” Honey said. She was trembling. “Wh…what do you want?”
He was pressing his hand against his side, trying to stop the flow of blood. “I want my sister.”
Honey looked at him, puzzled. He was obviously insane. “Your sister?”
“Kat.” His voice was becoming faint.
“Oh, my God! You’re Mike!”
“Yeah.”
The gun dropped, and he slipped to the floor. Honey rushed to him. Blood was pouring out from what looked like a gunshot wound.
“Lie still,” Honey said. She hurried into the bathroom and gathered up some peroxide and a large bath towel. She returned to Mike. “This is going to hurt,” she warned.
He lay there, too weak to move.
She poured peroxide into the wound and pressed the towel against his side. He bit down on his hand to keep from screaming.
“I’m going to call an ambulance and get you to the hospital,” Honey said.
He grabbed her arm. “No! No hospitals. No police.” His voice was getting weaker. “Where’s Kat?”
“I don’t know,” Honey said helplessly. She knew Kat was out somewhere with Mallory, but she had no idea where. “Let me call a friend of mine.”
“Paige?” he asked.
Honey nodded. “Yes.” So Kat told him about the two of us.
It took the hospital ten minutes to reach Paige.
“You’d better come home,” Honey said.
“I’m on call, Honey. I’m in the middle of—”
“Kat’s brother is here.”
“Oh, well, tell him—”
“He’s been shot.”
“He what?”
“He’s been shot!”
“I’ll send the paramedics over and—”
“He says no hospitals and no police. I don’t know what to do.”
“How bad is it?”
“Pretty bad.”
There was a pause. “I’ll find someone to cover for me. I’ll be there in half an hour.”
Honey replaced the receiver and turned to Mike. “Paige is coming.”
Two hours later, on her way back to the apartment, Kat was filled with a glorious sense of well-being. She had been nervous about making love, afraid that she would hate it after the terrible experience she had had, but instead, Ken Mallory had turned it into something wonderful. He had unlocked emotions in her that she had never known existed.
Smiling to herself at the thought of how they had outwitted the doctors at the last moment and won the bet, Kat opened the door to the apartment and stood there in shock. Paige and Honey were kneeling beside Mike. He was lying on the floor, a pillow under his head, a towel pressed against his side, his clothes soaked with blood.
Paige and Honey looked up as Kat entered.
“Mike! My God!” She rushed over to Mike and knelt beside him. “What happened?”
“Hi, sis.” His voice was barely a whisper.
“He’s been shot,” Paige said. “He’s hemorrhaging.”
“Let’s get him to the hospital,” Kat said.
Mike shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “You’re a doctor. Fix me up.”
Kat looked over at Paige.
“I’ve stopped as much of the bleeding as I can, but the bullet is still inside him. We don’t have the instruments here to—”
“He’s still losing blood,” Kat said. She cradled Mike’s head in her arms. “Listen to me, Mike. If you don’t get help, you’re going to die.”
‘You…can’t…report…this…I don’t want any police.”
Kat asked quietly, “What are you involved in, Mike?”
“Nothing. I was in a…a business deal…and it went sour…and this guy got mad and shot me.”
It was the kind of story Kat had been listening to for years. Lies. All lies. She had known that then, and she knew it now, but she had tried to keep the truth from herself.
Mike held on to her arm. “Will you help me, sis?”
“Yes. I’m going to help you, Mike.” Kat leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. Then she rose and went to the telephone. She picked up the receiver and dialed the emergency room at the hospital. “This is Dr. Hunter,” she said in an unsteady voice. “I need an ambulance right away…”
At the hospital, Kat asked Paige to perform the operation to remove the bullet.