Keepers & Killers (The Alchemy Series) (6 page)

"That would be my sniper," he waved toward the rooftop of
the building we had just come out of. I saw a man dressed in all black, complete with a ski mask, who stood there with a gun pointed on me. I looked down, a little red dot danced against the white of my shirt.

I let Cormac
's arms fall to the ground and stepped in front of him to shield him from any more bullets, knowing he was hanging on by a thread.

"What do you want?" I had no other plan than to buy Cormac
's body time to repair some of the damage.

"I want this world and I want you dead. All of you."

He was bluffing. If he wanted me dead, he'd have me shot right now. "Than do it."

"Not yet." He was gloating.

"What are you waiting for?" I goaded in anger. Have I mentioned I have more balls than brains?

"The right time. Payback." He smiled a sadistic smile.

"For what?" I couldn't understand the hatred I felt pouring out of him.

"Because you and your people made me and then turned on me because you couldn
't stand that I was superior," he sneered, as he lost some of his superior appearance and control.

"I didn
't turn on anyone."

Another shot fired and I crouched over Cormac, thinking they were going to try and finish him off. I looked to the building top, and tried to locate the sniper and saw a man I thought was Burrom by his small stature. The small shape did a leaping arch that struck the sniper in the throat with an agility that surprised me. I
'd be surprised if he hadn't crushed the sniper's windpipe. So much for questioning him afterward.

I made a move
toward the senator and he jumped back away from me. He was afraid of me. Why? But before I could take another step, bullets rained at our feet.

I looked up to see Burrom with the gun.

"I don't know who you are," he called down from the rooftop, "but take your fight elsewhere."

The
senator and I stared at each other as we both debated our options. My gut said Burrom wouldn't shoot me, but I felt torn in two. I wanted to pursue the senator but I didn't know how badly Cormac was injured. I stared at him for another second that Cormac didn't have and I saw him gloat.

I envisioned ripping him from limb to limb when in actuality
I was running back to the car. I found the keys lying close to where we had gone down.

I looked up to the rooftop where Burrom still stood guard with the gun in his hand. He gave me a nod and indicated he had my back as I quickly
- or as quickly as I could - dragged Cormac into the passenger side.

I jumped into the driver
's seat, planning on running the bastard over if he was still standing there, but he was gone. I tried every button on the dash and steering wheel until I figured out how to get the Bluetooth working. "Call Dodd," I said, and hoped Cormac didn't have him stored under some weird pseudonym.

"Hey Boss. How
'd it go?" I heard his deep voice answer.

"Not good." It took supreme concentration for me to keep the panic from my voice.

"Jo? Where's Cormac?"

The panic in Dodd
's voice didn't help matters.

"He
's here with me…but barely."

"What do you mean? Why isn
't he speaking?"

"He took some bullets and I think he might be bleeding out." I looked at Cormac
's lifeless form.

"Does he have a pulse?"

I reached over with my right hand and tried to get a read, as I flew through the streets.

"Does he have a pulse?!" Dodd
's voice filled the car as he screamed.

"I
'm trying! Hold on!" My hands shook so badly it was hard to feel the faint pulse, but it was there. "Yes."

"Is he still bleeding?"

"I think so." I looked over at the pool of blood on the seat under his crumpled form and thought it looked larger than it had been.

"How far away are you?"

I knew this area like the back of my hand but I still had to look at the street sign as my brain froze. "Only a couple of blocks away." I ground the car's gears as I tried to shift into fourth.

"Pull directly into his private garage. I
'll make sure all the gates are open and I'll meet you there."

And then I was alone, or at least it felt like it. Cormac hadn
't moved once. My brain replayed the scene and I couldn't remember how many bullets had been fired, maybe too many to count. I glanced over to where he was slumped against the seat and hoped he would start speaking. I'm not the squeamish type but I'd never seen so much blood come from anyone. Stop. Looking. Just drive…you're almost there. I gripped the steering wheel harder and pretended my hands weren't shaking.

I flew up the ramp into the private garage, everything was open
, just as promised. Standing in front of the door, only about ten feet from my trailer, stood Dodd, Dr. Sabrina, who I remembered from the night I'd gotten radiation overdose, Buzz and Ben. I drove the last couple of feet before I hit the brakes.

Dodd had
Cormac out of the car before I'd even screeched to a complete stop.

"Lay him down and sit right here
, Dodd," the doctor instructed as she kneeled next to him without a thought to the pretty white sun dress she wore.

A tube was already hanging from Dodd
's vein and the doctor inserted it into Cormac's arm a second later.

"Well?" Dodd asked, the first of us to utter the question.

She felt his pulse, opened his lids and gazed into his eyes with a light. "We're good."

"Should we move him?" Ben chimed in, as we all looked at Cormac
, lifeless on the ground.

"I wouldn
't bother. He'll be up soon enough. With the new injection of blood, he'll be standing on his own in another ten minutes."

I felt the tension slip away like a storm wind blowing in after a boiling summer day
, bringing a new set of issues with it.

"What happened?" It was clear Dodd instinctively took charge when Cormac couldn
't, and his ease in the position made me wonder how often that was.

I gave them all a quick recap as Dodd grilled me for details I couldn
't answer.

"This doesn
't make sense. How could a sniper have snuck up on Cormac? He smells a sniper from ten miles away. There has to be more. What were you doing?" They all stared at me.

"I don
't know how. He just did. That's all I remember," I said defensively. Why was everyone looking at me as if it was my fault?

"And when you pulled away, the
senator was just gone?" Dodd continued to interrogate me.

"Yes. Can you grill me later after we know he
's okay?" I asked, I was still uneasy at the sight of him lying there. I had an irrational urge to kick him and scream at him to sit up.

"Relax
. Doc gave us the thumbs up." I saw him look over at my trailer. "Hey, do you have any beer in there?"

I threw my hands up, aghast at the question. "No, I don
't."

"That sucks. Okay, so you thought he was scared of you?" The last question had a tone I found hard not to be insulted by.

"Yes. I think he was scared of me." I spoke a bit slower to get my point across.

"If that was the case, why didn
't you take a shot at him?" He shifted in his spot still seated next to Cormac.

Sabrina knelt down next to the two of them and started to withdraw the transfusion of Dodd
's blood.

"I didn
't try to take a shot because of your almost dead friend? Burrom, on the roof, with a gun aimed at us?"

Sabrina looked at me as I talked with my hands as I became more and more agitated.

"Do you want me to take a look at those?" she asked, looking directly at where my sleeve hung, shredded.

I held up my arm and got a good look at the road burn already scabbed and healing. "No, I
'm fine."

"I think you could
've gotten
one
good blow in," Dodd said, having trouble letting the subject drop.

"He was bleeding out on the pavement."

"Look, no judgment here, I just think I could've pulled off at least one shot is all," he replied, clearly passing judgment.

"Leave her alone," Cormac said and startled me from my annoyance
at Dodd. All eyes fell to him as he started to sit up, not even eight minutes after I'd pulled in. Were the doctor's calculations wrong or was he just one tough S.O.B.?  I'd guessed the latter.

He was on his feet a minute later, looking l a hundred percent, other than
the fact he was wearing clothes soaked in blood, riddled with bullet holes, that is.

"He disappeared completely?" Cormac asked as he took off his bloodied shirt.

"Yes. You heard all of that?" I asked, a bit startled. Did his brain work better than mine? He'd just almost died blocking bullets meant for me; was it wrong to feel jealous?

"Nothing? Not a trace?"

"Yes. That's what I said." I looked at him, so sure on his feet. He was the picture of health again.

"Dodd, call Burrom and find out what he saw." Then he turned toward me. "You. Don
't leave this casino." I watched him walk from the garage.

I
've never been good at following directions. All you have to do is look at my Ikea bureau with the crooked drawers to figure that one out.

Chapter Five

"So what do you think?" Lacey asked.

"Huh?"

"Jo! You need to pay attention! I just can
't figure him out," Lacey complained as she lounged on my couch, feet on the armrest, while she waited for her toenails to dry.

I looked down at my phone again. I called Rick the moment Cormac left yesterday, in hopes of setting up a meeting. It was two in the afternoon the next day and still no call back? I was starting to think he wasn
't that anxious to see me.

"Jo! Stop staring at your phone and help me!"

"I'm sorry. What's the problem with Cormac?" I left my phone on the counter and plopped down on my couch with her. I'd hear it ring, staring at it wouldn't do anything for me.

"I swear you don
't listen to me. He's acting all buddy buddy with me."

"And?" I asked trying to figure out the problem.

"I don't want to be his buddy." A pout appeared on her face.

"I thought you said you were okay with just being friends? You didn
't even used to want to be in the same room with him." I knew she'd been either lying to me or herself, but I couldn't help point it out.

"That was when I thought he was scary. But then he seemed…I don
't know, not as scary? Plus, you've seen him."

Yes, a bit too much
, but it was a little late to come clean on that. I'd always been so good at secrets but all I wanted to do now was spill the entire story to Lacey. I wouldn't. I was too afraid. The way things were getting so weird around here, what if that contract actually had some juice?  And if I didn't tell her any of the weird stuff, it was going to be hard to explain the kiss. How do I tell her that I couldn't date the hot rich guy because he shot me in the head? She'd think I was a nut, because if I got shot, how am I still alive? And if I did blow my promise all to pieces then I'd have to hear it for even kissing the guy that had me shot. Nah, some things were better off as secrets.

"Yeah, he
's cute," I said trying to act disinterested.

"You need glasses if you think he
's just cute. There is something about him that makes me just want to jump him. I swear, we were that close a couple of weeks ago." She held up her fingers demonstrating for me. "Arnold asked me to run something up into his place. I got there and I was trying to chat him up and use my wiles on him. At first, I didn't think it was going to work, but then all of a sudden he's all 'come sit next to me' and stuff. Even put his hand on my leg. A minute later, he said he had to go and was giving me the bum's rush out. That was it. Nothing. Not even a hot kiss to show for it. Now we're in some weird yucky friend zone and I don't like it."

"Did he say anything about it? The night you thought he was interested?" I looked at my nails, feigning interest.

"Nothing, like it never happened. He's not always even that nice to me. Never mean, just disinterested."

She la
y there for a second, and I could tell she wanted to say something that she felt uncomfortable with. I just waited.