Winter's Storm: Retribution (Winter's Saga #2) (27 page)

A droplet of sweat trickled down her cheek and fell to the already damp dirt below, and that’s when she saw it.

Movement.

The back door opened and out came the coyote again. At the doorway, a human’s head peeked out briefly before ducking back inside and closing the door. If she played this right, she could take out the human first, then the canine.

Oh, hell yeah,
she thought to herself.
One shot, one kill. One shot, one kill.
She resumed chanting the sniper’s mantra in her mind.

After missing out on eliminating three targets three hours ago because of fear that she’d give away her element of surprise, she was not going to miss out this time. She didn’t care which human it was. It was dead meat next time the door opened.

She didn’t have long to wait. The coyote finished doing its business and began trotting back to the house. The person must have been watching for the animal because the door opened when it approached. She had half a second to respond to the figure standing only partly exposed.

Controlling her breathing to steady herself, she squeezed the trigger and watched happily as the figure spun around with the bullet’s impact and fell to the ground. It was half in, half out of the doorway with its legs still visible to Farrow.

The coyote immediately began barking; a piercing, panicked bark that carried over the distance to Farrow’s ears. She resisted the natural urge to stare at the motionless body that was her first target and instead quickly located the barking coyote in her scope. Again, she took aim.

She inhaled slowly, again controlling her breathing, and squeezed the trigger. The coyote’s yelp was instantaneous, but he didn’t fall to the ground like he should have.

“
Damn it,” Farrow cursed herself for missing the kill.

She wasn’t given another chance. The coyote ran into the house, yelping and moments later, the body of the human was dragged back into the house. The door slammed shut, and all was still.

Weighing her options, Farrow decided it was getting late enough for her to prepare her next attack. She was pretty sure that human wasn’t Dr. Margo Winter because of the size of the frame. She believed it to have been a male; either Dr. Andrews or his son. It wasn’t a fat enough shape to have been Dr. St. Paul and Farrow knew of no other persons in the house.

She stayed on her belly as she packed her gear quickly and crawled back down the other side of the hill until she was sure she couldn’t be seen from the St. Paul house, even with high powered scopes. Because of how remote, dense and inaccessible her location had been, it took her a while to make it down to where she left her motorcycle hidden in the greenery. When she arrived, she replenished fluids and calories, changed clothing, gathered the gear she would need for this next attack and waited for nightfall.

She was anxious to get her hands on Margo Winter. Even as she watched the sun get lower in the sky, she thought through all the possible scenarios and savored the idea of finishing little Miss Margo last. She may even take pictures with her cell phone to send as a gift back to Dr. Williams. She smiled at the thought. He would really love that! And when she returned to the Facility, he would shower her with honors in front of everyone.

If anyone had been nearby they would have swore they heard giggling coming from what looked to be a thickly overgrown section of the mountainside, but no one was there except a deadly Farrow in the bush.

50 Patients Without Patience

“
What happened?”

“
You were shot.”

“
What?”

“
You were shot, son. We need to get you back to the lab.”

“
Why am I on the floor?”

“
Cole, look at me.” Theo lifted his son’s eyelids carefully, one at a time, and flashed a small pen light into them checking for reaction. “Do you know where you are?”

“
Apparently, I’m on the floor,” Cole’s speech was beginning to slur.

“
Whose house is this?”

“
Paulie’s.”

“
Do you know what day it is?”

“
Um…” Cole mumbled and his eyes rolled back.

“
Cole!”

“
What?” His voice was groggy.

“
Stay with me, buddy! Stay awake!”

“
Okay, gosh stop yelling at me. I just got shot, ya know.” Cole furrowed his brows defiantly, blinked twice, then passed out.

They were on the opposite side of the house from the lab. Theo knew the others in the house wouldn’t hear him if he yelled for help and Cole was much too heavy for him to carry.

His eyes scanned the room for anything nearby that could help. The desk in the corner of the room had a plush rolling chair. Perfect! Though he didn’t want to let go of the pressure he was keeping on the gunshot wound, he needed to get the boy on the chair and wheel him to the lab—and he needed to do this quickly.

With a strength he didn’t even know he had, he pulled the unconscious boy into a sitting position on the chair. Keeping one hand on his son’s body to both steady him and maintain pressure on the bleeding wound, and the other hand on the back of the chair, he steered as quickly as he could across the house.

Theo ran directly to the sliding doors of the lab and cursed the slowness of the doors as they parted for him. He was already yelling to the two doctors inside for help before the second set of sliding doors even began to open.

“
Cole’s been shot! Margo, Paulie!
My son’s been shot!
”

Though Dr. Andrews had seen gunshot wounds hundreds of times in the emergency room of his hospital back in Kansas, this was completely different. This was his little boy. He was shaking violently as he rushed his son to the same gurney Meg had occupied hours before.

“
Oh, my God! What happened?” Margo had dropped what she was doing, literally and came running across the large room to Theo. She helped him lift Cole onto the bed.

“
I don’t know. I think he let Maze out to relieve himself and…oh, God. There’s so much blood.”

“
Did he say anything before he passed out?” Paulie was just a few steps behind Margo and was already reaching for saline to start cleaning the wound.

“
No, nothing really—it all happened so fast.” Theo was standing back a little now, making room for the other two doctors to work on Cole.

“
I’m starting an I.V.,” Margo said slipping easily into the role of ER doctor, herself. She reached for the medical cart beside her, yanked open a drawer and found the package she needed.

“
The bullet looks to have gone right through the muscle in his upper arm. A sniper rifle did this; a long range, high-powered, rifle—I’d put money on it,” Paulie said shaking his head as he continued to assess the damages. “Damn, this bullet was traveling at one hell of a velocity, I can tell you that. He’s lucky it missed.”

“
Missed?”
Theo yelled in a flash of anger.

“
Yeah, Theo. The shooter was aiming for his head.”

Dr. Andrew’s face fell silent and pale.

“
You done over there, Margo? We need to turn him on his side so I can look at the back.”

“
Almost,” she said as she grabbed white tape to secure the needle in place and covered the site with a large piece of sterile gauze.

“
Okay, let’s roll him.”

“
Well, from what I can see so far, the bullet missed the bone. Two inches north and we would have had a blown out shoulder joint.”

As Paulie examined, Margo set up a blood pressure and heart rate monitor. She also finished cutting off the remainder of Cole’s shirt to get it out of the way.

“
It’s pretty miraculous, but the humerus looks intact. We’re going to have our hands full putting his biceps back together, though. Never thought I’d have to use my skills as an Army surgeon after forty years, but here we are.”

Theo had found a chair. “I should be helping,” he said weakly.

“
You are helping, Theo. You pray while we work. Okay?” Margo said soothingly.

“
We need to finish cleaning the wound and get started on reconstructing this muscle. Margo, ready with the anesthesia?”

“
Yes, sir,” she said and handed Dr. St. Paul a syringe filled with a local pain killer.

“
Well, let’s get this boy fixed up. Shall we?” he said to no one in particular, and began numbing the area.

Back in the living room where all the chaos had begun, Maze was crouched under the sofa table. He was doing what any coyote would do when hurt. He was methodically licking his wound. Unfortunately, Farrow’s missed shot hit the wooden door right beside Maze sending an explosion of wood splinters into the air. It wasn’t a bullet wound he was nursing; He had several large splinters of wood lodged in his flank, but everyone was so worried about Cole no one thought to look for Maze, and he was hurting too much to go look for them. He whimpered softly as he licked and tried to gently bite at the painful wooden shards.

Not until Cole’s surgery was complete and he was stabilized did anyone think to wonder about Maze.

“
Theo, do you remember seeing Maze? He wasn’t hurt, was he?” Margo asked.

“
I don’t know. I’ve been so worried about Cole, I hadn’t even thought about Maze.” Theo felt guilty for inwardly blaming the coyote for his son’s injuries. It wasn’t Maze’s fault. He’s just an animal who was doing as he has been trained.

“
Paulie?”

“
Nope, I haven’t seen the fur ball in hours; I’ve been stuck in the lab most of the day, but I’ll come with you to look for him. I need to get some food in this old belly of mine,” he said, patting his ample middle.

With a sinking feeling settling in her stomach, Margo excused herself from Cole’s beside and began walking the house in search of her daughter’s coyote. Paulie took a detour to the kitchen to throw a frozen dinner into the microwave.

“
Maze? Maze, come here boy!” She waited quietly for the familiar padding of his paws on the tile floors of this Hawaiian house that had become home, but no sound came.

She rounded the corner to look in Meg’s room.

“
Maze? Are you in here?” she called.

In response, she heard a faint whimper from under Meg’s bed.

“
Maze? What are you doing under there?” Margo leaned down and reached to lift the bedskirt. That’s when she noticed the blood stains.

“
Oh, no. Maze, come here boy. Let me see what happened to you.” The coyote whimpered again, but didn’t move. His yellow eyes glowed in the darkness and if Margo weren’t sure this coyote was perfectly tamed, she would have thought twice about reaching her hand in to touch his soft fur.

Maze growled.

“
Maze!” Margo gasped, surprised and quickly withdrew her hand. “What’s gotten into you? Honey, I only want to help you. Will you please come out from under there?” She spoke to the coyote as though he was a child.

He yawned widely, a sign of stress in canines, then whimpered apologetically.

“
C’mon Mazie,” she coaxed.

Crawling, belly to the floor, the coyote made his way slowly out from under the bed. Every movement caused him to moan and yip painfully.

“
That’s my boy. Good boy, Maze. I know it hurts; keep coming.”

The doctor grimace when she saw his back and hind quarter with chunks of fur and flesh mangled with both dried and oozing blood. Several large pieces of splintered wood were still deeply lodged into his flank. “Oh, you poor dear,” she cooed softly. “I’m so sorry, Mazie. I’m going to get help, okay. You stay right here.”

She stood slowly so as not to startle the anxious, hurting animal and hurried to the doorway. “Paulie! Come quick. I’m in Meg’s room, and Maze is hurt!”

Together, the two doctors worked to anesthetize the coyote, clean the wound, remove the pieces of wood, stitch up the cuts and start him on a round of I.V. antibiotics.

“
I don’t have an Elizabethan collar for him, but we could make one if he needs it when he wakes up,” Paulie was saying as they finished cleaning the impromptu operating room that was Meg’s bedroom floor.

“
Well, he’ll need to stay tranquilized until we get the full round of antibiotics in him anyway. I’m thinking two days will do.” She was gently rubbing his ears and stroking his sleeping eyes. He loved it when she did that and if he were awake he would be making the cutest happy noises.

Paulie stood slowly and stretched his back. “I hate to say it, but I’m getting too old for this.” He smiled ruefully and made his way stiffly out of the room.

“
We did good,” Margo called to Paulie, thankful for his help.

The kindhearted, quirky doctor turned and said, “Well, we’re not veterinarians, but besides knowing what kind and how much anesthesia to give a sixty-pound canine, this injury was pretty much like treating a human.” He smiled wider and added, “A very hairy human.”

“
You’re the best, Paulie!” she called affectionately after him.

“
You’re not so bad yourself, kiddo!” he called back. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.” She heard the sound of his sandals getting further away.