Читать книгу Outside The Law - Michelle Karl - Страница 13

FOUR

Noel blinked, trying to fight back the black spots that swam in his vision. Why did everything hurt? And why couldn’t he move his arm? He blinked again, the dashboard of the vehicle coming into focus. What was he doing inside a vehicle?

The sound of sirens brought everything rushing back. Adrenaline flooded his system, waking him up and sending a rush of strength into limbs filled with shooting pains.

Yasmine. She’d been in the car with him.

“Yasmine? Mina?” He took one look at her and fear gripped his heart. Her head lolled sideways and blood slid down the side of her face. “No, no, no.” Emotion suppressed all reason and he unbuckled himself, shoving away the deflating airbag to reach across the center console and press his fingers to her throat.

The pulse of her vein against his fingers brought a wave of relief tinged with worry. She’d needed to tell him something. She’d been worried and about to confide in him. He clenched his jaw in anger and frustration, wanting to beat his fists on the steering wheel but knowing that giving in to those emotions wouldn’t help either of them right now. They needed an ambulance and fast. Just because Yasmine’s pulse remained steady didn’t mean she wasn’t badly injured otherwise.

The sirens grew closer. What was he supposed to do now? Get out of the vehicle? Stay in here until the ambulance arrived? Although the Academy had trained him, finding himself in a life-and-death situation in the real world was new. He hadn’t expected to be thrown into a mess like this so quickly, and certainly not on his own before even reaching his first assignment.

Did three attempts on Yasmine’s life bring the situation under federal jurisdiction? Probably not. The local PD might want to bring in detectives from the city, keep it in-house and not have to bother with the hassle of turning the whole thing into a federal investigation. Not that Noel could even make that call in the first place. He needed to speak to his FBI mentor at the Buffalo field office. All graduates of the Academy were assigned mentors for their first two years on the job, senior officials whom the new agents could call on for help and advice as needed. Recruits often didn’t even get to meet their mentors until their first day on the job, and Noel’s case was no exception. Here he was, not even at the office for day one yet, and he already needed his mentor’s help.

The paramedics loaded her onto a gurney and strapped her in. He wanted to climb inside the ambulance and go with her, but leaving the scene of the crash wasn’t an option, especially not with his credentials and knowledge of crime scene protocol.

“Sir?” One of the paramedics waved at him. “Sir? We need to take her, but I think she’s asking for you.”

Noel reached her side in seconds. Yasmine’s eyelids fluttered, and her mouth moved, forming words he couldn’t hear. He bent low, and the curve of her lips sent him tumbling back into a memory he had no place holding in his mind at a time like this. He took her hand, rubbing his thumb across her smooth, golden skin.

“I’m right here, Mina.”

She coughed as she tried to speak, sending the paramedics into a frenzy.

“We’ve got to get her to the hospital,” one of them said. “She may be seriously injured.”

“Noel?” Yasmine coughed again, and they began to wheel her away. “Noel?”

He grabbed the side of the gurney and stumbled along next to her. “I’m here. I’m listening.”

“Need to tell you,” she said, whispering so softly that he almost didn’t catch what she said.

“Tell me what?” He gripped her hand tighter, struck with a strange fear of what she might say, though he couldn’t explain exactly why. “Yasmine, they’re taking you to the hospital to get checked over. I’ll join you as soon as I can. I’ll call your aunt and tell her what happened. Don’t worry. It can wait.”

“No!” She pulled her hand from his and pressed her fingers against his chest as he leaned over the gurney. “Daniel. We need to talk... Daniel. The person...who killed him. What if...they think...”

A paramedic came around to where Noel stood and pushed in front of him, a scowl on his face. “I’m sorry, sir, but we need to get her out of here.”

Noel wanted to jump into the ambulance, to ask her what she meant, to make sure she’d be all right—three attempts on her life in less than twelve hours, how was that even possible?—but the second the paramedics pulled her gurney from his grasp, Officer Wayne appeared and drew him aside.

“You need to have officers follow the ambulance,” Noel said to Wayne. “This is the third time someone has tried to kill that woman in twenty-four hours.”

Officer Wayne shook his head, and Noel felt an inkling of the frustration with him that Yasmine had shown. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have the manpower. Captain’s orders. We’re short on on-duty officers at this time of the morning.”

“What about the guys who came to spell me outside her aunt’s place?”

“Already off duty. Look, she’ll be fine in the ambulance.”

“You don’t know that. If you don’t send a car to follow in the next five seconds, I’m going to drive off in one of your cars myself.” He looked around the intersection again and realized with alarm that something was missing. The vehicle that had hit them. Dread and fury mixed in his stomach. That settles it. This was a deliberate act.

Officer Wayne looked Noel up and down with a grimace. “You do look like you need to get to the hospital and get checked over. You were inside the car at the time of the crash?”

“Yes.” Noel looked pointedly at the officer he’d thought he’d gotten along with the day before. “We need to go.”

Wayne glanced back at the other policemen setting barriers around the crash and directing traffic. “Technically, you should get checked out, too. We can deal with reconstruction later. If Miss Browder dies, we’re going to need to do a lot more than just take a few photos. I hate to admit that I was in the wrong, but it sure looks like someone wants Miss Browder out of the way. Guess she was right to be concerned, but I tell you, it’s a stretch to think it has anything to do with her brother, and the captain agrees with me.”

“She’s not going to die.” Noel pointed at the police cars in the intersection. Officer Wayne needed to stop talking and have a cop drive him to the hospital. He ground his teeth and touched his coat pocket, where his newly presented badge reminded him of what he’d devoted his life to. “She can’t.”

Not when I’ve just found her again.

* * *

Noel slipped in and out of consciousness as he reclined in the hospital chair by Yasmine’s bedside. The clock above the door read quarter to nine in the morning. He’d hoped to catch up on sleep as he waited for updates, but with nurses constantly coming and going and his mind racing to make sense of events, rest was a long way off.

Yasmine’s aunt had already visited and authorized him as a family visitor, and Noel had promised to call her as soon as the doctors or nurses bothered to tell him how Yasmine was doing. She looked pale and attached to too many tubes. His only consolation was that the hospital café opened at nine. He planned to imbibe at least two espresso shots and a large black tea so he could be functional as soon as Yasmine woke.

He stood, stretched, then crossed the room and opened the door, checking to make sure the officers stationed at either end of the hallway were still there. He’d send them on their way once the risk of falling asleep at Yasmine’s bedside had passed, but he was deeply grateful to Officer Wayne for convincing the captain to station two patrol guys here this morning. Both Wayne and the captain had agreed that three successive attempts on Yasmine’s life were no coincidence. They’d expressed a need to talk to her as soon as she awoke, but Noel wanted to talk to her first.

She had information about her brother’s death that obviously hadn’t been taken seriously, that hadn’t been included in the official reports. Daniel Browder had been killed in a workplace accident, Officer Wayne had said yesterday, showing him a file full of reports from various investigative parties. Daniel had worked at Newtech Inspections, a facility that manufactured and tested military equipment under contract with the Department of Defense. The entire facility underwent a workplace safety inspection after Daniel’s death and the incident had been ruled a tragic accident. Newtech Inspections hadn’t been deemed at fault.