The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss

Sure enough, it was. A patrol car, alerted by one of the street people, came barreling down the side street where the office was located, its spotlight catching two men bending over a prostrate form in a dark parking lot.

“Oh, God!” one of the men exclaimed. “Run!”

The sound of running feet barely impinged on Tess’s fading consciousness. Funny, she couldn’t lift her face. The pavement was damp and cold under her cheek. Except for that, she felt numb all over.

“They shot somebody!” a different voice called. “Don’t let them get away!”

She heard more pops. Black shoes went past her face, as two policemen went tearing after the well-dressed men.

“Tess!”

She didn’t recognize the voice at first. Dane was always so calm and in command of himself that the harsh urgency of his tone didn’t sound familiar.

He rolled her gently onto her back. She stared up at him blankly, in shock. Her arm was beginning to feel wet and heavy and hot. She tried to speak and was surprised to find that she couldn’t make her tongue work.

He spotted the dark, wet stain on her arm immediately, because the bullet had penetrated the cloth of her coat and blood was pulsing under it. “My God!” he ground out. His expression was as hard as a statue’s, betraying nothing. Only his eyes, glittery with anger, were alive in that dark slate.

One of the policemen was running back toward them. He paused, his pistol in hand, kneeling beside Tess. “Was she hit?” the policeman asked curtly. “I saw one of them fire—”

“She’s hit. Get an ambulance,” Dane said, his black eyes meeting the other man’s for an instant. “Hurry. She’s bleeding badly.”

The policeman ran back down the alley.

Dane didn’t waste time. He eased Tess’s arm out of her coat and grimaced at the gaping tear in her blouse and the vivid flow of blood. He cursed under his breath, whipping out a handkerchief and holding it firmly over the wound, even when she cried out at the pain.

“Be still,” he said quietly. “Be still, little one. I’ll take care of you. You’re going to be all right.”

She shivered. Tears ran down her cheeks. It hadn’t hurt until he started pressing on it. Now the pain was terrible. She cried helplessly while he wound the handkerchief tightly around the wound and tied it. He shucked his topcoat and covered Tess with it. He took her purse and used it to elevate her feet. Then he turned his attention back to the wound. It was still bleeding copiously, and what Tess could see of it wasn’t reassuring. He seemed so capable and controlled that she wasn’t inclined to panic. He’d always had that effect on her, at least, when he wasn’t making her nervous.

“Am I going to bleed to death?” she asked very calmly.

“No.” He glanced over his shoulder as a car approached. He used words she’d never heard him use and abruptly stood as the squad car pulled up. “Help me get her in the car!” he called to the policeman. “She won’t make it until an ambulance gets here at the rate she’s losing blood.”

“I just raised my partner on the walkie-talkie. He’s on his way back with one of the perps,” the officer said as he helped Dane get Tess into the backseat. “If he isn’t here by the time I get the engine going, he’s walking back to the station.”

“I hear you.” Dane cradled Tess’s head in his lap. “Let’s go.”

Just as the officer got in behind the wheel, his partner came into view with a handcuffed man. Dane stiffened.

“M-20’s on his way,” the officer called to his partner. “I’ve got a wounded lady in here. Can you manage?”

“You bet! Get her to the hospital!” the other man called back.

The older man wheeled the squad car around with an expertise that Tess might have admired if she’d been less nauseated and hurt.

Minutes later, they pulled up at the municipal hospital emergency room, but Tess didn’t know it. She was unconscious….

Daylight was streaming through the window when her eyes opened again. She blinked. She was pleasantly dazed. Her upper arm felt swollen and hot. She looked at it, curious about the thick white bandage it was wrapped in. She stirred, only then aware that she was strapped to a tube.

“Don’t pull the IV out,” Dane drawled from the chair beside the bed. “Believe me, you won’t like having to have it put back in again.”

She turned her head toward him. She felt dizzy and disoriented. “It was dark,” she mumbled drowsily. “These men came after me and I think one of them shot me.”

“You were shot, all right,” he said grimly. “They were drug dealers. What happened? Did you get between them and the police, get caught in the crossfire?”

“No,” Tess groaned. “I saw them pass the stuff. They must have panicked, but I didn’t realize what I’d seen until they were after me.”

He stiffened. “You saw it? You witnessed a drug buy?”

She nodded wearily. “I’m afraid so.”

He whistled softly. “If they got a good look at you, and recognized the office building…”

“One got away.”

“The one who shot you,” Dane said flatly. “And they don’t have enough on the one they caught to hold him for long. They’ll charge him, but he’ll probably make bail as soon as he’s arraigned, and you’re the gal who can send him up for dealing.”

“His cohort shot me,” she pointed out. “But the one they arrested was there. Can’t he be arrested as an accessory?”

“Maybe, maybe not. You don’t know how these people think,” he said enigmatically, and he looked worried. Really worried.

“I’ll bet you do,” she murmured sleepily. “All those years, locking people up…”

“I know the criminal mind inside out,” he agreed. “But it’s different when things hit home.” His dark eyes narrowed on her wan face. “It’s very different.”

She must be half-asleep, she decided, because he actually sounded as if he minded that she’d been shot. That was ridiculous. He resented her, disliked her even if he had felt sorry enough for her to give her a job when her father had died. He was her worst enemy, so why would it matter to him if something happened to her?

Dane stretched wearily, his white shirt pulled taut over a broad chest. “How do you feel this morning?”

She touched the bandage. “Not as bad as I did last night. What did the doctors do to me?”

“Took the bullet out.” He pulled it from his shirt pocket and displayed it for her. “A thirty-eight caliber,” he explained. “A souvenir. I thought you might like it mounted and framed.”

She grimaced. “Suppose we frame and mount the man who shot me instead?”

His black eyebrow jerked up. “I’ll pass that thought along to the police,” he said dryly.

“Can I go home?”

“When you’re a little stronger. You lost a lot of blood and they had to put you under to get the bullet out.”

“Helen will be furious when she finds out,” she murmured with a smile. “She’s the private eye, and I got shot.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll be livid with jealousy,” he agreed. He paused beside the bed, his dark eyes narrow and intent on her face in its frame of soft, wavy blond hair. He looked at her for a long time.

“I’m all right, if it matters,” she said sleepily. She closed her eyes. “I don’t know why it should. You hate me.”

Her voice trailed off as she gave in to the need for rest. He didn’t answer her. But his eyes were stormy and his mind had already registered how much it would have mattered if her life had seeped out on that cold concrete.