Torie didn’t like anyone speaking for her, but in this case, she was grateful. “He’s correct, gentlemen. The only thing I saw was flying glass from the windshield. The only way I knew I was in danger was because of the driver. His quick action saved my life. He told me to get down. There were more shots. When one hit the hood and he said to run, I ran. We both saw the explosion. He said a bullet must have hit the battery. I didn’t see any other people, or cars, or anything. I was just too tired to be paying attention.”
“Tired?”
“Ms. Hagen had just returned from a long trip and had been in our offices for a meeting for at least an hour. I arranged for the car to take her back to the hotel. As I mentioned, this is the second attack. Her home is still an unreleased crime scene. You’ll want to talk to Sorrels and Marsden from Arson Investigation.”
Torie winced at the mention that her home was off-limits, especially to her. It just added insult to injury that the officers were nodding, already familiar with the situation.
“We’ll confer with the arson team in the morning. In the meantime, Ms. Hagen, we need to ask that you not leave town again. Will you go back to the hotel?”
It was Paul who answered. “Only long enough to gather some belongings.”
“We’ll need to know where you are, Ms. Hagen.”
“You can contact my office.” Paul pushed a higher degree of authority into his tone, handing them his card. “Obviously, your department has been leaking information as it is, given the Black Widow inferences I’ve already seen in the press. I don’t want to give her attacker any further chances to utilize loose gossip to get another shot at her.”
Torie let the battle of words rage over her head. They were arguing technical points, like boxers, or umpires. She just wanted to go home.
Which was impossible, of course. Home didn’t exist.
That thought brought her right back to thinking Valium was a good idea.
“Excuse me, but I need to get to my patient,” a brisk voice said, as a short dark-skinned man pulled on the curtain. “All of you need to leave.” In the face of his cross-armed stance and obvious medical authority, the police officers cleared out. Their parting shot was melodramatic, like something out of Law & Order.
“Stay available, Ms. Hagen.”
“Yeah, right,” Paul muttered, mustering a smile for her behalf.
“You need to leave, too, sir, unless you are family or her husband,” the doctor stated.
Paul winced. “No, just her attorney.” To Torie, he added, “I’ll be right outside. I’ll get you where you need to go.”
She managed a nod, then looked at the doctor.
“Good, now that they’ve all gone, perhaps you can tell me if your head hurts? Your eyes, are they sensitive to the light?” He flicked the tiny flashlight into her eyes, as the nurse had done. “No? Good. Our lovely Nurse Pickering has dressed your hands, yes? Let me look.” She held out her hands and he peeled back the dressing just a fraction. “Good, good. Now, here is a prescription for a good antibiotic ointment. Some of those scrapes are sure to be painful, but they’ll heal quickly. Probably won’t even need the bandages by day after tomorrow. However, we don’t want infection.” He ripped a paper off and handed it to her. “There. Fill that tomorrow. But for now, get some rest. You look terrible.”
“Thanks a lot,” she muttered sarcastically, sliding off the table.
Grinning, he put out a hand, steadied her descent. “You’re welcome. I always try to tell my patients the truth. You need sleep, and probably a good meal. Make him stop and get you something, yes? And wait.” He pulled the curtain, but went behind the nurse’s station, got the nurse to retrieve some tablets. “Take this. It will help you sleep. You won’t need more than one, yes? But get some sleep tonight.”
He pressed a two-tablet blister pack into her hands. Tylenol Three with codeine. Oh, yeah, she’d sleep. The stuff knocked her out.
“Thanks, Dr. Paresh.”
“Most welcome. Now go.” He handed her a sheaf of papers with his signature scrawled along the appropriate lines. “Get out of here before you catch something.”
The doctor’s humor was appreciated, but Torie couldn’t even muster the energy to laugh. She managed to get out to the waiting area where Paul was talking to the police. He hurried to her. “You okay?”
“I guess.”
“Let’s get you out of here.”
“Mister Jameson,” one of the officers protested. “We need to—”
“You can talk to her tomorrow, my office. Ten A.M.”
Paul hustled her out to a sleek Mercedes sedan and, holding open the door, held her purse as she got in. She’d never experienced Paul in this kind of solicitous mode. Gone was the joking or angry man. Here he was all concern.
“I made a reservation for you. It’s under my name for now. I don’t want anyone to be able to call around and find you.”
“Okay.”
She managed to answer his other scant questions, but was worn out by the time they pulled up under the portico of the Hilton.
“Wait here.”
Like she could move.
Paul took care of the mundanities of checking her in. When he came back, he helped her out of the car and got her settled in her room.
“Give me your key to the other room at the Suites. I’ll go get your bags from your trip. If you want to, go on to bed. I’ll just set them inside the door.”
“You’ll need a key.”
“I got one for this room, too.”
“Oh.”
“Go on. Get yourself to bed, Torie.”
At this point, she couldn’t find words to protest. She just nodded and headed for the bathroom. For once, she didn’t mind following someone else’s orders. With everything topsy turvy in her world, she just wanted to sleep.
Paul eased the door closed on the hotel room. He wished he could lock it from the outside, giving Torie another level of protection. Whipping out his PDA as he walked, he began texting, then calling the people he needed. With that done, he headed to the Extended Suites to get Torie’s things.
A crowd of bystanders lurked beyond the yellow tape at the hotel, most of them holding beer bottles or soft drink cans. They were trading theories about the car, and what had happened.
“Yeah, I heard it blow,” one young man drawled. “Didn’t know it was a car though. Sounded like something bigger.”
“Uh huh,” his companion replied. “I didn’t hear it, had my ’phones on.” He pointed to the dangling ear-buds attached to his slim music player. “Saw the flash. It was awesome.”
Paul wanted to smack them both for being so nonchalant about what had happened. Another part of him reasoned that they had no way of knowing that it had been gunfire, or that his…client had nearly been killed. He had to keep thinking of her as his client, not as anything else. She’d looked so vulnerable, so young.
The memory of her, younger and equally vulnerable, rose to haunt him. He’d rescued her then. History seemed to be repeating itself.
“Jameson?”
Paul turned to see the same officer from the hospital standing by the curb.
“Yep. Any new info?”
“No, but we’re pinpointing where the shots came from. We’ll get the crime techs to pull the bullets out.”
Looking at the burned car, Paul was dubious. Then again, you never knew what forensics could do. “Be interesting to see if they match the gun that killed my friend.”
“Nah. I looked it up. Your church friend was killed with a small caliber weapon. This had to have more oomph.”
“Looks like both my friends are targets.”
“You’d better be careful, too, Jameson.” Another voice joined the conversation. It was Tibbet, the detective who’d broken the news of Todd’s death. “Looks like someone doesn’t care much for your friends.”
“You’re right, Tibbet. And that worries me.”
“Where’s the woman, Hagen? Wasn’t she here? They keep her at the hospital?” Tibbet was asking his officer, but Paul answered.