She flipped to her feet, her brain fuzzy, vision blurred, back pulsing with pain.
A dog barked and Bone glanced to the side, waiting, but the dog went quiet. Bone turned back, and as Casey brought her hands up, he stepped in to hit her with a roundhouse punch. She jerked away so that he missed her jaw, but his fist caught her lip, smashing it against her teeth. She tasted blood.
He smiled again.
Casey sat back on her right leg and kicked his inner thigh. He stumbled to the left, and she turned to run. With a yell he lunged, grabbing her hair and jerking her backward. She reached up, trapping his hand with both of hers, and spun inside, double-twisting until his arm was behind him in a lock and his head was lowered. She rocked him forward, smashing his head against the Pontiac.
Spitting blood and faint from the kidney pain, Casey knew she couldn’t run away. At least not very far. She glanced into the Pontiac.
There were keys on the seat.
Dropping the man to the sidewalk, she stumbled around the back of the car and wrenched open the driver’s door, flinging herself inside. She grabbed the keys and poked one into the ignition. Not the right one. She pulled at the ring, but it was stuck.
The passenger door opened, and Bone lunged across the seat. She brought up her foot and kicked him in the face, his nose spraying blood as he shot backward.
“Come on, come on,” she pleaded, jiggling the keys.
Abandoning the keys, Casey scrambled to get out of the car, but Bone was up again, shaking his head, rounding the hood. He kicked the door, catching her right forearm and sending it back with a snap. She clutched the arm to her stomach as the door repelled against Bone. He kicked the door again, but she hopped backward, out of the way.
Bone wavered there, his face splotched with red. Casey felt her injured arm with her other hand. She didn’t think it was broken. She hoped not.
Bone’s eyes focused on her. Noting the curb several feet behind him, Casey aimed a kick at his stomach with her right foot. He stepped back, and she threw a sidekick with her left. He took another step away, and she went after him with a right kick, and then a left backward one. One more front kick, and he stumbled over the curb, falling onto his back.
Casey leapt forward to stomp on his stomach and he caught her foot, twisting it inside. She went with the twist and spun away, circling to face him. He stood up, his face a mask of rage now, his eyes horrible amidst the blood. Casey brought up her arms, the right one throbbing.
Bone grabbed at his ankle and came back up with a blade. He slashed at her and she spun away, but the knife sliced her left shoulder, through her jacket. He came at her again, thrusting at her stomach. She danced sideways, circling away. He was smiling again, his teeth smeared with red.
Casey shook her head, trying to focus. Her right arm throbbed, her left shoulder was staining her jacket red, and blood filled her mouth. She spat again.
Taffy groaned from his spot on the sidewalk, but neither Casey nor Bone broke eye contact. She could only hope she had hit Taffy hard enough he wouldn’t actually be getting up, or reaching for his gun.
Bone feinted to her right, and she spun away, circling. Her strength was fading. If Taffy got up, she was done. She couldn’t outrun Bone. She was losing blood. Her back ached.
She realized Bone had stopped coming at her. He was waiting. Waiting for her to make a mistake.
With a deep breath she stumbled left and clutched her bloody arm, exposing her neck. Bone came at her with an overhand strike. She reached up and passed his arm down, jamming the knife into his left thigh. He screamed. She pulled the knife from his leg, grabbed it with both hands, and stepped back, knife blade up.
Bone clutched his leg as blood spurted out, soaking his pant leg. Bright red blood covered his hands as he pressed against his thigh, and he yanked off his shirt, winding it around his leg. The shirt didn’t staunch the flow, but quickly turned red itself, the blood saturating the material within seconds.
He looked up at Casey, his eyes wild. Casey stayed where she was, brandishing the knife, watching with disbelief as Bone’s lifeblood flowed through the tourniquet and down his leg.
He blinked once, with disbelief, and Casey stared into his eyes, her teeth clenched, her breath caught in her chest. He lurched forward, his arms outstretched. She backed up. Her knife wavered.
“Please,” Bone said.
He stumbled toward her again, grabbing her shoulder with a bloody hand. She held the knife up, toward his throat. She was ready. But Bone’s eyes were glazing over, and his breath rasped in his throat. Slowly he leaned forward, his weight tipping toward her, his fingers clutching her shoulder.
“Please.”
Bone dropped to his knees, and Casey stepped away as he fell, his face twisting to the right as it met the ground. He jerked once. Twice. His legs spasmed, and he coughed, blood spurting from his mouth.
And then he was still.
“Oh, God,” Casey said. “OhGodohGodohGod.”
She fell backward against the Pontiac, the knife clattering to the ground. Nausea hit her, and she leaned sideways over the hood, vomiting onto the car and street. She wiped her face with her sleeve and tried to breathe.
Oh, no. Oh, God, no.
“Casey?”
Casey jerked her head up. Eric stood twenty feet away, his eyes wide. “What—”
The sound of a siren split the air, and Casey sucked in a breath. Of course. Of course, Eric would get the police.
“Eric,” she said. “I’m so…so sorry.”
She pushed herself off of the car, and ran away.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Lillian cut Casey off outside the back door of The Nesting Place, a finger on her lips. She gasped at the sight of Casey’s face. “What—”
“I’m all right.” She was. She would be. “What are you doing?”
“They’re inside.”
Casey’s heart fell. They were here already? But where was the cruiser?
“I’m sorry,” Casey said. “I never meant to—”
“Shh.” Lillian pulled Casey’s arm, and Casey yanked it back, her hand grabbing her shoulder, her right forearm protesting the movement. Lillian let go, but gestured her further from the house, into the shadows. “You need a doctor.”
“No. No. What’s happening?”
Lillian raised her hands toward Casey’s mouth, but she reared away. Lillian dropped her arms to her sides. “Rosemary’s keeping them busy. I said I needed to go to bed, because I wasn’t feeling well.”
With her glinting eyes and upright posture, Casey could see that was far from the truth.
Lillian jerked a thumb toward the house. “They’re insisting on seeing your room.”
“My room? Why? It’s not like I’ve had time to—”
“I’m not even sure how they knew you were staying here, because I’m sure you didn’t tell them, but here they are.”
“Of course they know where I’m staying. Chief Reardon knew it the first time I talked to him.”
“Denny?” Lillian blinked. “But he’s not in our sitting room.”
Of course. Other cops. Detectives. Could be the FBI or ATF if Casey’s suspicions about the men who attacked her were correct.
“I don’t know who they are, exactly,” Lillian said. “But they seem to know a lot about you. Said they’re business associates of yours. Rosemary didn’t like them from the get-go, because the woman’s dye job is simply horrendous.”
Casey went cold. “Dye job?”
“Yes. Like she did it at home in a dark bathroom with a generic brand.”
Casey swallowed. “And she’s with a man whose face looks like—”
“—it was cut in half and smooshed back together by a extremely untalented sculptor.”
Casey sank to the ground. They’d found her. And she didn’t have to wonder how. That damn phone. Dammit, Ricky.