Zoe Sharp
Second Shot
Acknowledgments
Writing this book would not have been possible but for the patience and understanding of a number of very special people who allowed me to pick their brains without a murmur. They are, in no particular order, fellow mystery author D. P. Lyle, M.D., for his superb detailed medical information; other fellow mystery authors Fred Rea and James O. Born, for gun stuff and for U.S. law enforcement info; gunshot wound survivor Mick Botterill, for his unique insights; fellow mystery author and lawyer Randall Hicks, for legal info and for attempting to keep me straight on some of my accidental Britishisms; and friend Lucette Nicol, for filling in some of the bits of Boston I’d forgotten. As always, if it’s wrong, it’s probably my invention.
Other answers to probably stupid questions were given freely, and with grace, by Barbara Franchi, MaryEllen Stagliano, and Jann Briesacher, as well as a number of the enthusiastic contributors to the DorothyL Web site. Thank you all for your invaluable assistance.
My thanks, too, to the staff at the White Mountain Hotel, and Jonathon’s Seafood Restaurant in North Conway, New Hampshire, and the Boston Harbor Hotel in Boston, for generously allowing me to set parts of the action in these outstanding locations.
As always, my advance readers were ferocious and vigilant. Thanks go to Judy Bobalik, Peter Doleman, Claire Duplock, Sarah Harrison and Tim Winfield for not flinching, even when I did.
I am forever indebted to my wonderful agent, Jane Gregory, and to Emma Dunford and all the team at Gregory amp; Company Authors’Agents for continuing unparalleled advice and support.
Also, to the indefatigable Marcia Markland, Diana Szu, and all the staff at St. Martin’s Minotaur, especially those in sales and marketing, who work so hard to make this book a reality in the United States. And to Susie Dunlop and all at Allison amp; Busby, for picking up the baton with such energy and style in the UK.
Some extraordinarily talented and generous people deserve thanks for lending more than their share of support to this book when they didn’t have to. Above and beyond. I’m speechless other than to list their names-masters of their art Ken Bruen and Lee Child, and the incomparable Jon and Ruth Jordan at Crimespree Magazine.
But, of course, the biggest thanks of all go to my husband, Andy, who helps more than he will ever know, every step of the way.
Finally, a special mention goes to Frances L. Neagley, who made the generous successful bid in the charity auction in support of the Youth Literacy Program run by Centro Romero-held at the Bouchercon mystery convention in Chicago, 2005 — to have her name used as a character in this book. You are included with great pleasure.
One
Take it from me, getting yourself shot hurts like hell.
Not like absorbing a punch, or breaking a bone, but that full blown, relentless, ripped-inside kind of pain. The kind where I prayed for oblivion and yet feared the darkness more than anything I’d ever known.
I’d taken one 9mm round through the fleshy part of my left thigh and another through the back of my right shoulder. The first shot was nasty, but it was a through-and-through, passing clean in and out of the muscle apparently without hitting anything vital. Yes, I was bleeding and it burned like a bastard. But under normal circumstances-like reasonably prompt medical assistance-it was not liable to be a life threatener.
The second shot was the one that worried me. The bullet had plowed into my scapula, twelve grams of lead and copper traveling at roughly 280 meters a second. It had hit plenty hard enough to put me on the ground and deflected off to God knows where inside my body.
The whole of my torso was screaming. When I coughed I tasted blood in my mouth and knew that, whatever other damage it had done, the round had penetrated my lung. I had a vivid mental picture of it still slowly progressing, maybe in a slow-motion tumble, contaminating whatever soft tissue it passed through, like a cancer.
The good news was that I was still conscious, my heart still pumping, my brain still functioning, more or less. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t still going to kill me, given time.
And, one way or another, time was not on my side.
Right now I was lying on my belly in the bottom of a snow-crusted shallow ditch, bleeding into the dirty trickle of icy water that had collected there, and trying to decide if I really was prepared to die here or not.
“I know you’re out there!” shouted a distant voice in the trees farther up the mountain. “I know you can hear me!”
I recognized the voice, but more than that I recognized the tone. Hatred and lust. Not a good combination.
Simone’s voice. My principal. Seven days ago I’d been sent to New England with the express purpose of protecting her against possible threat. Now she was out there somewhere in the woods with a SIG semi-automatic, while I lay here incapable of protecting anyone, least of all myself.
What a difference a week makes.
I lay quite still. Not moving was the easy part. I felt horribly vulnerable in that position, but turning over didn’t seem like a good plan. Even the thought of attempting it made me break out into a cold sweat.
“Cold” was the word. The temperature was four degrees below and the wet blood round the entry wounds in my shoulder blade and leg had already started to crystallize on my clothing. My face was turned to the side so one cheek was scorched by the freezing earth and the other by the freezing air. All I could smell was blood and pine needles and ice. I think I might have been crying.
But, I decided sluggishly, cold was good. It would slow my system down, delay my bleed-out-right up to the point where hypothermia got me. I tried not to shiver. Shivering hurt. I tried not to breathe too deeply. That hurt, too.
The pain was extraordinary. A biting, seething, swirling mass of it that sheathed my entire body but had pooled in my chest. My leg was pulsing like I was being rhythmically and repeatedly stabbed by a red-hot blade. I didn’t seem able to feel my right arm at all.
A scatter of small stones cascaded down the side of the ditch and rolled towards my face. I opened one eye and watched them approaching in the light from a clear hunter’s moon reflected on the stark ground.
There was a shadow above me, I realized. Someone was standing a little way up from the ditch and staring down at me sprawled below them. They were too far back among the trees for me to see a face, but instinct told me it wasn’t Simone. This observer was too quiet and too controlled. Friend or foe?
Better to assume foe.
I closed my eye again and played dead. It wasn’t a stretch.
In the near distance, higher up the slope, I could hear Simone crashing through the trees, sobbing out little grunting cries as the thin branches whipped back at her. It was like listening to an animal that had been frightened beyond reason and would kill anything within reach just through that fear. And she was heading my way.
I risked another look. The shadow had gone, making the light over me seem brighter now. Or maybe that was just my own shifting perception. Even the pain had receded slightly, dropping back to a leaden throb. But I was achingly aware of every sodden breath, of the urge to just let go of it all and sleep. I fought it with everything I’d got left. Something told me that if I succumbed to this bone-numbing weariness, the game was going to be over.