Another flash of movement.
In the breezeway of one of the building blocks, a figure ran out of the shadows—and then jumped back into the darkness as if they didn’t want to be seen. Given the shape, it was clearly a male, and Darius flared his nostrils, scenting the air.
“Please, don’t let him get me,” the woman said in a reedy voice. “He’s going to kill me.”
CHAPTER TWO
Patricia Wurster didn’t like her name. Had never liked it. Not the first part, especially if it was shortened to the dreaded Patty, and not the second part, especially when she’d been in elementary school and gotten called The Worst. The middle wasn’t all that bad, though—
“Anne… my name is Anne.”
As she spoke hoarsely, she was responding to a question directed to her, but she couldn’t figure out why she was introducing herself… or to who? Opening her eyes, she got no clues because everything was dark—and yet she wasn’t alone. Someone was holding her—
“Nice to meet you, Anne.”
The voice was deep, a man’s, and she instantly loved the sound of whoever it was. The syllables were so low and rolling, and that accent was certainly European, although she couldn’t quite place it to a specific country…
Where was she? As the thought occurred, she decided she was in a bed, but not her own. This mattress was too hard and too small. And while she tried to figure out why she was so cramped, she wished the man would ask her another question because she preferred him talking to the weird delirium she was in. Maybe he could go the what’s-your-sign route. Or want to know her height and weight, like she was at the doctor’s. How about a quick algebra equation—
Bump!
The bed under her hit something, and the jostling that came with the impact rattled every bone in her body. As pain set up shop in little campfires that burned in her legs, her arms, and one shoulder in particular, she wondered why a mattress would hit a speed bump—wait, what was that subtle whirring in the background?
“I’m in a car,” she mumbled.
“Yes,” replied that male voice. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
Annnnnd that was when it all came back. In a series of flash card images, like her memory was dealing out the fact pattern of the evening on a tabletop, she remembered everything—
Anne went to sit up in a rush, but all kinds of things stopped her: those little flames flaring into bonfires, a cramped backseat… and a heavy but kind hand urging her to lie down again.
“We’re almost there—”
“I have to go—”
Her words were cut off as panic took over, and she went on a messy scramble, shoving at whatever came into range—
“Fuck!” came a high-pitched squeak.
As she shrank away, the driver of whatever car she was in cranked around the headrest. Talk about a taxi driver. He was at once balding and in need of a haircut, the frizzy stripe at ear level and the patch-island at the top totally out of control. And he was not happy. His face was fleshy and round as a basketball, and his expression was the kind that usually went along with a flare-up of gout.
“Everybody okay back there?” he asked in an annoyed Jersey accent. “I’m not drivin’ fast enough for ya?”
What was that guy from Taxi doing driving her anywhere—
“I’m not Danny frickin’ DeVito. Jesus.”
Guess she’d spoken that out loud.
The guy snapped his head forward. “Why the hell does everybody say that? I’m better-lookin’ than…”
As he worked out his ego problems in the front seat, Anne glanced over… at… the…
All of her thoughts stopped, and not like a train that gradually slowed down: Her cognition slammed into a brick wall. Talk about better-looking than. The man sitting on the other side of the bench seat was worthy of the cover on a Johanna Lindsey novel. Dressed in black clothes, with a broad chest and shoulders, his body seemed to fill the whole car, and his face transfixed her. Classically handsome, with dark hair that was trimmed tightly, he would have drawn anybody’s eyes.
But he was not any happier than the driver, and the reason was obvious. He had both palms pressed into his crotch, and a wince carved into his striking features—and just as putting your hands up to your throat meant you were choking in any language, he was making the universal signal for holy-hell-you-just-nailed-me-in-the-nuts.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
She reached out, but wasn’t sure where to touch him. And boy, that fuzzy feeling in her head was totally gone now.
Nothing like corking a stranger in the hey-nannies to perk a girl up—
“You’re sorry,” the driver snapped. “I’m sorry I got two strangers in my backseat, no frickin’ clue why I’m going to the hospital, and a headache like I been on a bender to the Poconos.”
Anne lowered her voice. “I really am sorry.”
The man with the proverbial privacy issues opened his eyes. As the peachy glow from a sodium streetlight flared through the windows, his irises were a resonant blue, like a clear autumn sky. He also had dark lashes that were long and brows that she was willing to bet had a natural arch when they weren’t in a grimace.
“It’s okay,” he grunted with his accent. “Now I can sing the Leo Sayer parts.”
His smile wasn’t a big one, but the lift to his lips was endearing, taking all that manly-man and giving it a hint of the boy he had once been.
“What happened—” She glanced around. “I mean, what’s happening?”
“You don’t remember?” He rearranged himself on the seat and swiveled his hips a little, like he was trying to assess whether things were still attached. “You were hit by a car—”
All at once, the flood of memories returned again and the pain in her body exploded, as if her recollection was a second impact.
“We’re almost to the emergency room,” the man next to her said.
“And then I’m out,” Danny DeVito-esque announced from up front. “I don’t know how in the hell I got involved in—Jesus, this headache. Either one a’ ya moochers gotta aspirin?”
Anne focused on those beautiful blue eyes. “You were driving the BMW. I saw through the windshield right before I was hit… it was you.”
The man nodded. “I didn’t see you coming. And when I finally did, I swerved but it was too late.”
Searching his face, she wondered what she’d said to him at the scene. Whether she’d told him why she’d been running across the road.
“I can’t go to the hospital,” she said quietly.
“Does he work there?”
She closed her eyes and tried on some denials. Then lost what little energy she had for putting up a brave front. “No, but he has my purse, so I have no money on me.”
“I’ll cover the costs of your care.”
“No, you won’t—”
“You need to be checked out. And the accident was my fault.”
“It was not. I bolted into the street in the dark.” She pounded on her sternum with what was, admittedly, a weak fist. “Besides, I’m breathing and I have a heartbeat. The rest I can walk off—”