Scarlet Vows. Dani SinclairЧитать онлайн книгу.
she made no move to rise.
He reached her, crouching over her still form. Red blossomed on her dirt-stained, cotton-print blouse. The deep, dark color spread rapidly across her chest. He sought for the pulse in her neck. Weak. Thready. He could hear each ragged breath she took. The shallow bursts sounded as if each one might be her last.
Her head lolled to the side, giving him a clear glimpse of the red furrow that had plowed its way along the side of her skull, disappearing beneath her tangled hair. Without moving her, he couldn’t tell if the bullet had entered her head or not, but she was still alive.
The sudden silence was almost as deafening as the noise had been. Drew raised his face to yell for an ambulance.
Pressed against the fence at the top of the hill, Dr. Leland Manning drilled him with a stare of absolute hatred.
Shocked, Drew took a second to realize how the scene must look to the man. He was crouched over the woman’s body, gun in hand.
Footfalls pounded up to him, snapping the spell. Voices shouted. People surrounded him, with more rushing forward. Carey Eldrich elbowed him aside, squatting beside the woman.
“Ursula?”
Of course. Ursula Manning, Leland Manning’s beautiful new young wife.
“Don’t move her,” Drew cautioned, feeling ill.
The words came too late. Carey cradled her against his chest and stood. Blood streaked his arm, smearing his shirt.
“Where’s the ambulance?” Carey roared. He ran with her, trailing a path of bright red droplets in his wake. Drew glanced over his shoulder up the hill. Leland Manning was gone.
Bits of excited, disjointed conversation bounced around and through him as Drew rose unsteadily. He pushed his way through the crowd, following Carey.
“…call an ambulance?”
“…still alive?”
“Who is it?”
“…anyone called the…?”
“What was she doing out there?”
And that last question stuck in his head. An excellent question. What had Ursula Manning been thinking to run onto a live firing range like that? And where had she come from? Had she been running from her husband?
Someone gripped his forearm. He realized it was being shaken hard in an attempt to get his attention. Nancy Bell swam into focus. Her wide, pale eyes looked enormous. She looked from him to the gun still clutched in his hand.
“Oh, my God, Drew. Do you think you killed her?”
Chapter Two
Yesterday, news of the shooting had reached the diner less than half an hour after Brie started her shift. Details had been vague and wildly exaggerated as usual, but Brie couldn’t imagine anyone, let alone the perfectly behaved Andrew Pierce, standing on the gun range with an Uzi submachine gun.
He was back in town to stay. Excitement warred with fear. She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter. In four years he’d only made one halfhearted attempt to contact her after he left town for graduate school. Still, she was extremely thankful she’d left the firing range when she had. What if she’d run into Drew there?
Her heart gave a foolish lurch. Not that it had been likely, given the size of the crowd.
She hadn’t slept much last night as a result of her chaotic thoughts and today she had agreed to pull a double shift. Tiredly, she lifted the laden serving tray. The diner had been filled since she’d come on duty. People stopped by for a quick bite or something to drink or simply to share the news with anyone who hadn’t yet heard about yesterday’s incident at the gun range. The town had seen too much of this sort of excitement lately. Evil seemed to have set up housekeeping in Moriah’s Landing.
Three women had been murdered since the start of the year, their bodies brutally displayed for her friend, Elizabeth Douglas Ryan, to discover. Then, when a stalker went after another of her friends, Katherine “Kat” Ridgemont, people learned that the town’s prodigal son, Jonah Ries, was an undercover FBI investigator looking into the secret society that most of the local scientists were rumored to belong to. And now Jonah and Kat planned to marry. While happy for Kat, Brie couldn’t understand what was happening to their once peaceful town.
She set burgers and fries in front of Dodie and Razz. The local youths delighted in their reputation as the terrors of the neighborhood. Hard to believe Razz was her age. Even harder to believe that she had once accepted a date with him. She hated waiting on him and he knew it.
Normally, the two hung out at the arcade, but occasionally they came in for a sandwich. They were rude, noisy and never tipped. Razz liked to leer at her because he knew it made her angry, but he was careful not to take it any further than that. He hadn’t forgotten how successfully she’d fought him off that night in his car any more than she had. And she’d made it perfectly clear she’d do a lot worse if he bothered her again.
She suspected the pair were behind a lot of the mischief that had been going on here at the waterfront. It defied logic that they hadn’t been caught doing something illegal by now.
“That was a lot of blood, man,” Dodie was saying.
“Arterial blood,” Razz agreed, knowingly. “Bet she didn’t survive the ambulance run.”
“Think they’ll arrest Drew Pierce?”
A chill snaked down her back.
Razz gave his younger friend a hard shove.
“Don’t be stupid,” Razz growled. “Nobody touches the almighty Pierce family. Besides, there were lots of witnesses who can claim it was the woman’s own fault.”
“Including us,” Dodie said smugly.
“Shut up, stupid.” Razz gave him another shove and a kick under the table. Deliberately, he stared hard at Brie. “We didn’t get there until it was all over.”
He was lying, and boldly daring her to contradict him. Brie was tempted. She wouldn’t put much past the pair. Not even an accidental murder.
“Will there be anything else?” she asked politely.
“Yeah. Ketchup,” Razz sneered.
She picked up the bottle sitting inches from his left hand and plopped it in front of him. Without another word she turned away.
What she wouldn’t give to be able to go home and put her feet up. Maybe then her head would stop pounding. Then again, probably not. What she needed was sleep—something she hadn’t been able to achieve after talking with her mother’s doctor yesterday. His confirmation of her worst fears had left her too upset to even cry. Her mother was dying and there wasn’t a thing anyone could do.
Research was being done here in Moriah’s Landing, but clinical trials were a long way off yet. Even if the experimental procedure had been available, Brianna didn’t know how she could possibly pay for anything not covered by her mother’s medical plan. Last semester she’d gone back to college again for the first time since dropping out, determined to complete her degree. But if her mother’s medical bills were about to escalate, Brie didn’t see how she could continue. She’d need to purchase school supplies next month with money she didn’t have yet.
Going home early wasn’t an option today or any other day.
She pushed at another strand of hair drooping moistly against her forehead. A shorter style would be so much easier to manage. Maybe she’d ask her mother to help her chop some of it off tonight. Good haircuts were expensive—another luxury she couldn’t afford.
Rubbing her temple, she walked over to the booth where Rebecca Smith stared vacantly at a menu. A newcomer to town, Becca worked at Threads, the seamstress shop over on Main Street. Brie had been immediately drawn to the quiet woman the moment they met. The attractive