Kissing the Key Witness. Jenna Ryan

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СКАЧАТЬ out.”

      The door cracked open, and an intern’s head appeared. “Sorry to interrupt, Doctor, but there’s been a pileup on the interstate. Twenty, maybe thirty cars. Several injuries, and we’re the closest E.R.”

      “We’re also the most understaffed,” Jamie called after him. “Crap. Why’s it always us?”

      “Fate or proximity to the freeway. Take your pick.” Maya started for the door. “Keep that hand as clean as you can, McVey. Come back Monday, before I go off shift, and I’ll look at it.”

      Her attention shifted instantly at the sound of sirens wailing. She joined the line of attendants jogging toward the entrance.

      It was going to be a very long night.

      

      EVERYTHING AROUND HIM had gone gray and blurry, even with his eyes open. Sort of open, Adam amended, inasmuch as he could think with the light that kept tugging at him. Beautiful light, silvery and soft. It had siren qualities, but he resisted the lure.

      He sensed movement, saw the gray haze alter. Ugly streaks of red slashed it apart. Noise, like shrieking daggers, jabbed into his brain. Hands clutched his shoulders and shook him.

      “Don’t die,” Falcon pleaded from above. “I need that information back.”

      Adam would have laughed if an anvil hadn’t been sitting on his chest.

      “I have to go.” The snitch’s voice faded. “Someone’ll help you. I’ll come back when you’re better. I don’t think he saw me in the warehouse. I think you blocked his view….”

      Probably true, Adam thought fuzzily. Man, this had definitely not been his night.

      The darkness thickened, grew hotter, stickier. He couldn’t swallow, could no longer think. Faces flashed inside the red. His ex-wife’s, his old friend’s, his new enemy’s.

      Voices shouted indistinct words. The hands on his shoulders fell away. He heard Falcon swear, then a more familiar voice.

      “Adam?”

      Startled but not panicky. Female.

      “Maya?”

      She leaned over, and he saw her face. Exotic features, dark hair, incredible eyes. Bluer than a tropical lagoon.

      “Screwed up,” he murmured. “Made you hate me.”

      “I don’t hate you.”

      Maybe not, but she was waking the pain anyway.

      The light around him intensified. He was breathing fire now. He felt her hands on him and groped until he caught her wrist. “Stop,” he croaked. “Listen.”

      “Adam, I can’t help you if—”

      “I’m dead, Maya. I know it, and so do you. Do this for me, please.”

      “Do what?”

      He squeezed. “Take care of things. Made a will last year. Straightforward. Money, investments—they’re my sister’s. Condo’s yours. Go through it and—Ahh!” Pain sheared from chest to brain. He had to talk through his teeth. “Don’t let my brother have the Mustang…Crash addict. Give my sweet baby to Tal.” He fumbled two sets of keys from his pocket. “Condo keys, car keys. Promise.”

      “Yes, okay, I promise. Now let me help….”

      “There’s more. Stuff, official stuff. Hid it. Don’t trust anyone, anywhere. Huge mistake. Big fish, small pond. S’all I can say. Tell Tal to finish the deal.”

      The light flared. It seemed to explode like a starburst that went from a bang to a fizzle.

      “Sorry, babe.” He rattled out a breath. “I’ll tell your mom you’re good.”

      “Adam?” Now she shook him. “Adam!”

      The last thing he saw was her face. Then the sparkles died, and there was nothing.

      

      “DR. SANTINO?” A NURSE with red curls and acne touched her sleeve as she stared at her ex-husband’s face. “A lower body trauma’s just come in. Female. Six months pregnant.”

      Through the buzz of shock in her head, Maya caught the last part of the nurse’s statement. She shook off what she could and refocused. “Where?”

      “Over there.” The young nurse—Cassie? Callie?—pointed. She looked down, then hesitantly up. “Can I, uh, do anything for you?”

      “No. Thanks, but no.” With a hand that wanted to shake, Maya closed Adam’s eyes. She regarded the paramedic who’d helped her lift him from the ground to the gurney. “Take him inside. I’ll be right there.”

      “Got a bleeder over here,” another nurse called.

      The words jarred. “Thirty seconds,” Maya told the redhead. “Get Jamie to take the bleeder.”

      Turning away, she pressed two fingers to her temples. She needed to settle herself, to absorb what had just happened.

      Adam had always been a risk taker. She’d loved him once, hated him briefly, then figured to hell with it and dealt with her mistakes. With her mistakes.

      They’d been strangers, for the most part, after the divorce. He’d transferred to Orlando, but returned to Miami sixteen months ago, because his roots were here, he’d said.

      She understood roots. Hers were mostly here, too. In any case, she hadn’t hated him by then.

      “Doctor Santino?”

      Her thirty seconds were up. Adam was dead. She couldn’t make him undead by standing outside the emergency room, ignoring the injured while a host of memories swamped her.

      “I’m really sorry, Adam.” Head tipped back, she spoke to the night sky. Then shut down and fixed her attention on the living.

      

      “ARE YOU AWAKE, TAL?” DON Drake’s voice hacked rudely into Stephen Talbot’s dream.

      “Go away,” Tal said into the phone. “I’m still working the Demorno case.”

      “You’re done enough to be back in Miami, so listen up. I got a call from Lieutenant Morse in fraud.”

      Tal tried to prop his eyes open. When that failed, he rolled onto his back and let the watery light outside play against his lids. “You’ve got about ten seconds before my brain shuts down. This is the first time I’ve seen a bed in three days.”

      “Tyler’s dead,” his captain growled.

      That worked. He went up on one elbow. “Adam Tyler?”

      “You got it. He was shot late tonight, died in the E.R.”

      Tal СКАЧАТЬ