Page 33 of Unreliable Witness

"Are you okay?"

Her giggle comes through the speaker loud and full of mischief as she hears me cursing while I collect the heavy discs and inspect them for damage.

She's so fucking sweet it hurts my teeth, but I wouldn't change her for the world. Most people would still be in therapy after what she went through.

"Just shut the fuck up about men withexperience, okay? Don't make me kill anyone, Ave."

The shed literally rings with the sound of Avery's cackle over the phone's speaker.

"You wouldn'tdare, big brother!"

A sound outside the shed catches my ear and I quickly kill the phone's speaker so I can focus on it closer.

Avery keeps talking, no doubt launching into a lecture about me being over-protective of her but...shit. That's not just me being her older brother or the years I put in with the Army after med school. She knows why I'm so protective of her-- and deep down, I like to think she appreciates it.

The noise outside grows louder and it's moving closer at an alarming speed.

"Ave, I gotta go. See ya at Christmas."

"Okay, love y--"

I end the call and run for the door, grabbing my gun before bolting outside in case I'm running into something bad.

A pick-up truck barrels down the dirt track that leads to the back of the rental property where the shop is. It's traveling a lot faster than makes sense and I don't recognize the woman driving.

I do recognize the man kneeling in the open bed behind the cab, however.

Leo holds onto the bed rail for dear life with one hand, white knuckling his grip, his other hand is out of sight.

Whatever he's holding must be damn important if he's not letting go to hold on with both hands as the truck's brakes lock-up hard, bringing the vehicle to a stop a few feet past me after skidding on the wet grass.

"We got a place you can operate? She's losing blood."

When I look over the side of the truck, I see my buddy kneeling over a woman's body, blood soaking the rag he has pressed to a chest wound that's dangerously close to her heart.

"What the fuck are you bringing her here for? Get her to the hospital."

"Can't do that." The woman who just pulled to a stop like she was sliding into home plate after stretching a double into a triple, jumps out, slamming the door and dropping the tailgate. "We need to keep her off the radar...if you can save her."

Hopping into the bed of the truck, I see why Leo hasn't moved.

The woman lies on the cold, corrugated metal of the truck's unlined bed. She looks more dead than alive, both eyes blackened, split lips, an angry gash across one cheek running up to her ear that looks like she lost a fight with a broken bottle.

There's not a visible inch of her skin that isn't bruised or cut or scraped, and under Leo's right hand, the rag pressed firmly against her chest, is saturated with more blood than she can likely stand to lose.

"What the fuck happened?" I'm shouting like I'm back in the field, yelling triage orders over the sounds of chopper blades and gunfire. My own heart rate fast enough to make up for the beats I know her's is lacking.

"She fell." The driver of the truck is gathering corners of a blanket together that I hadn't noticed under the woman. Her eyes meet Leo's. His narrow like he's disagreeing with something she hasn't said.

"She fucking jumped," he tells me without looking away from the woman. "Cliff. Maybe twenty feet. The hole in her chest is a gunshot though."

"He wasn't going to risk her surviving to talk." The woman's voice wavers and I've got the feeling that there's a lot more to the story than I'm getting.

"Keep the pressure," I tell Leo. "I need two minutes."

One more look at my patient and I know two things; this woman has to live because I need to see her smile, and whoever did this to her is as dead as he wanted her.