Joker in the Pack (Romantic Suspense, Completed, Watty Winner)

Chapter 43

Screams filled the air as Tate and Nye both fell to the floor.

Mine.

The screams were mine.

Blood leaked onto the carpet as I tried to get to Nye, but my feet were too tightly bound to walk. I ended up jumping, desperately trying to keep my balance. Please, don't let Tate have claimed another victim.

Nye didn't move, but as I got closer, Tate groaned. Oh shit, he was trying to get up.

I grabbed an ugly statue of a dog from a side table and hefted it in both hands. It looked antique and, to my untrained eye, solid bronze.

And that meant it was heavy. Good.

I raised my hands as high as I could and brought the ugly ornament down on Tate's head.

He lay still.

Carol's voice popped into my head, telling her tale about Emmy and Horrible Henry, swiftly followed by a replay of Tate's words from earlier. He had plans for my pretty mouth, did he? Well, let's see how those plans went with a third testicle. I raised the dog once more and walloped him between the legs. If he was unconscious, there were no witnesses, right?

The bronze slipped out of my hands and thudded to the carpet as I fell to my knees next to Nye. I pressed my bound hands to his chest. An age passed before I felt the flutter of his heart under my palms, and I sagged in relief. But the wetness seeping into the knees of my trousers told me this wasn't over. Nye's blood had formed an abstract pattern on the floor, more Kazuo Shiraga than Jackson Pollock.

But at least he was alive.

A phone. I needed a phone, but before I could find one, a stranger walked through the door. Blonde, beautiful, and even with bodies lying all over the floor, she had a composure I could only dream of.

"Please help him," I sobbed as the nightmare overcame me. "Please."

She dropped to her knees beside Nye and tore open his leather jacket. His white T-shirt had turned red.

"That bloody idiot," she said. "He jumped out the helicopter while it was still five feet off the ground."

"Is he going to die?"

"Only if I kill him myself. He should have waited."

"We need to call an ambulance."

She tapped her ear. "I'm miked up, and it's already on its way. I'm Emmy Black, by the way. I'd shake hands, but..."

"It's a problem for me too."

Before I could blink, she'd whipped out a knife and sliced through the rope. A second later, my ankles were free too.

"Are the others alive?" she asked.

"I'm not sure."

I stumbled over to Warren and felt for a pulse. As my fingers pressed against his wrist, he stirred and opened his eyes.

"Olivia, are you okay?"

Oh, thank goodness. "Shouldn't that be my question?"

He smiled up at me and raised a hand to his head, wincing as he touched the lump on his temple. "Palmer said you'd fainted and gone for a lie-down, and when I insisted on coming to find you, he must have whacked me with something."

"A vase."

"So much for storming to your rescue."

"You tried, and I'll always be grateful for that. Now, lie still until the ambulance gets here."