Seconds to Live(18)

And it looked familiar in a way that made her more uncomfortable than her soaked clothes.

The door was unlocked. She opened it. No driver, and the backseat was empty as well. The driver had probably walked away or called someone to be picked up.

Stella shined the light around the interior. Shiny drops of blood glistened on the gearshift, the driver’s seat, and the deflated air bag. More blood was smeared on the door handle. She rounded the Jeep and took note of the license number. Once back in her cruiser, she’d have the owner’s name and contact information in a few seconds.

But as Stella pointed her light at the wet ground, her discomfort grew. Something was wrong. Instinct—and raindrops—pricked the hairs on the back of her neck. She turned in a circle, slowly moving her beam across the ground. Her light fell on a boot sticking out of the tall weeds halfway between the road and the car.

She crossed the muddy ground and crouched beside him. Shock paralyzed her for a second. It was Mac Barrett. She knew that face even soaking wet and in the dark. Especially in the dark. She’d thought of him often during her middle-of-the-night bouts of insomnia.

He lay on his side in the mud. She placed her fingers on his neck. His pulse rapped against her fingertips, and relief swept through her. She straightened and turned back toward her car. Her phone was inside, and she kept an emergency blanket and first-aid kit in the trunk.

“Wait,” he croaked, his voice barely audible over the storm.

“I’m not leaving. I’m going to call for help,” she shouted.

“I’m OK,” he said.

“Let me call for an ambulance. Then you can tell me what happened.” She leaned over him and put a hand on his unshaven cheek. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

He grabbed her wrist. “No. I’m fine. There was a woman lying in the road. I swerved into the trees to avoid hitting her.”

Had someone been hit by a car? Stella turned her head and scanned the road. “I don’t see a woman.”

“She was there.” He struggled to sit up as the rain slowed to a drizzle.

Stella stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Slow it down. You were unconscious.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I just tripped.”

Bullshit rang in Stella’s head, but she held her tongue. She and Mac had met the previous November and numerous times since. In addition to being hotter than a solar flare, he was frustratingly closed off. An intense person, he elevated self-control to an art form.

“I need to find her.” Tonight, his eyes were wild, and his self-control looked tenuous.

“Easy. Stay put. I’ll go double check the road.” She raced back to the bend. Sweeping her light across the wet pavement, she saw nothing that indicated a person had lain there. She checked the weedy area on both sides of the road in case a wounded person had crawled off the pavement. But there was nothing.

“She was there.”

Stella turned. Mac stood behind her, scanning the ground, one hand pressed against his side. “At the bend.”

How had he sneaked up behind her without making any noise? She shined the flashlight on him. Its beam highlighted the sharp planes of his face. With his control back in place, he’d returned to his usual countenance: lean and lethal.

“I already looked there.” Stella lowered her light to his body. A large, dark splotch stained the side of his light-colored T-shirt. “Are you bleeding?”

He glanced down, irritation crossing his face. “It’s nothing. The woman . . .”

She put a hand on the center of his chest. “There’s no one here, Mac.”

“But how . . . ?”

Maybe he had a concussion.

“No one is hurt in the road. I’m going to call an ambulance. Come sit in my car where it’s dry, and I’ll have a look at that wound.”

His head swung back and forth. “No. I’m fine.”

Stella headed for her car, one hand firmly under his elbow to steer him in the right direction. The rain tapered off until only the trees were dripping.

He pulled his arm away. “You can’t make me go in an ambulance. I have to look for her.”

She whirled, temper heating her face as she studied him. His square jaw was set in defiance.

Stella channeled some of her partner’s calm. “My backup should be here any minute. How about I have patrol sweep the area for her? Then will you agree to go to the ER?”

He gave her a curt nod. “But it’ll be faster if you drive me.”

She hesitated. He was right. It would likely take an ambulance twenty minutes just to drive out here. She could have him at the hospital in that amount of time. Her gaze dropped to the spreading patch on his shirt. How badly was he injured?