He was scared spitless. The front door stood wide open. Savich forced himself to be careful, to go slowly, but what he wanted to do was roar in there. God, what had happened?
He drew his gun and eased inside the town house. Slowly, he reached for the light switch and flipped it on. He was in a crouch in the next instant, sweeping his SIG-Sauer around him in a wide arc.
No one.
“Sherlock?”
Nothing.
He didn’t even pause now. He ran into the living room, switching on lights as he went. She wasn’t there. Nor was she in the kitchen.
He was in the hallway when he heard a moan.
She was lying on the floor next to the bed, naked. Blood streaked down the side of her face.
He was on his knees beside her, his fingers pressed against the pulse in her neck. Slow and steady. He turned her over.
“Sherlock! Wake up!”
She moaned again, low and deep in her throat. She tried to bring up her hand to her head, but couldn’t do it. Her hand fell. He caught it before it hit the floor. He laid her hand over her belly.
He leaned close over her, an inch from her face. “Sherlock, wake the hell up. You’re scaring the bejesus out of me. Wake up!”
She heard his voice. He sounded incredibly angry—no, not angry, but really worried. She had to open her eyes, but she knew any movement at all would hurt really badly.
“Talk to me. Come on, you can do it. Talk to me.”
She managed to open her eyes. He was blurry, but his voice was low and deep and eminently sane. She was so grateful, so relieved. She whispered over the pain, “You came. I knew the multiple sirs would get to you.”
“They did. The first time you said it, I wanted to trim your sails but good, but then you said it again. I knew something was wrong. Where’d he hit you?”
“My head, with the butt of his gun.”
He didn’t want to ask, but he had to. “Did he rape you?”
“He would have tried, but I just couldn’t let him do it. He wanted me to lie down on my stomach. When he moved in I attacked him. That’s when he knocked me off the bed and started banging my head against the floor. It kind of hurts, Dillon.”
“Did he hit you anywhere else?”
“Just a fist in the jaw.”
“Let me get you up on the bed.”
“He’s gone? You’re sure he’s gone? I don’t want him to sneak back and hurt you.”
Hurt him? Blood was trickling down the side of her face and she was worried about him? “I’ll go lock the front door in just a minute.” While he spoke, he slid his hands beneath her and lifted her. She didn’t weigh much. He laid her on the bed, then very quickly drew a blanket over her.
“Don’t move,” he said, turned, and went back to the front door. He looked around outside, then came back into the house and locked the door.
When he was seated beside her again on the side of the bed, he said quietly, “No one’s about now. Now, I’m going to call the paramedics and get you to the hospital.”
Her hand shot up. “No, no hospital. I’m all right. I’ve got a very hard head. Maybe a concussion, but there’s nothing they can do for that, just time. I’ve got time here. Please, no hospital. I hate hospitals. They’ll give me more shots in the butt. That’s awful.”
He just looked down at her, then turned to the phone. He dialed a number, then said, “It’s Savich. Sorry to bother you, Ned, but could you come to this address and check out one of my agents for me? The guy who attacked her hit her pretty hard in the head. I don’t know if she’ll need stitches. No, no hospital. Yeah, thanks.”
When he hung up the phone, she said, “A doctor who makes house calls? That’s got to be rarer than the great auk.”
“Ned Breaker owes me. I got his kid away from kidnappers last year. He’s a good guy. We became friends. Now, enough of that. It’ll take him a good thirty minutes to get here. Do you feel well enough to tell me what happened?”
“After you left, I took a shower. When I got out, he was standing behind me when I wiped the fog off the bathroom mirror. He was wearing a black ski mask and carrying a cheap .22. He wanted me to leave town. Then I talked about Marlin Jones, and he seemed interested in that. I don’t know whether or not the person who sent him meant for him to rape me. Maybe, like that almost hit-and-run, he was just trying to scare me, which he did.
“Really, though, the bottom line was that I should go home to my family. When I asked him if he was the one who tried to run me down, he didn’t answer me. I think he could have been. He had a slight accent, from Alabama, maybe.”
“What did you tell him about Marlin Jones?”