Sharon Sala - Nine Lives

“Hey, Wilson. Heard anything more from your girlfriend?”

Wilson frowned. “She’s not my girlfriend, and you know it. At the moment, she’s as pissed off at me as she is at you.”

“She didn’t turn in a missing person’s report,” Joe said.

“Are you waiting for me to say, ‘I told you so’? Fine, I told you so,” Wilson said.

“Yeah, I figure her friend showed up and she’s too embarrassed to let us know.”

Wilson thought about it a minute, then shook his head.

“That doesn’t sound like something she would do. She appears pretty forthright to me.”

Joe grinned.

“She’s pretty, all right.”

But Wilson couldn’t play easy about what he felt for her. He didn’t even know why he kept thinking about her, other than he had that damned charm. Maybe when he got rid of it he would be rid of her, too.

“She’s tough as hell,” Joe said. “’Course, she had to be, to survive what she did.”

“What do you mean?” Wilson asked.

“You saw that scar on her neck?”

Wilson nodded.

“The man who killed her dad, some tattooed guy, also cut her throat. She was just a kid, but his death put her in the system. Eventually she aged out. Word is, she’s in this business because she’s always looking for the killer.”

Wilson felt a little sick to his stomach, imagining what a trauma like that would do to a child.

“Jesus…they never caught him?” he asked

“No.”

“What about her mother?”

“She and Cat were in a car wreck when Cat was six. The mother died. Cat didn’t.”

It was suddenly becoming clearer to Wilson why Cat Dupree kept an impenetrable wall between her and the world. It was too damned painful when she didn’t.

“So…you going home for Christmas?” Joe asked.

“Probably,” Wilson said. “I always do.”

“Tell your folks I said hello.”

“Yeah, sure,” Wilson said, and then Joe’s cell phone rang, and they parted company.

Wilson was on his way to his truck when he caught a glimpse of a tall, dark-haired woman staggering through the parking lot. Almost immediately, he recognized Cat, and when he saw her stumble, he began to run.

Cat was going to fall, and she knew it. She could see the dark wet surface of the parking lot coming at her and tried to brace herself, but her reactions were too slow.

Then, just as suddenly as she was falling, the motion stopped. There were hands on her arms, then around her torso. She could hear a voice that sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t focus enough to see who it was.

Wilson was nervous. Cat was almost unconscious. That alone was unsettling. When he turned her in his arms, he realized she was hot—far too hot for the winter chill in the air.

“Miss Dupree… Cat! It’s Wilson McKay.”

Cat moaned and tried to hold on to him, but her fingers seemed disconnected from the rest of her body, and she couldn’t make them grip.

“I need to go home,” she muttered.

“You’re sick. You need to see a doctor,” he said, and started to pick her up.

She took a swing at him.

“No doctor.”

As sick as she was, the message came loud and clear. He braced her to keep her from falling, then picked her up in his arms.

“Don’t feel good,” she mumbled, and kept pushing him away.

At that moment a police cruiser drove into the parking lot. The headlights swept over them where they stood. Wilson caught a brief glance of her pale face and the scar at her throat, thought about what Joe had told him and weakened.

“Damn it, Catherine…quit fighting me and I will take you home.”

Her lips twisted as her hands went to her throat.

“Daddy calls me Catherine.”

The admission was telling in its simplicity. God only knew what her nightmares were like. As much as he hated to admit it, he was beginning to feel sorry for her.

Her head fell forward. He could smell the lemon scent of the shampoo she used. It was no fuss, just like her, but from the feel of her in his arms, she was too damned thin.

“Home… I want to go home.”

He stood her up against her SUV, then took her car keys out of her hand, opened the door and slid her into the passenger seat, carefully buckling her in. He could always take a cab back to the precinct to pick up his car. This way, her vehicle would be at her home when she was well enough to drive.

“Hey, McKay, need some help?” someone yelled.

He turned around. The man who’d called out was a detective going off duty.

“I got it,” he yelled back, then shut the door and ran around to the driver’s side.

“What’s wrong with her?” the detective asked, as he stopped on his way to his own car.

“Not sure, but she’s got a heck of a fever. She’s too sick to drive.”

“Want me to follow you and bring you back for your car?”

Wilson thought about it, then shook his head.

“No, but thanks. I might need to take her to an E.R., and if I do, I’ll use her car.”

“Yeah, okay. See you around,” he said, and walked on.

Wilson jumped into the car and started it up, quickly turning on the heater and then re-checking her seatbelt. Once he was satisfied that she was as safe as he could make her, he drove out of the parking lot with a mental map of the route to her apartment in his head.

Twenty minutes later and with only one missed turn, he pulled into the parking lot of her housing complex, found the building her apartment was in and parked.

Before he got out, he checked her key ring, making sure that her front door key was on it. He saw one that looked right, then slipped the keys into his coat pocket and opened the door. The cold air cut straight to the bone. He buttoned the top button of his coat as he circled the SUV.

Cat roused up as he lifted her from the seat. A few feet from the apartment building, she knew she was going to be sick.

“Throw up,” she muttered.

She didn’t have to say it twice. He set her down on her feet and then braced her just as the nausea struck. By the time she was through, she was even weaker than before.

“Sorry.”

Wilson was staggering, trying not to let her fall.

“It’s okay. Just be still. I’m trying to help you.”

Even though she was sick out of her mind, Cat wasn’t the kind to give up or give in. Her legs wouldn’t work, but she kept trying to walk and ended up stepping all over Wilson’s feet.

A couple who happened to be Cat’s neighbors were coming into the building as Wilson was struggling with her and the door. When they saw she was ill, they quickly offered to help. The man held the door for Wilson as the woman ran ahead to get an elevator. They rode up to the sixth floor together, chattering rapidly about their concern for their neighbor while admitting that they hardly knew her.

The man took the key from Wilson’s pocket and opened Cat’s door. Wilson walked in with Cat braced against him, still weaving and moaning. The man leaned in, shook his head at Cat’s condition, then laid the key on the hall table and left.

Wilson sighed with relief. They were home. Now all he had to do was get her into bed. He picked her up, eyed the layout of the rooms, then headed for the hallway to the left. The first door he came to was closed, but the second one on the right was ajar. He toed it open, grunting with satisfaction when he saw a bed.

Cat began to rouse as he laid her down, and when she recognized her surroundings, began unzipping her pants, clearly forgetting she wasn’t alone.

Wilson didn’t know whether to help her or get the hell out of the room before she got naked, but the decision was taken out of his hands when she tried to get up, staggered and almost fell.

“Here,” he said, and guided her back to the bed. “Sit down and let me help.”