Nine Lives. Sharon Sala

so much,” Charity snapped.

      Cat eyed her without answering.

      Charity opened her mouth to say something else, then Cat leaned in.

      “I didn’t put you in this position, you put yourself in it. So don’t give me any crap. I’m not in the mood.”

      Charity’s nostrils flared in anger, but she stayed quiet. She didn’t have to like the bitch, even if she was right.

      Five

      By the time Cat got to the precinct to turn Charity in, she felt feverish. She started getting shaky and weak down in booking. A drunk had thrown up in a waste basket by the door, and two homeless men were trying to report the theft of their shopping cart from outside the alley near a Chinese restaurant. Along with the heat being pumped through the overhead vents, the mingled odors were appalling. She could feel her stomach starting to roll.

      The desk sergeant was asking her something about Charity Kingman. She could see his mouth moving, but his words were all running together. When she looked away, the wall behind the desk started to melt. That was when she knew something was wrong.

      “I don’t feel so good,” Cat muttered, and slipped her arms into the sleeves of her coat. “If you have any more questions, call Art’s Bail Bonds. She’s one of his.”

      She walked away without looking back, telling herself that she would feel better once she got some fresh air. But it didn’t work. The cold blast of air just made her shiver.

      She started across the parking lot toward her car, thinking that if she just got inside, she would be okay. But the more she walked, the farther it appeared to be. There was a part of her that knew she shouldn’t drive, but she wanted to go home—needed to go home. There might be word about Mimi. There had to be word. You couldn’t just “lose” a friend like you lost a wallet. She had to be somewhere.

      Wilson’s day had been just as productive as Cat’s. He had turned in a bail jumper over an hour ago and was walking through the parking lot to his truck when Joe Flannery hailed him.

      “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