Kansas City Countdown. Julie Miller

caught her by the elbows and turned her back toward the wall and the nearest lamp in the middle of the lot. “Just you. I thought I told you to wait for me.”

      “I don’t know where I...” she muttered beside him. “I don’t know how long I was there.” She flattened her hand over her stomach and bent forward, as if she was going to be ill. “I don’t feel so good.”

      “Ma’am?” He stopped her beneath the light and waited for her to nod that she could stand straight again before brushing the angled line of bangs off her forehead. Keir swore under his breath as he tilted her face to the yellowish light. He knew this woman. “Kenna Parker? What the hell are you doing—”

      “Who are you?” She squinted against the light shining in her eyes and backed away from him, fear making her skin pale.

      He raised a placating hand to stop her wobbly retreat and pulled his badge from his belt. “I’m Detective Keir Watson, KCPD. Ms. Parker, how badly are you hurt? Can you tell me what happened?”

      She shook her head. But the motion made her dizzy and she grabbed the sides of her head and tumbled.

      “Watch out.” Keir caught her before she hit the ground and scooped her up into his arms. Her cheek fell against his shoulder and she curled into him without a protest as he stepped over the short wall and carried her to his car. “What does one mean?” he asked. Maybe her attacker had been wearing a jersey with a number on it, or she’d seen part of a license plate. “Why is it the wrong number?”

      “What?” Her fingers curled into the lapel of his jacket. “I don’t understand.”

      “You kept saying... Never mind.” Once he got the passenger door open, he set her feet on the pavement and helped her onto the edge of the seat before pulling the first-aid kit out of the glove compartment. “You were mugged. Assaulted. I can’t tell how badly yet. Can you tell me who did this to you? Do you know how you got into that alley? I don’t think the attack happened there.”

      He dabbed at the cuts on her face, tried to assess how well her eyes were tracking the movement of his hands as he knelt in front of her. Besides their sensitivity to the light, her pupils were dilated, both signs that she had a concussion. “I should have a purse. Or a briefcase or something. Where are my things? I always carry...” Her voice trailed away and the thought escaped her.

      “I didn’t see anything like that in the alley. Is one part of a phone number? If you need to call someone, you can borrow my phone.”

      “Who do I need to call?”

      He didn’t think she was married. There was no ring, nor any sign that she’d ever worn one, on her left hand. “A boyfriend? Any friend? Your doctor? Someone you work with?”

      She touched her finger to the drops of blood staining the knobby silk of her jacket and blouse, as if discovering the spots distracted her from the conversation.

      Stay with me, lady. Keir slipped two fingers beneath her chin and tilted her face back to his. “Do you want me to call them for you?”

      “I can’t think of names right now.” Her fingertips tickled the back of his wrist as they danced against the skin there. “Aren’t you my boyfriend? Isn’t that why you’re here?”

      “No, ma’am.” He carefully plucked a stray lock of hair from the wound on her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “Detective Watson, remember? I showed you my badge.”

      Instead of answering, she raised her fingers to touch the seeping gash. But Keir ripped open a gauze pad and batted her hand away to stanch the wound. This was more than a mugging or purse snatch. These cuts were fine and deep, made by something with a short, sharp blade. She was damn lucky she still had her eye. Carving up half her face like this indicated a lot of rage, and something very personal. The senseless brutality of this attack wasn’t something he’d wish even on the woman who’d humiliated him in court. “Here. Can you hold that there while I check the rest of your injuries?”

      “It hurts.” Her shaking fingers brushed against his as she reached up to apply pressure against the cut. Her eyes were pale gray, almost like starlight, in the dim illumination of the car’s overhead light. But though her voice sounded far less steady and sure than it had in the courtroom that afternoon, she was determined to hold his gaze. “My thoughts aren’t very clear, Detective. I can’t seem to concentrate. I don’t think that’s like me.”

      “It’s not.”

      “So you do know me.”

      “Yes, ma’am.” Keir gently tunneled his fingers into the straight, silky curtain of her chin-length hair, probing her scalp until he found the goose egg and oozy warmth of blood at the base of her skull. She winced and he quickly pulled away to open an emergency ice pack and crush the chemicals together between his hands to activate its frosty chill. He placed the ice pack over the knot on her scalp and tried to estimate if he had enough gauze or something else to anchor it into place. He sought out her starlit eyes again. “Looks like you suffered a pretty good blow to the head. Tell me what you can remember.”

      Although concentrating on the answer seemed to cause her pain, she bravely came up with an answer. “I was going to a meeting. Dinner. A dinner meeting.”

      Dinner would have been hours ago. “Who was your meeting with?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “Where did you eat? Were you walking to your car? Do you remember where you parked? Did a chauffeur or taxi pick you up?”

      “I don’t know.” Seeming to grow more agitated, she pulled the gauze pad from her face and saw the scarlet stain on it. “Is all this blood mine?”

      “I need to get you to an ER.” She leaned over against the seat, closing her eyes as he placed a call to Dispatch and gave his name, location and badge number. “I need an ambulance...” He dropped the phone into her lap and cupped his palm over the uninjured side of her face. “No, no. Don’t close your eyes. Ms. Parker? Kenna? Kenna, open your eyes.”

      Her silvery eyes popped open. “Stop saying that.”

      Now, that tone sounded like the Terminator. “Are you kidding me? You’re going to the hospital if I have to drive you myself.”

      “What’s happened to me? I don’t understand.”

      “Ah, hell.” He swung her legs into the car and buckled her in. “That’s it. We’ll make sense of this later.” He snatched up the phone and relayed the necessary information to complete the call before shrugging out of his jacket and draping it over her like a blanket. “We’re going to the hospital, Kenna.”

      She grabbed the front of his shirt as he leaned over her, pulling her injured face close to his. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

      “Fine,” he snapped. “You’re Ms. Parker. Don’t suppose I can get away with calling you the Terminator to your face.”

      Her pale lips trembled. “Why would you do that?”

      He was a sorry SOB for losing his temper for even one moment with this woman. She was probably five or six years older than Keir, and had been his enemy in the courtroom. He had less in common with her than that Tammy Too-Young from the bar. But he couldn’t look at the tragedy that marred her beautiful face or the fear that darted in the corner of her eyes and not feel something. He covered her hands where she still held on to him and eased her back into the seat. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a jackass. But you’re the last person I expected to be helping tonight.”

      “You don’t like me, do you?” She gave him a graceful out for that question by asking another. “You know who I am?”

      “Yes, ma’am. Kenna Parker. You’re a criminal defense attorney.”

      Her fingertips dug into the muscle beneath the cotton of his shirt, holding on when he would have pulled away. “How do you know? You said you couldn’t find my