The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(122)

The ringing stopped as the call went to voice mail.

She couldn’t expect help. She couldn’t wait for help. She had no way of fighting, but she had to try something. Maybe if she could make her attacker see her as a person instead of a target, she could buy some time.

“Who are you?” she asked, her voice trembling. She needed to sound calm. She swallowed hard and tried again. “Please, tell me why you’re here. What did I do to you?”

If she was going to die, she wanted to know the reason.

The monster stepped closer until the grotesque mask was inches from her face. It tilted to one side and then the other. Deep inside the black-rimmed eyeholes, blue eyes burned bright with madness.

“Do I know you?” she asked.

“You should. Jeager, Evangeline Grace.”

“You owe me this, Evangeline.”

“Please tell me why,” she pleaded. “I don’t know who you are. How did I ever hurt you? Please tell me.”

He pulled the mask off and tossed it on the bed, then looked at her and waited, as if he thought she would surely recognize him. His face was a battered mess, swollen and bruised. His lower lip was fat and split. He was young, twenty-something, with blue eyes and brown hair. She had never seen him before in her life.

She stared at him until her eyes burned, praying for some spark of memory. Was he connected to a client? Someone’s boyfriend? Someone’s brother? Her client Hope Anders had a brother she had accused of molesting her, but he was big and red-haired.

How could someone she had never met be so angry with her?

“You don’t know me?” he asked.

Evi said nothing, afraid of his reaction. The sound of her breathing filled the silence that stretched between them.

“You should,” he murmured. “You gave me life.”





45


“Don’t you f*cking die on me, Fireman!” Nikki ordered, leaning over Eric Burke.

She had pulled him onto the grass at the bottom of the deck stairs. He had a pulse. It was weak, but it was there. He had been cut badly across the face with some kind of blade. One eye was gone. She could see his cheekbone; she could see his teeth through the gaping wound.

“That’s gonna leave a scar,” she said to him, saying anything just to keep him connected. “Don’t worry. Women go for that shit. You get an eye patch, and you’re all set.”

With one hand, she pressed hard on a badly bleeding wound at the base of his neck; with the other hand, she fumbled with her phone to call Dispatch.

Having no idea where the assailant might be, she kept her voice low as she rattled off the required information about her rank and her badge number and location. Her voice was trembling from the adrenaline rush.

“Listen to me carefully,” she said. “I’ve got a badly wounded man here. I need a bus at this location ASAP, but absolutely no lights, no sirens. Got that? I’ve got a situation ongoing. And I need two backup units. I say again: no lights, no sirens. Tell them to come up the alley behind the house. I’m with the victim in the backyard.”

She made the dispatcher repeat her instructions back as she looked down into Eric Burke’s remaining eye. She could see his fear. She knew that look. He could feel his life draining out of him.

“Eric, you hang on,” she said. “You’re not gonna let a cop be the last thing you see, are you? You’re a fireman, for God’s sake!”

That was always the running joke between the professions: Firemen thought they were better than cops, and cops thought they were better than firemen. The ribbing between them never ended.

Eric Burke’s lips moved, but he made no sound. She could feel his body starting to shake. He was going into shock.

“You stay with me here, Fireman. I’ve got your buddies on the way to haul you out of here. Don’t you punk out on me!”

His mouth moved again. “Ev— Ev—”

“Evi,” Nikki said. “I know. I’ll make you a deal, Fireman. You take care of you. I’ll take care of Evi. I’ll take care of her now, and you can take care of her later. Right?”

She could see him losing the focus in his good eye. She bumped him in the side with a knee to jostle him back, to make the synapses fire in another part of his brain.

“Eric, do you know who did this to you?”

No response.

Shit, shit, shit.

“Eric, is he still here? Is he in the house?”

He stared up at her. She was losing him.

She leaned harder against the wound. Her hand was slick with his blood; it seeped between her fingers.

“Damn it, Eric! Stay with me! You’ve got a pretty wife and a beautiful little girl to live for. Fight!”


*



HIS WORDS TRIED TO penetrate Evi’s brain at the same time as her brain tried to reject them.

You gave me life.

Jeager, Evangeline Grace. Her name, as if read from a legal document.

It couldn’t be.

“You don’t recognize me?” he asked with sarcasm and a bitter little smile. “I’m Baby Boy Jeager. Father: Unknown.”

Oh my God . . .

Down the hall, Mia called for her again.

“I’m the one you didn’t want,” her tormentor said.

Evi thought she might faint. She pressed herself hard against the wall to keep from falling as the floor seemed to sway beneath her feet.