Page 118 of Fortune's Control
“How bad is it?”
I didn’t hear Jack enter when I should have. “Bullet to the chest.”
“Calling an ambulance now. Shit.”
I applied pressure with his shirt’s remains, hoping to slow the bleeding.
Jack gave out the location after 911 responded. “I have an unconscious gunshot victim. Single wound.” I lifted Aiden’s body and shook my head. “No visible exit wound.”
“He’s breathing, and a heartbeat detected.”
Jack relayed the info before lowering himself beside me. “He’ll make it. Aiden loves annoying us too much to give up like this.”
“I know.”
We found Aiden, so where was Lilah?
*****
“How is he?” Detective Moore stood over us, and I never heard his arrival. That’s twice in a short period of time.
“He’s still unconscious,” Jack said.
“I called your local sheriff’s department. They’ll be here soon,” Moore said.
We heard sirens, faint at first, and then louder.
Jack kept pressure on Aiden. “It’s his left shoulder, not his chest. I think his head banged the table on the way down, knocking him out. That explains all the blood.”
Aiden promised to protect Lilah with his life, and his injury was the result. My parents died, and my friends stepped in, caring for me when I needed them most, and now Aiden offered his life. I took back all my deprecating jokes and pranks and promised him I’d do the same if ever he needed it.
“His breathing is steady,” I said, feeling a strange urge to speak. “Lilah isn’t here.” Detective Moore hadn’t believed Lilah when she first tried to tell him the truth about Wilson Skane, and she might pay for that with her life. “You know who took her, don’t you? I want answers.”
The ass frowned down at me before answering. “You’re not going off half-cocked to save your girlfriend. That’s how innocent people get killed.”
Aiden’s wound was evidence that Moore’s failure to go off half-cocked got people killed. I glared back. “If you’re going to threaten me, say it outright. Otherwise, it’s time to talk.”
“I think my partner’s younger brother killed Sandy Cooper and the other girls.”
If they took Lilah, that gave me hope. They didn’t want her dead, not yet, and that meant I had time.
A pair of EMTs entered and prepped Aiden for a transfer.
“I’ll call Sam,” Jack volunteered.
“Where is she? Where would they take her?” Fortune’s Creek didn’t offer many hiding places, and traveling back to Atlanta struck me as risky.
“I don’t know,” the detective admitted.
Aiden’s eyes fluttered as he lay on a stretcher. His right fingers flicked toward me as his mouth opened. His thick voice, garbled and rough, mumbled a word.
“You’ll be okay. We have you taken care of, so concentrate on getting better,” I said.
He tried again, and this time I understood.
41-Lilah
“The cabin? You’re taking me to Shane’s cabin?”
