Flight of the Stone Angel by Carol O'Connell

Author:Carol O'Connell [O'Connell, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780099640813
Publisher: London : Arrow, 1998, c1997.
Published: 1998-05-14T14:00:00+00:00

Augusta wondered if sleep had been induced by the herbal concoction to stave off infection. Or had the girl passed out from the pain of irrigating the bullet wounds? Well, better that she slept.

All around the room were soggy towels and windings of gauze. Augusta picked up the bloody debris and put it into a plastic garbage bag. When she had washed her hands, she sat down in a chair by the bed and removed the bandages. She pulled the packing from the back wound and replaced the poultice. The girl slumbered on as Augusta taped the poultice in place and then turned the body over to clean the front wound in the shoulder.

With no warning, one white hand snaked out and held Augusta’s arm in a surprisingly strong grip. The cat leapt onto the foot of the bed and made a low growl. Augusta hushed the cat and looked back at her patient and deep into a pair of very angry young eyes.

“What did you give me to make me sleep?”

“Nothing I didn’t grow in my herb garden,” said Augusta. “Now do you mind if I get on with this? It’s a big hole.” She bent low over the wound, ignoring the tight squeeze of her arm, and finally the hand fell away. “Must have been a hollow-point bullet. This exit wound was real good for drainage.”

Augusta’s patient looked down at the new packing in her flesh. “Is that what I think it is?”

The old woman nodded. “Spider silk resists bacteria. I wrap herbs inside it so the medicine releases slowly. Takes a lot of silk to make a good packing, but my house is a damn factory of spiders spinning webs ”

Augusta unraveled a long strand of cotton gauze and clipped it with a pair of shears. “You were lucky. It’s a soft-tissue wound. Missed the joint and the bone. No permanent damage.” She wrapped the gauze over the naked shoulder to cover both wounds. “This is a pressure bandage. I know it hurts, but the greater the pressure the less you bleed.”

“How long will I be laid up?”

“Not long at all, now that the bleeding is under control. In fact, the sooner you begin moving this shoulder the better. It won’t be so stiff later on if you use it now. But go easy – you don’t want to do anything to start the bleeding again.”

“Why are you helping me?”

Augusta looked up to the greenest eyes she’d ever seen, and they were drilling holes in her. Strange child.

“Real estate,” Augusta said, bending to the work at hand, winding another layer of gauze over the holes. “I never lose an opportunity to do a real estate deal. If you die intestate, it could take more years than I got left to tear your mother’s house loose from the state.” And now she risked another glance at her patient.

Not good enough, said the girl’s bright eyes, narrow with suspicion. “Why didn’t you let the place go for back taxes?”

“And

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