Avenged by Janice Cantore

Author:Janice Cantore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Christian / Romance
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2013-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

23

CARLY CAME TO SLOWLY, hearing sounds but not processing what she heard. She started to move, and pain snapped through her body in a spiderweb of unpleasant sensations.

“Whoa, take it easy. Stay still until medics get here.”

Carly’s eyes focused on Kyle Corley’s face looking down at her. It was harder to focus her mind. She could hear the cackle of a police radio and the sounds of voices and people walking around. The area was bright with artificial light.

“What happened? Where—?”

It came back in a rush—Dean Barton, the fall. She tried to sit up, but Kyle’s hand stopped her before the pain did.

“Dean Barton. Where is he?”

“Stay still. He’s been taken care of. You fell quite a distance and were out cold when I got here. Don’t move; you might hurt something.”

“I—” Carly’s gaze traveled up to the gaping hole in the railing above her. It seemed a mile away. She realized she must be in the restaurant’s entryway. “I fell that far?”

Kyle nodded. “Looks like you hit flat on your back, then your head. Vest probably saved you, but you still hit hard enough to get knocked out. Though I don’t see any blood.”

He looked away as new sounds entered the area. Carly could tell the paramedics had arrived. Her mind felt full of cotton.

She did her best to relax as the medics replaced Kyle and went to work assessing her. They removed her gun belt, and Kyle said he’d hang on to it for her. They began to do what she’d seen them do to countless accident victims—check her for injuries, apply a neck brace, and then roll her carefully onto a backboard—while they asked questions to assess her level of consciousness.

“What’s your name?”

“Do you know what day it is?”

“How many fingers do you see?”

Carly did her best with the questions and could move her arms and legs, but her head hurt and she had been unconscious, so they would take precautions until a doctor saw her.

“Kyle?” she asked as the medics raised the gurney from the floor.

“Yeah?”

“You call Nick?”

“You bet. He’ll be waiting at the hospital.”

•••

Carly closed her eyes for the ride to the hospital. She struggled to remember what had happened. Did Barton lead me into a trap? But how could he have known I was going to be there? And where was he coming from?

She had trouble thinking clearly and thought about how dazed boxers looked as they tried to get up off the canvas after a hard blow. Carly figured she must look like that because she certainly felt like she’d been dealt a knockout blow. The only consolation was that the arrest of Dean Barton was bound to clear things up.

As promised, the first face she saw when she was taken out of the ambulance was Nick’s.

“What happened, babe?” he asked, worry crinkling his brow as he took her hand in his.

Carly felt tears threaten at the thought of causing him so much worry. “Guess I wasn’t looking where I was going” was all she managed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.