Chapter 83
I KEPT MY eye on the handcuffed man who’d shot Alain. But I was still focusing on trying to stop the bleeding with the palm of my hand. I kept trying to speak softly to Alain. He faded in and out of consciousness.
A fit man in his early forties jogged up to me from the crowd. As he approached, he yelled, “I’m a paramedic. Let me help you.”
I did a double take when the man took a protein bar from his backpack and carefully stripped off the packaging, then put the wrapper directly on the wound and held it in place, shouting to a kid in the crowd to go into the hotel and get him some tape.
He gave me a quick, reassuring grin. “Don’t worry.
I’m legit. This is a tactic I learned in the Army as a field medic to help stop a sucking chest wound.
Without a first aid kit, you have to improvise. ”
It worked much better than just my palm alone.
As Alain still labored to breathe, I tried not to think of the damage a 9mm slug might do to his lungs. At least there was no blood coming from his mouth.
With the paramedic taking care of Alain, I was free to turn and talk to Tex for a moment. I used my head to nod toward the handcuffed man. “Who the hell is this?”
Tex realized he could be in real trouble. He wasn’t going to waste time with lies. “He works at the hotel. I kick money to him most evenings. I guess he thought I needed the help.”
At that moment, I really wanted to punch Tex.
I swallowed my emotions and checked my watch.
It felt like four hours had passed since Alain was shot.
In fact it’d been only about four minutes.
I glanced around the area. The crowd had stayed back a respectful distance.
There were still no cops on the scene, but I could hear sirens in the distance.
The ambulance arrived at exactly the same time as a couple of marked patrol cars. I told patrol officers to keep the crowd in check. One of them took my prisoners and I gave my car keys to another so he could bring my Explorer to the hospital. I jumped into the back of the ambulance with Alain.
Just as the ambulance pulled away from the sidewalk, I glanced out the rear window. Standing in the crowd, with her long black hair draped down over her shoulder, was Lizzie Nunez.
There was nothing I could do about it now.