Bodily Harm by Robert Dugoni

looking up. “I’m going to kill you . . .” he sputtered.
    The man shook his head. “As a lawyer, Mr. Sloane, I think you would agree with me that the current state of the evidence makes the chances of that occurring highly unlikely.” The man glanced back at Tina. “As I said, I did my best to avoid just this kind of scenario. It seems you are not the only one with insomnia. The wrong place at the wrong time, I’m afraid.”
    “Mom!” Jake thundered down the stairs to the landing, dropping the phone as he did. It clattered onto the hardwood.
    “Jake, run!”
    But the boy fell atop his mother, his face a mask of pain and agony. “Mom! Mom!”
    “Doesn’t anyone in this house sleep?” The man stood from his crouch.
    Sloane grabbed the man’s boot, but he had no strength, and it pulled free of his grip. Sloane sat up, reaching out, watching as the man took aim at the back of Jake’s head.
    “No.”
    A siren wailed, close.
    The man turned his head to the sound, then to the phone on the ground. He picked it up, considering the last dialed number. “Nine-one-one. Smart boy.”
    He replaced the gun inside his jacket and stepped back into the office, seemingly undisturbed by the now howling sirens or the flash of lights reflecting on the office windows. He retrieved Kyle Horgan’s file, flipping through it.
    Voices sounded outside.
    Closing the file, he slipped it under his arm, and looked again at Sloane. Then he glided out the French doors, past Jake and Tina, and blended back into the darkness.
    HIS FEET SLIPPED in the trail of blood seeping from his wounds, but somehow he found the strength, pulling with the fingers of his one good hand, pushing with his one leg, inches at a time, his only focus reaching her. Nearing, he grabbed for the banister, but the blood caused his hand to slip from the rail, leaving a red smear on the white paint. He struggled forward another inch, gripped the wooden pole, and pulled himself the final distance.
    Jake lay over his mother’s body, sobbing.
    Banging on the door reverberated throughout the house.
    Jake raised his head, his face streaked with his mother’s blood.
    “Dead bolt,” Sloane said, gasping for air. “Go.”
    Jake rose and ran from the room.
    Sloane bit back the pain and pulled himself next to her. Tina lay with her head on the bottom stair, eyes open. Her chest fluttered as it rose and fell.
    “Tina?”
    He lifted himself so she could see his face but her eyes stared absently, pupils dilated.
    “Tina?”
    Mouth open, she began to moan, a haunting, staccato sound.
    “I’m here,” he whispered. “I’m right here.”
    Her chest rose, each breath becoming more shallow.
    “No,” he cried. “Tina. Please. Don’t leave me. Stay with me.”
    Her limbs stiffened, her chest trembled, rapid breaths, eyes wide.
    “Tina! Tina! No. Don’t go. Please. Please. Don’t go.”
    He heard the sound of people rushing into the house, toward them.
    She blinked, and for a moment her pupils fixated on him.
    “Stay with me,” he said. “Stay with me.”
    HIGHLINE COMMUNITY HOSPITAL
BURIEN, WASHINGTON
    LIGHTS BLURRED OVERHEAD, blinding him and creating halos of light around the faces hovering above him.
    “Forty-seven-year-old male. Gunshot wounds to the right leg and right shoulder, likely forty caliber. Extensive blood loss at scene. Patient is awake. No loss of consciousness.”
    A different voice. “Pressure’s eighty over fifty. Heart rate a hundred and ten, respirations twenty-five with oxygen saturation of ninety-two percent.”
    “Get a dopamine drip started, run it open. Prepare to intubate.”
    “Dr. Tressel is in the OR.”
    A mask pinched Sloane’s face. Needles punctured his arms. Tubes led to bags hanging overhead. He heard the sound of his own breathing, but he could not speak, could not ask anyone the one thing that mattered.
    Where is she?
    He had promised he would stay with her. He had promised he would not let her go.
    “He’s lost a lot of