An Eye for Danger Read Online Free PDF Page B

to regain composure. I shifted out of his aim.
    Sam grabbed my coat with a grunt. "When we go, we go together."
    "No one's arguing." I kept my head lowered, my eyes off his face. Mainly I watched the direction Bear Man had run, just in case the beast returned.
    "Okay, lady, on your feet."
    He waged war against his own pain to get himself upright, and then pulled me in the opposite direction from his buddy's trajectory.
    We traversed up and down hills, with Sam leveraging my body or tree limbs to help him stay upright. Through bushes we started and stopped, scoping exits and avoiding trails as we rounded the reservoir. He moved faster than I expected, animal-like and not ungraceful for an injured man. But every time we paused he looked worse.
    We reached as far as the park's carousel before Sam's stamina started to wane. Using a low cement wall as our cover, we scrambled on our knees before making a mad dash for Heckscher Playground. Here, fountains and swings stood empty of the day's children yet to frolic and their fussy parents yet to pull their own hair out. Even the homeless had found warmer, friendlier quarters than a deserted, lonely playground covered in frost. But this was a perfect spot for a cop ambush, if they could manage to keep up with an injured goon dragging dead weight like me.
    Without warning, Sam veered toward Umpire Rock. I huffed and kept up, lest my arm get pulled out of its socket. The park's daily crew of boulderers hadn't arrived yet to scale the rock faces. Nor had cops taken position in what seemed a well-exposed area for a trap.
    Where the hell was Stone or the cops when I needed them?
    Safely tucked into the ring of prehistoric boulders, Sam moaned openly as he clutched his side with his gun hand and slid down the rock face. He propped himself on his knees with questionable dexterity. His other hand remained cuffed to my wrist, though I was standing and he was barely vertical.
    "Come on down," he said. "The air's fine."
    I sank on my heels, keeping my eyes cast aside or on the gun.
    Laughing, Sam thumbed to the rock at his back. "Usually going up Red Rock, not down it. That's what we call this heap, you know."
    With my peripheral vision I watched him heave for air before pulling off his cap and wiping his brow with it. He brushed aside his long brassy hair, strands of which had glued to his wet forehead. His roots were dark brown, his locks likely bleached by being in the sun for long spells. Too many details, I chided myself, wishing my professional instincts into remission. But his smell I'd never forget: the stew of wood smoke, sweat, and stale beer, like he'd rolled on the floor of a hick-town bar, then sat near a campfire to dry.
    Car horns blared, bus brakes squeaked amid the morning commute on Seventh Avenue. We sat dangerously close to a major thoroughfare for a man in hiding. Then again, criminals were notoriously dumb, and this guy seemed on the border of delirium.
    "You could let me go," I said, calm as a nun at prayer. "You'll move faster without me."
    Scanning the woods in the distance, he said, "Nice try. You a cop?"
    I snapped my head toward him. "Hell no."
    Shit. My photographer eyes instantly registered his facial details, features I desperately wanted not to catalogue: a broad jaw buried under a beard thick as a woodsman's, the steep angle of his nose, the bright green eyes rimmed in black circles that followed my examination of him, taking me in with equal severity. Even through his burly getup, I could see his rugged good looks resembled a rock climber in an outdoor magazine, not an arsonist taking hostages.
    Shuffling closer, he said, "Gimme your cell."
    I shook my head. "Don't own one." Besides Max's leash, the only thing I'd forgotten was my mace.
    He scoffed. "What are you, Amish?" Then he patted me down and fished through my jacket pockets, huddling close enough that his breath clouded white over my shoulder.
    "My name's Julie." Abroad they taught me to get personal, so if