Devil Wind (Sammy Greene Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF Page B

know what to do. Ana zipped open the purse she’d left on the passenger seat and withdrew Sylvie’s phone. Maybe her guardian angel was on duty tonight. Sylvie was one of the few girls who had Kaye’s private line. After years on the payroll, she’d earned the madam’s trust. Ana scrolled down the phone’s contact list and pushed CALL.
    “How’d you get this number?” Kaye demanded.
    Ana began to describe the mix-up in purses, but, hearing sirens approaching, quickly relayed the news about Prescott and their journey to LAU Med.
    Kaye responded with a volley of Slavic curses. “Grab a cab and get out of there. And keep your mouth shut! The man’s running for reelection. I can’t afford a scandal!”
      “Ambulance pulling in!” a nurse announced from the ER doorway just as one approached, its siren blaring, missing the Mercedes’s front fender by mere inches.
    Ana hung up and ducked down inside the car to avoid being seen by the crowd of doctors, paramedics, and nurses gathering in the ambulance bay. This would be a good time to make her escape. Opening the passenger door, she slipped out just as an EMT jumped from the arriving ambulance and began unloading his patient. Behind the medical vehicle, a phalanx of black SUVs appeared, disgorging a stream of photographers and flashing lights.
    Ana heard a piercing scream. And then another. Turning, she could see a disheveled-looking brunette struggle against the leather restraints on her wrists and ankles. A third scream was followed by raucous laughter. Courtney Phillips? Ana barely recognized her. She and the singer/actress had spent several weeks at Promise House together last year. Obviously, rehab had failed. Ana knew her old friend would be in for a rough night—like so many she’d had before quitting drugs.
    “God damn fuckers,” the brunette ranted.
    The ER’s lone security guard held out his arms, a human fence against the horde of paparazzi.
    “Courtney Phillips, Hollywood’s very own teen idol. The girl my little girl looks up to,” the EMT said with disgust as a young doctor strode up to take charge.
    “Hey you fuckers, get this shit off of me!” Jerky neck movements and wild laughter accompanied Courtney’s epithets.
    The doctor shook his head. “I heard she’d found God and sworn off the hard stuff.”
    A TV cameraman pushing past the guard began filming the raving actress. Laughing, he raced back to his truck with the ER’s security guard on foot pursuit. Unnerved by the camera’s lights, Ana instinctively stepped farther back into the shadows as a few more rapacious photographers saw their chance to move in.
    “Let’s get her inside so she doesn’t wake up the rest of the city,” the young doctor said. “I want a CBC, chem seven, cath UA, and stat drug screen.” He leaned over the gurney to check Courtney’s pupils, took a whiff of her breath, and added, “ETOH too,” a blood alcohol. He swung around and almost bumped into the Mercedes. “And whose damn car is this?”
    Another pair of sirens was followed by screeching tires. Two black-and-whites drove up behind the SUVs, with uniformed officers jumping out to join the fray. Ana swallowed another gasp. Police. How would she ever be able to sneak away?
    She sidled over to a sheltered spot in the bushes near the front of the second ambulance. The driver had just opened the doors to unload the patient as another young doctor joined them. Ana caught a glimpse of a woman’s blonde hair and a face obscured by the tape holding an endotracheal tube in place. The smell of burning flesh made her gag.
     “This one’s bad,” the EMT reported, shaking his head. “Found her in Benedict Canyon. Second- and third-degree burns over most of her body. Dried blood on her scalp. Looks like her jaw’s fractured too.”
      “We’ll need the police here.” The doctor nodded at the officers who’d managed to herd the paparazzi behind a line of yellow tape. “Any ID?”
       The gloved