Three to Get Deadly by Janet Evanovich Page B

of it.
    I pushed up to hands and knees and saw the source of the blood. A body lying facedown in the narrow hallway. Light from an alley streetlight carried through the store’s open back door, enabling me to recognize the man on the floor.
    It was the guy who’d pitched me against the wall.
    I crept forward and took a closer look, seeing the hole in the back of the man’s shirtwhere the bullet had entered, and a similar hole in the back of his head. The wall to my right had been sprayed with blood and brain and the left half of the dead man’s face. His right eye was intact, wide and unseeing. The mouth was open, as if he’d been mildly surprised.
    The sound that carved up from my throat was part scream, part gag as I floundered away from the body, arms windmilling out, searching for a handhold where none existed. I sat down hard on the floor, back to the wall, unable to think, breathing hard, only aware that time was passing. I swallowed back bile and closed my eyes, and a thought snaked into the horror. The thought was of hope…that this wasn’t so bad, so final. That the man could be saved. That a miracle would happen.
    I opened my eyes and all hope vanished. The man on the floor was beyond a medical miracle. I had brain gunk and bone fragments stuck to my jeans. My assailant had been murdered, and I’d missed it. Unconscious in the bathroom. The idea was ludicrous.
    And the killer. Dear God, where was the killer? My heart gave a painful contraction. For all I knew he was hidden in shadow,watching me struggle. My shoulder bag was on the floor, under the sink. I reached inside and found my gun. The gun wasn’t loaded. Dammit, I was such a screwup.
    I rose to a crouch and looked through the open back door. The yard was partially illuminated, as was the hallway. I was cold in a way that had nothing to do with the weather. I was bathed in sweat, shivering with fear. I wiped my hands on my jeans. Go for the door, I thought, then run for Ferris Street.
    I clenched my teeth and took off, stumbling over the obstructing body. I burst through the door and sprinted the length of the building and across the street. I ran to shadow and held up, gasping for air, searching the neighborhood for movement or for the glint of a gun or belt buckle.
    A siren sounded in the distance, and at the end of the street I caught the flash of cop lights. Someone had called the police. A second blue-and-white turned the corner at Lindal. The two cars angled into the curb in front of the store. The uniforms got out and trained a flashlight beam into Mo’s front window. I didn’t recognize either of the uniforms.
    I had myself backed into a corner between stoop and porch, two houses down. I keptmy eye on the road and rummaged in my pocketbook, looking for my cell phone. I found the phone and dialed Morelli. Personal feelings aside, Morelli was a very good cop. I wanted him to be first homicide on the scene.
     
    It was well after midnight when Morelli brought me home. He parked his Toyota in my lot and escorted me into the building. He punched the elevator button and stood silently beside me. Neither of us had spoken a word since we’d left the station. We were both too weary for anything other than the most necessary conversation.
    I’d given an on-scene report to Morelli and was ordered to go to St. Francis Hospital to have my head examined, inside and out. I was told I had a concussion and a lump. My scalp was intact. After the hospital, I went home to shower and change my clothes and was brought to the station in a blue-and-white for further questioning. I’d done my best to recall details accurately, with the exception of a small memory lapse concerning the key to Mo’s apartment and store and how those two doors happened to swing open for me. No need to burden the police with things that didn’t matter. Especially if itmight give them the wrong idea about unlawful entry. And then there was the matter of my gun, which happened to no