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CHAPTER 70

Bend, Oregon Friday, August 2, 2024

THEY RAN FROM THE CAVES AND INTO THE VINEYARDS. A GUNSHOT rang out into the morning and echoed off the mountains. Sloan ducked but kept running, following Lester as he bolted through the vines. With her heart racing and breaths coming heavy and loud, she didn’t notice that Nora was no longer by her side. She slowed and looked back down the path that ran between the vines. There, thirty yards back, Nora lay on the ground. Sloan doubled back. Nora was holding her right leg, bright red blood covering her hand and the ground, spilling across the dirt like slow-flowing molasses.

“Oh my God,” Sloan said as she crouched by Nora’s side.

Falling back on her training, she quickly assessed her patient and found the source of the blood. A gunshot wound to the back of the right leg, with an exit wound in the front.

“Okay, that’s good,” Sloan said.

“What?” Nora grunted through gritted teeth.

“The bullet went in and out.”

“That’s good?”

“Yes. We don’t want it to ricochet inside of you. This is much cleaner. And based on the amount of blood, it missed your femoral artery.”

“Nora!”

They heard Ellis yell from a couple paths over.

Sloan looked around. In front of her were vineyards as far as she could see. Behind her, a couple hundred yards away, were the guest cottage and the main house. On the nightstand in the guest cottage was her phone.

“Can you walk?” Sloan asked Nora.

Nora attempted to push herself up off the ground but as soon as she put weight on her leg she collapsed. She shook her head.

“Okay,” Sloan said as she thought.

She stood up and pitched onto her tiptoes, attempting to locate Ellis. She saw his head bobbing a couple of paths over, heading deeper into the vines. She grabbed the bottom of her blouse and ripped the fabric, tearing off a strip from the bottom. When she broke it free, she had a thin length of silk two feet long. She crouched down and secured the fabric around Nora’s leg, cinching it close to her groin.

“Ouch,” Nora said when Sloan set the knot, which dug into Nora’s skin.

“It’s a tourniquet. Well, the best I can do at the moment. It needs to be tight for it to work.”

Sloan stood up again and tried to find Ellis.

“He is heading into the vines. My phone is back at the guest house.”

“Don’t leave me here.”

Sloan smiled. “Not a chance.”

She leaned over Nora as if Nora were a kettle bell.

“This is going to hurt,” Sloan said. “Grunt and groan, but don’t scream, okay?”

Nora nodded.

Sloan grabbed Nora under the armpits and lifted her like she was performing a kettlebell clean. She got Nora to her feet. Nora hopped on her left leg. Sloan bent down and placed her shoulder to Nora’s hip, then lifted her over her shoulder. Compared to the weights Sloan was used to lifting, Nora was light. She took off in a controlled jog, heading back to the main house.

“Hang in there,” Sloan said as she ran.