Page 51 of The Couple’s Secret (Detective Josie Quinn #23)

Forty-Seven

Over the pelting rain, Josie heard the crunch of bones as the behemoth fell, knocking Zane off balance and crushing his lower body beneath it.

Her stomach clenched. Jackson jumped down from the truck bed, took a brief, almost regretful look at his brother’s agonized face, flinched, and ran.

Josie dropped into a squat and slipped her hands under the side of the soda machine.

Gretchen moved to the other side, mirroring her.

Jackson could wait. If he made it off the lot before they could catch up with him, they’d pick him up somewhere else.

He’d fled out of panic, but he wouldn’t get far.

They’d put a warrant out for his arrest in connection with the assault on Zane and he’d get picked up quickly.

Rain beaded on Gretchen’s eyelashes and streamed down her face. “Shit, this is heavy.”

Zane made a noise that sounded more animal than human.

His blackened eyes were impossibly wide, even as rain beat down on him.

His hands rested against the top of the Coke machine, but they weren’t moving.

Josie’s knees, lower back and forearms burned with the effort of trying to lift the metal hunk off him.

Her grip kept slipping against the moisture and the beats of her heart felt uneven and fluttery.

It was heavy. Far heavier than she anticipated. She tried very hard not to think about the damage to Zane’s body.

“Puh-puh-puh…leee…” Wherever his face wasn’t bruised, it was turning from stark white to a greenish hue.

“Hold on,” Gretchen told him.

The two of them counted to three and tried to lift the machine again.

“It’s too slippery,” Josie said, wiping her hands down her thighs even though every inch of her was soaked.

“We have to keep trying,” Gretchen said. “Maybe we can roll it to the side.”

Josie shook her head, water spraying everywhere. “No, no. We can’t. It’ll do more damage. It has to come straight up. I want to keep trying but we need to call this in.”

Gretchen reached down and gently placed her hand on Zane’s forehead. “Hang on,” she told him. “Just hang on.”

One of his hands lifted in the air and Gretchen took it, squeezing lightly. “Stay with us, Zane.”

Josie stood and fished her cell phone from her pocket. The rain was torrential now and the screen was soaked instantly. It wouldn’t take her thumbprint or register the numbers as she tried to punch in her passcode.

“Son of a bitch.” Hurriedly, she yanked the hem of her shirt loose. “I’m getting help, Zane. Hold on. Just hold on.”

She stepped into the garage bay and used her shirttail to wipe the rain from her screen.

Not wasting any time with her thumbprint or the passcode, she swiped the emergency calls icon.

When the 911 dispatcher answered, she shouted out details in a staccato burst before pocketing her phone and dashing out into the downpour.

She cursed when she saw that Zane’s eyes were closed.

In that moment, he looked so vulnerable and small and hurt, more like the teenager he’d been when his dad and Cora died than the man he was now.

Like Riley, that part of him had never really grown up.

For the millionth time since she became a law enforcement officer, it hit Josie just how much she hated the pain people inflicted on the ones they were supposed to love.

“He’s got a pulse,” Gretchen said.

Their eyes met across the macabre tableau and Josie saw her own determination reflected back at her. “Let’s try again.”

Gretchen gave Zane’s hand one last squeeze and then she got back into position and counted down from three. Josie’s brain went blank, all of her energy, her strength, her essence coalescing and channeling in answer to a single directive. Lift.

She was vaguely aware of Gretchen bellowing, face pinched with exertion and then her own grunts.

Lift. Lift. Lift.

The moment the machine gave and started to move at their hands, a surge of adrenaline rocketed through Josie’s veins, so potent that she was no longer aware of the strain in her own body or the rain coursing over her.

Then the machine was standing and Zane was sprawled before them, the damage to his legs sickeningly obvious.

His pelvis, at least, didn’t look quite as flat and there was no blood from what Josie could see.

Gretchen squatted by his side and touched his cheek.

“Zane, the ambulance is coming. Stay with us. Can you open your eyes for me?”

His lids opened briefly but then closed against the rain.

The damn rain. In addition to his injuries, he was likely going into shock.

They couldn’t move him. That was a job for the paramedics.

Trying to do it themselves without the right equipment or the right technique could be catastrophic.

It could be another ten or fifteen minutes before help arrived.

“He’s shivering,” Gretchen said, voice neutral.

Josie glanced over to where the garage bay door yawned open. “I’ll be right back.”

Inside the building, she dripped water everywhere, leaving a trail on the concrete and spraying every surface nearby when she twirled, scanning the items packed into the large space.

Besides the ones that Jackson had set down at the entrance, each one was labeled with a bright yellow laminated card that listed an inventory number, description, and a client’s name.

Some things were in boxes. Others were wrapped in thick layers of plastic but some, thankfully, were draped in moving blankets.

Perfect.

She strode toward the closest thing and tore two dark blue moving blankets from it, uncovering a desk.

Then she had another idea. At warp speed, she thrashed through the At Your Disposal client inventory, inadvertently breaking glass, splintering wood, and knocking over furniture that looked a hundred years old.

Fleetingly, she wondered if Hollis had insurance because, right now, she was an act of God.

It didn’t take long to find something suitable for what she had in mind.

A table big enough to seat six people, made of a type of wood she’d never seen before—almost black with thin yellow-brown stripes throughout and a lustrous sheen that told her it probably cost more than her car.

Leaving the moving blankets just inside the bay, she dragged it unceremoniously outside.

The rain came down in torrential sheets now, making her limbs feel heavy and blurring everything in sight. Water splashed with each clomp of her boots. It pooled everywhere. The table bucked and lurched as Josie yanked it toward Gretchen and Zane, just two shadowy figures in the onslaught.

“Help me!” she shouted.

Gretchen took one look at the table and jumped to her feet.

They each lifted a side, guiding it up and over the top of Zane, careful to make sure none of the legs touched him.

Once he was shielded from the torrent, Josie ran back for the moving blankets.

She crawled under the table with him and with the care of a surgeon operating on her own child, covered him from his toes to his chin.

Gretchen appeared on his other side, scuttling close to him and placing a hand on his forehead. Josie didn’t even know if he was still alive. She pressed her index and middle finger against his throat, relief crashing over her when she felt a weak pulse.

“I’m going to go up front so I can tell the ambulance where to find you,” she shouted.

Gretchen gave her a thumbs up.

Then she was going after Jackson Wright.