Chapter Seventeen

Sensory overload fried Olivia's nerves.

The bullets that burst the cars' windows set off their alarms, shrilling to the owner to come and check.

No one was coming.

As soon as Judge Greenway collapsed, distant yelling told Olivia that everyone had scrambled for safety. As far as she could tell, their little knot hunkering between the cars were the only people still outside.

The only human targets.

Oh, those car alarms, with their bright wails that pulsated and glared! They whipped about on the buffeting gusts and echoed off the hard sides of the surrounding buildings. Each joined in at a different point, none aligning with their neighbor. It was a constant nerve-jangling discordance.

From her phone, the upbeat rock music kept Nutsbe steadily at work. Red-faced from exertion, sweat-slicked his skin. He had to be exhausted. She wished she could relieve him, but the shuffling and maneuvering in this cramped space would take too much time away from their work.

Nutsbe had the muscles for this job. Not pretty muscles—not show muscles, power muscles. Muscles trained to do things like this—save people.

Day two of Nutsbe's heroism.

Rescue sirens blared and squawked, surrounding them on three sides. The fourth side was a railroad with no access. They seemed to have formed their semi-circle and stopped at too far a distance to be particularly helpful.

What they needed was a gurney, a chest compressor, and an airbag.

She was the airbag.

Olivia, once again, turned her head cheek to nose, drew a breath in through her mouth, then turned to seal her lips over the judge's mouth and exhaled. That breath forced his lungs to visibly expand. The sharp prickle of emerging beard was like sandpaper, making her lips feel raw. She turned her head and breathed in fresh air, then turned back to force life past cold blue lips.

But this time, as she blew, vomit bubbled up the judge's throat, filling her mouth.

Thrusting back, gagging and gasping, gobs of his half-digested food fell from her lips. Olivia made the mistake of looking down at the puddle of coffee and sweet rolls. And something red and chunky.

As her own stomach churned and bucked. Olivia was vaguely aware that Nutsbe had rolled the judge to his left side and was sweeping his airway clear.

As another wave of vomit spewed across the parking lot, Nutsbe scooped the puddle away from the judge. And when that wave receded, Nutsbe cleared his mouth again.

"Vomit," Nutsbe called for the Iniquus person's benefit. The phone had dumped from the judge's crotch to the blacktop. "I have a pulse and a breath." His voice was filled with victory and exhaustion.

Olivia, trying to still her wobbling stomach, watched as Nutsbe bent and folded the judge into the rescue position she had practiced in her yearly first-aid class but wasn't sure she'd remember how to do now that it was necessary.

Nutsbe kicked his bag and a water bottle rolled out. He moved toward the judge"s feet and washed his hands, then dried them on the drool towel strapped to the bungee cord on Beowolf's work vest. "Good boy. That's my good boy." Nutsbe patted his side, then scratched his ears.

Nutsbe's steadiness through all of this helped Olivia immeasurably.

He handed the half-empty bottle and towel to Olivia and said. "For cleaning up. I have another one for you to swish your mouth out." He turned to Beowolf, waiting patiently like the best of the good doggos. "Beowolf, follow."

With his supply bag looped over his arm, Nutsbe crawled past the judge's head to an area with enough space to put his back to a bumper. There he sat with his knees bent, catching his breath.

Beowolf padded over to Olivia, sniffed her over, and then gave her a swipe of his tongue before lying down at Nutsbe's feet. She noticed he was no longer watching the condominium's parking garage, and Olivia assumed the shooter was gone.

Reaching into his bag, Nutsbe drew a water bottle out and handed it over.

Olivia duck-walked farther away between the cars, filled her mouth, and spat. A few more swishes and the water tasted less sweet in comparison to the bitter bilious puke that had filled her mouth. Her nervous system began to reset.

When she waddled back toward Nutsbe—her suit skirt stretched tight against her thighs—he had a roll of mints in his open hand.

She glanced toward the judge. Reflective emergency blankets made him look like a baked potato. "Wow." It was the only thing Olivia could think to say.

"You did awesome. I am so proud of you."

She shook her head as she popped a mint in her mouth. "Do you think the first responders are on the way over to us?"

"Not yet. They're looking for the shooter."

"But he's gone, right?" she asked.

"My guess."

Olivia cast her gaze around. Not that she could see anything but cars.

"You can either hunker in or run for it," Nutsbe said. "Your call."

Olivia focused on Judge Greenway. "You could get the judge out of here?" That didn't seem probable. He was a big guy, and it had taken both Nutsbe and Beowolf to drag him. Olivia felt terrible for not helping. But Nutsbe had asked her not to, and there was probably a good reason.

"I'll stay with the judge. You need to do the thing that is best for you."

"I'm not running for it." She plopped onto her butt, sending him a quivering smile. "I like having these engine blocks near me."

Nutsbe grinned. "You did learn a thing or two as a prosecutor."

"This is a strange experience."

"Yeah, I have to say, I've never been shot at in a public parking lot by a sniper before."

"Snarky." Olivia laughed. "I like that."

"You doing okay?"

"I could use a bathroom." She pulled her legs out from underneath her and stretched them long. Her knees were scraped like an elementary school kid taking a tumble off their scooter. Her shoes were over by her car. She'd come out of them when Beowolf dragged her to this side of the parking lot. Olivia leaned over and kissed Beowolf. "You're my hero, too. Thank you for protecting me."

Beowolf moved his head onto her lap, lifting first one brow, then the other endearingly. Olivia stroked her hand over the smoosh of his wrinkled forehead.

Nutsbe checked his watch, doing a pulse count on the judge. He lifted the phone and said all the right things—respiration, color, lack of responsiveness.

"We're safe now, don't you think?" Olivia asked.

"I think that depends on the goal," Nutsbe said.

It was not what she wanted to hear.

"If that was an assassination attempt, and it was a miss, the shooter might have ditched the weapon—or not—and have come down to patrol the parking lot to finish the job."

Olivia froze.

"I don't think that's what's happening. If the guy thought a close, predictable shot was possible, he would have taken it. The shooter wanted the protection of distance and had an exit route planned. We don't know if the target was acquired or not."

"If he was successful or not—" Olivia wiped a hand over her head. "Mickey is a sniper for the police department."

"Don't get ahead of facts," Nutsbe admonished her. "You're a prosecutor, so lean into that. No jumping to worst-case conclusions."

"Fact, the judge needs medical help ASAP. I mean, how long can you leave a tourniquet on?"

"We have no control over that," Nutsbe said.

"Are you scared?" she asked.

"Concerned? Sure. Scared? No, I'm okay. But it is a frightening situation." He looked at the judge. "I think we're in the hunkering down part of this event. The shooter's probably running and hiding. The police will have to clear the area before they can greenlight the ambulance to come in. I think we're going to be okay."

He caught her gaze and held it for a long time. He held out his hand to her. "Are you scared?"

Nutsbe was right; this was a frightening situation. She had been terrified up to the point where she started the artificial breath. Doing something proactive had helped until the puke. How was she now? "Weirdly, no, not scared."

He scanned down to her legs. "I'm going to take care of your knees, okay?"

Olivia didn't want to let go of his hand. And it looked like the bleeding had stopped. But Nutsbe reached for his magic bag of helpful things.

He moved toward her feet.

When he pulled out a medical pouch, Olivia focused on the keychain attached to the zipper pull.

Nutsbe drew out gloves from the front, then pulled them on. He opened the bag. A plastic sheet went on the ground for him to use as a sterile spot. Nutsbe laid out the things he would be using, including a pair of plastic shears that would have made it through the metal detector.

"I'm going to edge your skirt up." He moved her skirt to her mid-thigh. "I'm going to cut your hose and then remove them. You'll start bleeding again. The fibers have dried into the scabs." Now that he was this close, they could hear each other without yelling.

Though the wind would sometimes gust and whip away their words, it also whipped away the smell of puke, and Olivia was grateful.

Olivia distracted herself as he first slit a hole that allowed him to begin cutting around her thigh by pointing at the photo on the keychain. "You all were having fun."

"It was a great time," Nutsbe lifted her leg and placed it across his thigh to cut around the back.

"No cake or balloons. It didn't look like a birthday party. What are you celebrating?"

"That's my Live Day last year. Some pals I hadn't seen in a while showed up to surprise me."

"I don't know what that means, ‘Live Day.'"

"That's the day I lost part of my legs. But I didn't lose my life. Every day since that day is like a bonus."

"How did that happen?"

"My convoy hit an IED in Afghanistan."

"But I thought you were Air Force, right? How is it that an Air Force pilot got caught up in a convoy IED attack?" Olivia thought this was shaky ground. She didn't know the etiquette here. And she was afraid that Nutsbe might feel that she was gratuitously digging for details that were none of her business. "Is it okay to ask?" She frowned. "I mean, I'd like to know. Not in a curious way, but more in an ‘I think we're becoming friends' kind of way, and this is a big deal—an inflection point in your life."

"Yeah, that's the way I took this conversation."

Friends?Olivia thought. Not really, no. She felt that there was something more there. Something that could be special and important, emerging like green shoots from the winter soil.

For her, anyway.

"Is it classified?" she asked.

"Nope." He worked his fingers into the top of the hose and gently pulled the fabric to her knee. With care, Nutsbe worked to dislodge the fibers from the cut that had already crusted with a wide, coagulated scab. "The fresh blood will help clean out your wound from any tiny rocks and dirt." He slid the rest of that pantyhose leg off, and it was bizarrely seductive. Olivia chalked those sensations up to survival hormones, a bit of a crush, and that she'd only read of such things in her bathtub smut novels.

"How did I get hit?" Nutsbe asked, "String of bad luck and miracles. This is going to burn." He swiped over her knee with an alcohol pad. "Not the best first aid practices, but it'll have to do in a pinch." He turned the pad over and swiped it on the other side while Olivia tried not to wince. "I was flying a mission in Afghanistan. There was a massive sandstorm and high winds. Those storms could come up unpredictably. At the time, I had been skimming over a mountain range, trying to keep my bird in the shadows so I could poke out and drop my load without the guy manning the surface-to-air missiles seeing me in time. They could hear me for sure. I'm assuming it was the debris in the air that made both my engines cut out. I made an emergency landing in the middle of Taliban territory." He tore the packet of petroleum jelly and swiped it over her cut. "They sent the SEALs to save my butt and blow up the plane."

"Wow."

"A little bit wow, yeah." He placed a cotton square over the cut and reached for the cling bandaging. "I never needed rescuing before. It's an odd sensation. In the Air Force, we're on a team but also alone." He lifted her leg and tucked it under his arm, trapping it there.

For Olivia, this was one of the most confusing moments of her life—being turned on by his gentle touch and attention while focusing on understanding the desperate straits he'd survived and not knowing if the sniper was still actively stalking the area now, looking for someone to put in his crosshairs. She wished she had control, that she could focus on a single thought or emotion—but obviously, her nervous circuitry was misfiring.

"There are skills I have that the SEALs depend on. I have done more than my share of bomb runs to protect them or cover their tracks. But that day, I was completely dependent on their unique skills. The relief is something incredible—there's a profound sense of debt and brotherhood."

Nutsbe wrapped the bright blue cling bandaging around her leg, setting her leg back on the ground to start again on her other side.

Olivia sucked in a stuttering breath, then released it in a rush.

"You okay? Hanging in?"

"I'm not going to cry, I promise." She wasn't a crier, but this might just be the time to start. It seemed like it would be a good way to let go of this pressure in her head and chest.

Their eyes met, and a slow grin spread across his face. She wanted to kiss him. That was inappropriate given the circumstances, not the least because of her need to brush her teeth and gargle with something very strong.

That look from him was what she needed, not tears.

Nutsbe gently slid the cool sheers between her flesh and the Nylon.

"Were you hurt putting the plane down?" Olivia asked.

"It was a bumpy ride in, but I was fine. After the SEALs blew up the plane, they had another mission to jump on, so they got me as far as the first convoy they could find outside the wire. That convoy would give me a ride back to the fort. From there, a helicopter was supposed to take me back to my base."

He gently worked her stocking down her leg.

"But the convoy didn't make it," she whispered.

"It did not. The truck in front of us flew up in the air, and whatever it hit seemed to trigger along the chain behind us. That was bad. Four vehicles."

"Wait. So the terrorists were able to rig it so that when the lead car got to the explosives, the entire convoy blew?"

"Wicked crazy stuff. That's exactly what happened. So, yeah." He paused for a long time, Scrutinizing her face; his mind seemed hard at work. Finally, he reached over and tapped the mute button on the phone. He licked his lips and said, "I've only ever told one other person this part of my story." He paused as if he were reconsidering, then said, "Here it is. When I was lying there with my limbs fucked up—excuse my language."

"Seems appropriate here."

"This is kind of out there." He looked around, focused up at the sky, then back at her. "I'll just tell it like I did that time before. As a kid, my grandmother always knew when I was up to no good. Even if I was just thinking about it, the phone would ring. It was always Nan asking me what the hell I thought I was doing. It's important to know that she died when I was a Doolie at the Air Force Academy—that's freshman year. Okay, fast forward to after the convoy blew. I opened my eyes, and Nan was kneeling beside me. She was yelling at me. Cussing me out." Nutsbe paused with a lopsided smile, but Olivia could see he was trying to wrangle his emotions.

"You should also probably know," his voice had turned husky, "that my Nan was a rule breaker. She liked to drink and liked to smoke. So she didn't look like an angel with wings and a halo. She was herself with white hair and long red nails, cigarette in her fingers, highball in hand." He shook a finger in the air and made his voice wobble. ‘What's wrong with you? You know what to do. Get your tourniquets on your legs.'" Nutsbe quickly turned to look at the judge, then back. "She said, ‘It's not your time, young man. Don't you even think about it. Get yourself out of this junk pile and get yourself moving to the north. Move it.' I did as I was told. In my household, growing up, the kids didn't ever ignore Nan. I wasn't about to start ignoring her then. Olivia," he put his hand over his heart, "she saved my life. Everyone who was with me was already dead. I was lying there in shock. I wouldn't have crawled off my X if it hadn't been for her. Wouldn't have gotten far enough away when the second RPG hit the wreckage, nor when the Taliban moved in to make sure the job was complete. That's that part of the story."

"That's crazy wonderful." Olivia wasn't blinking.

"Wanna hear something even more freaky?" He popped his brow at her.

"Absolutely." She wanted to know everything about this man.

Right now, Olivia was filled with profound gratitude for Nutsbe's grandmother.

"One of the marines later told me that an old lady in a pink pantsuit had told him where to find me in the trees. The marine scanned over to where she was pointing, and when he turned back to ask how she got out there in the middle of nowhere, she was gone. Why was a woman in pink pants in the middle of Afghanistan? He said he was afraid she'd set him up for an ambush, so they went in slow. He was able to describe her to me. It was Nan. It was definitely Nan."

Olivia believed his story with every fiber of her being. But the implications of that belief … She'd have to think long and hard about all of this. His story was overwhelming, all of it. "I am retrospectively terrified for you. What? How?"

"I was glad as hell when the Marines got there. MIA is tough on families." His whole body visibly tightened as he scanned her face. "Am I hurting you?" Nutsbe looked down at her leg in his hands.

Her heart squeezed so tight it hurt. "That's gratitude you see on my face. I'm thankful to your Nan, that you made it through, and selfishly, but honestly, I'm so glad you're here with me right now. But no tears. I keep my promises."

That seemed to reassure him. But Olivia knew the rest of his story wasn't a secret because he unmuted the phone. "Those Marines called in the PJs. That was the start of the next set of miracles." He turned and slid closer to the judge. "Checking vitals on Judge Greenway, over."

"Standing by, over."

With her knees cleaned and bandaged, Nutsbe pulled off his gloves, did the checks on Judge Greenway, and called out the numbers.

When Nutsbe settled back beside her, he reached for her hand again, and they laced their fingers. "Next miracle," he said. "A group of researchers had come to Afghanistan to see the state of the wounded soldiers as they were brought from the battlefront to surgery. Right doctors with the right skills at the right time for me. I was a very lucky guy. I got to be a guinea pig for some new amputation protocols that made all the difference in my recovery and ability to ambulate."

"Thank you for telling me. A Live Day is a wonderful thing to celebrate." She squeezed his hand, then looked over at the Judge. "How do you think Judge Greenway's doing?"

"Air going in and out, heart pumping. From there? Hard to tell," Nutsbe said.

Beowolf's head popped up at attention, and they both jerked around when an officer yelled, "Hands! Hands!"