Nightshine: A Novel of the Kyndred Read Online Free Page A

partner swayed and then slumped over, blood streaking down his face from a long, deep gash in his scalp.
    “Vince.”
    She eased him down and straddled him, working quickly to probe and then dress the wound as she tried to rouse him. “O’Hara? Come on, partner. No sleeping on the job.”
    His eyelids fluttered, and he groaned. “Fucker . . . caught me.” He squinted at her. “How . . . bad?”
    She checked his pupils with her penlight, and felt a surge of relief when they reacted normally. “I think you’re going to be parting your hair differently from now on.”
    “Charlotte, are you hurt?”
    Hearing her name being called out by the man from the limo made Charlie frown. “We’re fine.” He must have heard her using her radio and assumed Charlie was short for Charlotte. “Stay where you are. Are you injured?”
    “No. My driver was shot in the chest,” he called back. “He’s lost a great deal of blood.”
    The driver had to be the one whose thoughts and pain she’d picked up. Or this driver might not exist and Limo Guy was the shooter, trying to lure her out in the open. Until she got closer to them she wouldn’t know. “Sir, do you know where the gunman is?”
    “South tower,” he answered. “Left side.”
    Charlie glanced over the edge of the vehicle at the tower, but at first saw only fog and shadows. Then the first rays of the sun pierced the fog, and a tiny glint of light flashed from the base of the tower. A second later another window blew out on the limo.
    Charlie’s relief was short-lived. Limo Guy wasn’t trying to make her victim number seven, but the man by the south tower would, and to be able to do this much damage from that distance meant he had the skills and accuracy of a highly trained sniper. Hearing the wail of approaching sirens didn’t improve the situation; if the gunman had enough ammunition, he could shoot anyone who set foot on the bridge.
    Somehow Charlie had to warn the cops.
    Quickly she searched through the clothing of the two victims to look for a mobile phone, but found nothing. “Sir,” she called out toward the limo. “Do you have a phone with you?”
    “There are two in the car,” he said, “but I can’t leave James.”
    “That’s okay. Stay right there with him.” She slung the strap of her carry-in over her neck and cinched it so that it pressed against her chest. She lowered herself to the ground on her forearms and knees, letting the fog waft over her before she began crawling toward the limo.
    It seemed to take forever, and the roughness of the asphalt scraped through her sleeves and trousers. Charlie held her breath as she moved across each open gap, praying silently that the fog was concealing her movements as much as she hoped. By the time she reached the shiny front bumper of the big car she was shaking all over.
    As soon as there was enough limo between her and the sniper, Charlie yanked the strap over her head and rose in a half-crouched position, moving quickly to the two men taking cover behind the rear wheel well of the limo. One was a slim, dark-haired man wearing a chauffeur’s uniform with blood blooming on the right side of his jacket; the other man was a golden-haired, bearded hulk in a black trench coat. The hulk had the chauffeur cradled against his arm, and held a folded, red-splotched white silk scarf pressed against the wound in his chest.
    He looked up at her with narrow black eyes that were all wrong for his Nordic golden hair and gorgeous mocha skin.
    Something like déjà vu came over her. Charlie would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that she had never seen the man before this moment. He was too big, too odd, too unforgettable, and yet . . . she knew him.
    The jolt of familiarity had to be some kind of fluke, she thought, shrugging it off. She’d seen someone like him once; that was all.
    “He can barely breathe,” the man told her.
    She glanced at the blue tinge around the driver’s lips and the distended veins in his