Grave Robber for Hire (3 page)

Chapter 3

Crap. My stomach jittered and jived as I ran toward the old lady. My metal heels impacting on the hard asphalt of Frederick Street sent shock waves up my legs. Tension ratcheted my nerves tight then tighter.

And that voice, that grating voice, the one I only hear when someone’s in danger, kept goading me,
“Save her, save her, save her,”
at a more and more frenzied pace. Christ, I heard. My inner self needed to back off. It wasn’t as if I’d want to see the woman run over and get smashed into old lady chunks. Old or not, she had more to live for. Like afternoon bingo.

The roar of an engine and the screech of rubber burning gave a forewarning. A white car fishtailed around a close-by corner. The
doof-doof-doof
of god awful music blared out of illegally-tinted windows.

I launched into the air Super-Angel-style, grabbed Granny’s arm, and together we flew.

Feeling super-human, I yelled, “I can flyyyyyyyyy—”

Shoulder down, but holding granny aloft, I smashed into the ground and skidded across cheese grater pavement. “
Bullshiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii,” I screamed and thanked God I’d worn leatherette. Too bad the vest was sleeveless.

Mid slide I slammed my arm into something hard. The crack of bone preceded my throat tearing squeal capable of shaking Brisbane. The thunderous growl of the engine and the
doof-doof-doof
continued up the road.

Someone yelled for help. I forced down a wave of stomach churning pain and checked the woman I’d saved. Mouth gaping, she didn’t move. Eyes, half open looked vacant.

Holy snapping-duck-shit, I’d killed her.

I pulled my elbow away from the dead lady’s head and rolled her onto the grassy verge of the footpath. My body exploded into a ball of agony, and my skin became slick with cold
shocky sweat. My arm—someone must have shoved a red hot brand into my arm.

I looked at my victim’s pasty skin and lifeless eyes, then inwardly cringed. I’d never murdered anyone before. I could hear her relatives now. “
You killed my Gran. You attacked my mother. We want the death sentence brought back just for you
.”

Murdering someone who looked so sweet would really screw up my next life karma. I’d return as a dung beetle and spend my life rolling shit into balls.

Hang on, did her chest move?
Yes, yes it did
.

My body fluids started to flow again and luckily not down my leg. I pumped my good arm, sobbed from the pain the movement caused, and woo-
hoo-ed. No shit balls. I owed the great who-ever-what-ever who saved the woman, one.

Car doors slammed. People rushed to help or gawk.

Biting back self-indulgent groans of agony, I touched the old lady’s cool damp face with the hand that could move. Unconscious? Probably a result of my elbow bouncing on her elderly head. This old woman wasn’t the first person I’d tried to help and caused injury to, not by a sniper shot. It was all that horrid
save her
voice’s fault.

Through the well-meaning onlookers, a man, too drop-dead hunky to be anything except a gym junkie, and probably married to a hot Barbie wife, appeared. He crouched and checked the old lady’s pulse, palmed a cell phone and dialed.

I hoped he had a medical degree, and he’d feel me up—er—over to check for breaks.

“You okay?” Gym junkie asked as I shifted and scored a head spin. Holding my arm still, I fervently wished someone would turn up with a syringe full of morphine.

Lefty’s my dud arm. I’d broken it three times before today. I knew the pain, knew the routine. I shifted my legs, and the movement shot a spike of fiery heat through my arm.

Goody.

I gritted my teeth, so I didn’t sound like a baby and looked at gym junkie who seemed to be staring at something just behind my back. Probably the blood oozing out of my grazes. “You got any morphine? My arm’s broken.” Nope, gritting my teeth didn’t help. I still sounded whiney, ready to pass out.

Actually, passing out appealed.

A crooked twist of his mouth caught my interest. I looked into gym junkie’s eyes. Molasses black with gold and soft mahogany flecks. Oh yum, yum with chocolate. You read in novels where the person fell into someone’s gaze. I didn’t fall. I felt absorbed, as if he’d wrapped me in liquid warmth. I wanted to float in their shadowy depths for eternity.

“Sorry, Angel, ran out when I helped my last hero.”

Great a smart-ass and one without pain relief. Why didn’t people carry morphine? It should be a legal humanitarian act. Carry pain killing drugs in case Angel Meyers needed a shot. If someone else needed them, I guess I’d share, seemed fair.

The old lady’s eyelids fluttered. She moaned and focused her faded gray gaze on me. Her cheeks pale, her eyes appeared to bulge. In a voice reedy and breathless, “You’re an angel.” Her hand fluttered and sweat beaded her upper lip. “
Oooo, my head.”

A lady in the crowd walked over, kneeled down and took the old lady’s hand and patted it. The old lady’s other hand hit and jarred my wrist—my broken-freaking one.

My mouth shot open, “Ahhhhhhh.” Would it look bad if I decked her?

“I’m sorry,” the old lady said, her voice wavering as if in pain.

I hissed and tucked my arm into my body while the grazes on my back dripped blood and stung. My arm started burning inside. Oh lucky me. I shut my eyes and tried hard to black out. All comas welcome.

Brain cramping pain told me something moved my frigging arm. I opened my eyes and cut my death-ray glare to the idiot. Good looking gym guy grinned at me, and my heart and girly bits
spasmed in total lust. My lust
almost
bypassed the agony of the jerk moron touching my arm. Instead, all my lust channeled to wanting to dig out his pretty black eyeballs.

He grabbed my good arm as it swung, all of its own accord of course, toward his head. “Whoa, Angel, I have paramedical training, I’m trying to see how bad it is.”

I squeezed words through clenched teeth. “Unless you’re a doctor with morphine sitting in your pocket, leave it.
It’s broken
.”

He removed his hands and held them in a surrender position as if I held a gun to his head.
Sensible man.
“Sorry, Angel, just trying to help.” Gym junkie turned and helped the other lady settle the old lady into a more comfortable position. A blue egg-sized lump had started forming on her forehead.

“I think her head broke my arm.” At least she now knew she still had good bone density.

People started to leave, a few keener onlookers stayed, waiting for the fat lady’s finalé or since I couldn’t hear an aria, the ambulance. The only blood around was the stuff oozing from my grazes and running down my back, so the scene was probably lackluster.

The ambulance and its
eee-woo-eee-woo
siren, slammed to a stop and saved gym junkie’s life because twice more after helping the old lady, he touched my arm. Imbecile. If I weren’t in so much pain, I’d stick my good hand down his jeans and rip off his boy junk.

The police arrived, and I sighed in relief when they left me alone in my misery. They’d talk to me and the old lady at the hospital. However, gym junkie had to stay and chat as he’d witnessed the event.

He stood with his hands tucked into his front pockets, thumbs out, pulling his jeans tight over a fantastic ass while showing confidence and impatience at the same time. “The number plate of the car was GXJ-….”

Hell, he’d even memorized the number-plate of the
doof-doof
car.

He pointed to me. “If not for Angel’s heroics—pulling the old lady out of the way, the driver would have run her over.”

Hearing
that
made me feel better about braining the poor lady.

A paramedic, who’d eaten six large chocolate bars a day for a couple of years more than he should have, gave me a hand into the rear of an ambulance. “I’ll get you some pain relief.”

His offer made him appear much slimmer and cuter.

Gym junkie walked over, held out a card, “Angel, here’s my card. Call me.”

I glared at him and let the card dangle mid-air, which should have been embarrassing.

He grinned, leaned over and tucked the white card into the side of my left boot.

Gym junkie considered me with a dark eyed study. “Call me.” He bent, and I swear sniffed arm. He hesitated, “I don’t know why—but I think you need me.” He spun around and walked away.

Keeping an eye on that tight butt, I sniffed my armpit and chest. Nope, didn’t stink. I smelt like Chanel No. 5, with a sidekick of dirt and blood. And the sniffing weirdo’s delusional. I needed no man. Except for sex.

“Hey ambo man, how fast can you bring those drugs?”

He winked at me, filled a syringe, and I swear he lost fifty pounds.

#

The nurse set my arm and wrapped it in a bright red fiberglass wrap. I like it when they let you choose the color. Coordinating with wardrobes is important. Pretty color or not, I wished it would fall off. My arm, not the cast, although that could bloody well drop off too.

The old lady I’d saved, Mrs. Amy Bryley, was eighty-nine. Amy, sweet crazy old dear, kept telling her daughter Sarah I was an angel sent from heaven to save her.

“Sarah, I’m telling you she’s got violet tipped gold gossamer wings. Can’t you see them, they’re draping on the floor?”

Sarah patted her mother’s shoulder, “Yes, Mom, I’m sure she does. Come on let’s get you to x-ray.” Sarah followed her mother’s gurney and mouthed, “Sorry.”

I smiled. I’d smashed Amy
Bryley in the scone so hard my arm broke. Seemed fitting she’d have hallucinations. This week I bet she’d have the most amazing headache and the best story at bingo.

The nurse helping me dress suggested I stay in a motel for the night rather than drive home, she even called me a cab. I directed the cab driver to Streak. Although I could have called Lucy, my neighbor’s sixteen year old daughter and animal feeder extraordinaire, to care for my critters, I needed to go home. One handed would make it tricky to drive, but not impossible since Streak’s auto. Feeling sour, freaked out, and a little bit pouty, I wanted my own bed and space.

The near two hour drive home to Cooroy on the Sunshine Coast sucked. I pulled into my small farm’s carport, hopped out of the car and was greeted by the animal world I called mine. Broken arm, bruised, and cheese grated shoulder, I still needed to feed my hoard. And quacking ducks, clucking chickens, baaing goats and my elderly horses were hungry. My cats and dogs pushed around, vying for the next pat. When I bent to pat them, Asha, my labrador crossed with a sumo wrestler, sniffed my taped shoulder and whined.

“I’ll be okay old girl. Good as new in a few weeks.”

I at least have love. I’ve saved all my animals from death row.

Inside the house, I replaced my boots with Tweety slippers then gobbled two painkillers with a glass of numb-my-pain red wine. I dug out and shoved a frozen meal I keep for times of mayhem, into the oven. Drifting on a drug
haze, I walked outside, fell over Misca my black cat, and skated in some fresh fertilizer my elderly horse Tina had left as a gift.

“
Ewww,” I squealed like a girl because I am one, and slid my slipper on the grass like a dog drags its butt.

Tina whickered and pulled her lips from her teeth in a horse snigger. My other three horses hung their heads over the fence and hoofed at the ground. An audience applauding the class clown.

“Stop laughing or I’ll forget to feed you.” Taking three times longer than normal I managed to feed my outside animals with one arm. I worried about Viggo, who wasn’t yet home. Although he didn’t spend all his time with me, most evenings he stayed around if I was home alone and normally if I managed to hurt myself he’d be around to help.

Inside, I wedged cat food cans against the cupboard door and struggled one handed to rip off the pull tops. Near the cat bowls, I tripped. The contents of the cans made a slurping glop sound and fell onto the floor. “Stuff it. You lot sort it out.”

Seated at last, I ate my el-blando vegetarian Mexican dinner that smelled of hot cardboard and contained lots of beans and chili and not much else. Next time I’d buy a better brand. Those beans should provide some unpleasant nighttime surprises. Another glass of cheap red wine washed out the dull taste.

The meds and wine kicked in, making the room go kind of soft and furry sort of like my elderly golden retriever, Gidget, whose gooey soft center eyes expressed her love. Love of being patted.

Viggo flashed in. Pleased to see him I smiled, but my lips shriveled when I saw he wasn’t fully corporeal. Softly transparent and rimmed in a soft blue light, he appeared ghostly. Oh crap, what had happened?

“Vig you okay? You’re washed out.”

He nodded, “Yes.” Then ran his hand over my cast, put a finger under my chin and lifted my face so I’d meet his gaze. “How?”

“I had a busy afternoon trying to save a lady. It didn’t go smoothly.”