Without a Doubt. Kathleen Long

hand pressed against her arm and she tried to jerk away, but her body didn’t want to respond to her brain’s signal. She recognized the whine now, loud and piercing. A siren.

      The metallic mix of fear and blood lingering in her mouth brought the memory of what had happened crashing back. She’d been attacked, and Cookie had been badly beaten.

      She struggled against the hand holding her, wanting to get away, needing to get away.

      “Settle down. You’re going to be fine.” The female voice spoke again. “Almost there.”

      Sophie forced her eyes open. The woman was nothing more than a shadowy blur until Sophie managed a blink that brought her surroundings into focus.

      The inside of an ambulance.

      “How’s Cook?” She managed to push the words through her shock and pain.

      The paramedic hesitated before she answered, and Sophie’s mind immediately jumped to the worst-case scenario. “Is he—”

      “He’s pretty banged up.” The paramedic gave a slight nod. “I’ll try to get an update for you once we get you settled inside.”

      The vehicle jerked to a stop and the back doors flew open. The next several moments were a blur of voices, antiseptic smells and ceiling tiles whizzing past over Sophie’s head as they rushed her into the emergency room triage area.

      She’d covered plenty of stories from outside these same doors, but this was the first time she’d had occasion to be the center of a medical team’s attention. She prayed it would be the last.

      Her head felt as though it were about to explode and she closed her eyes, willing the pain to go away, but fighting to stay conscious. She wanted to be sharp enough to find out if Cookie was all right, to find out what had happened.

      The masked face flashed through her memory and she shuddered. Why had they been attacked? And by whom?

      Her mind wanted to leap from the table and chase the story, look at the evidence and piece together the facts, but she knew better. She was starting to feel everything now. Her battered face. Battered legs. Battered head.

      Her mind might be up for the chase, but her body was a long way from cooperating.

      GARY DIDN’T LOOK UP from the clippings on the Markham deaths when the shadow fell across his desk. He didn’t know who or what wanted something, but right now he didn’t give a damn about anything but proving Sophie Markham wrong.

      There was no way in hell Ally was her deceased niece, Robin. No way.

      “What?” he snarled.

      “Another television-station attack.”