Carter Reed novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: What He Owed

Carter took me into his office and shut the door.

It was a small room above the loading floor, with a metal desk, a window onto the cranes, and a calendar from a tire shop.

I did not sit.

He did not either.

"Tell me," I said.

"Yes."

"All of it. Once. I don't want to hear it twice."

He stood by the window with his scarred hand flat on the glass.

"The call came at nine at night," he said. "Wyatt's voice. He said, 'Reed, they've got me.' Then a bang, and it went dead."

"Where?"

"The Kensington garage. I got there in ten minutes."

His voice was level.

"Nico's men were gone. They'd left him in the chair, tied to it, with a gut wound. He'd been shot twice in the belly and once through the thigh. He'd been bleeding for twenty minutes."

I heard the nurse in me whisper the numbers.

Two to the abdomen, twenty minutes, no hospital.

"He was alive," I said.

"He was alive and clear. He knew me."

"Why didn't you take him to a hospital?"

"I tried. I cut the chair loose and got him over my shoulder."

"And?"

"He wouldn't go."

I stared at him.

"They'd gone to get Nico," Carter said. "They'd be back in minutes. Wyatt said they'd already asked him where you lived, and he hadn't told them yet. He said he was going to."

My knees went weak.

"He said, 'I can feel it, Reed. I'm going to say it. Give me a few more hours and I'll say it. Cal's address, Cal's job, Cal's door.'"

"He wouldn't."

"Everyone does. Eventually."

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