Excerpt: Deadly Scorn

Blood flowed unchecked from wounds in the woman’s back. When she spoke, it was labored, her voice a whisper chased by coughs. “Shh, senora, it is ok, help will come.” Rico shifted the weight of the woman in his arms to reach a cell phone in his pocket.

“911 what is your emergency?”

“Ambulance! Please ambulance. A woman has been stabbed. She is bleeding, hurry!” Spasms shook the woman and knocked the phone from Rico’s fingers slippery with blood. It bounced beyond his reach.

The dispatcher’s voice repeated “Where are you?

Rico could not reach the phone without releasing the woman. He did not want to lay her on the cold cement. He stared at the phone and remembered the man who owned it. Young, tan, strutting toward the VIP lounge wearing expensive clothes and gaudy rings, bragging without words that he had money and could afford to buy the very best of everything. Rico knew expensive phones had internal GPS devices to allow tracking. With such a phone, the police would find them. Rico mouthed a prayer it would be in time. Rocking the woman as he would comfort a child, he felt warmth leaving her body. She was in shock and losing more blood than she could survive. Rico recalled the words of Last Rites. He was not a priest and maybe she was not Catholic, but what would it hurt?