Black is My Heart (Humorous Thriller, Completed)

Chapter 7

I pulled the camera out of the keyhole and pressed my face against the door so I could peer through. Snow was half-naked, still astride Clements, whose head lolled listlessly to the side.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"He just..." A pause. "Great. He doesn't have a pulse."

Shit, shit, shit indeed. I wanted to help, but when I tried to pull the door open, the fucking handle came off in my gloved hand.

"And I'm stuck in the bloody closet."

Snow's head jerked in my direction. "You're what?"

When I turned a flashlight on, the mangled remains of the door spindle glinted back at me. I tried to slot the handle back on to turn it, but the mechanism was jammed.

"I'm stuck."

A snort of laughter came from the other side of the door.

"It's not fucking funny."

"What should I do about Clements? Start CPR? Call an ambulance? Leave him and pretend I was never here?"

The closet might have been small, but Mr. Murphy was wedged in there with me. "What happened? Did he have a heart attack?"

"Who knows? It was quick. Maybe an aneurysm burst or something?"

If that was the case, CPR wasn't going to cut it, and even if the congressman got to a hospital pretty sharpish, the chances were he wouldn't pull through. Perhaps karma had finally caught up with him? Whatever, it meant we needed to start damage control.

"Forget the first aid. Can you get me out of here?"

The door rattled from the outside but stayed firmly closed.

"You're right. It's stuck." The thick wood muffled Snow's voice, then a thump told me she'd tried to shoulder the door open. "And solid."

Normally, Nate would have been laughing his head off in a situation like this, but he seemed to have adopted a policy of radio silence, and that worried me as much as my current predicament. Maybe more.

"Nate? Did you hear what happened?"

"I heard, but we've got another issue here."

"What issue?"

"Don't worry; we're handling it."

A chill ran through me. Nate glossing over the details in that manner told me it was bad, and since dealing with bad was my speciality, his response meant only one thing. A problem with the man I cared about most. The last time Nate had acted all weird like this was three years ago, when my husband got into a knife fight in Chicago and came back with his arm in a sling. Knives were nasty things—if the blades came out, escaping unscathed was unlikely.

"Nate..." My voice rose an octave, and I forced it back under control. "Tell me what's going on."

"Just a few stray bullets. Focus on your job."

Focus? Focus? How did that asshole stay so calm? Sure, on the outside I always looked serene, but at times like this, my heart punched against my ribcage while my stomach did backflips.

I imagined my husband's voice in my head. Take a step back, Diamond. Look at the problem objectively.

Dammit, Nate was right, even if I'd never admit to that. I was trapped in the dark in a three-by-five-feet cupboard with a dead dude in the room outside, and succumbing to stress wouldn't get me out of there. Okay, I'd been in worse positions. At least nothing was on fire.