"Boss?"
Jasper looked beyond Daisy down the ridge. The sand had drag marks on it where she had crawled, pulling herself over twenty feet. Whoever left her had dropped her off in a sandy pit that would have hidden her from most eyes. She had pulled herself up to higher ground where his company sensors triggered. If she had stayed over there, he would have been answering a lot of questions tomorrow.
Jasper focused on Daisy and began searching for the source of the blood. He tore her blouse open and found a small hole in her shoulder. He ripped part of his shirt off so he would have something relatively clean to hold pressure on the still bleeding wound. Whoever had done this didn't even make sure she was dead.
He looked off in the distance to his warehouse. He had done his best over the years to keep this company clean. Everything in it was legitimate and above board. That was so that when it came time to do taxes and audits, law enforcement never had a reason to dig deeper. If they found a body here...
"Boss?"
"What!"
"Where do you want me to send the ambulance?" Jasper cursed.
*Maybe I should take her somewhere else,* he thought. It didn't make any sense for her to be on this property. He immediately discarded the idea. Not that having a gunshot wound wouldn't trigger some uncomfortable questions, but this was their dump site. Either they were targeting him, or he was an unlucky bastard.
"Where are they at right now?"
"The closest one is at least 10 minutes away."
"Damn it." Jasper looked at Daisy and knew that time was not on her side right now. He might be ruthless, but he was known for taking risks. "Tell them to get here fast. She has been shot. If this is the dump site, it has to have been at least an hour that she has been bleeding out." He hoped that the ambulance company he bought would be discreet.
"Do you want me to call the police?" Max asked hesitantly.
"No, we are going to gamble that my new ambulance company will keep it off the books."
"If they don't, that could cause problems."
"We'll play dumb. We were so worried about her that we forgot." Jasper frowned when he heard Max snort his disbelief.
"Like they'll really believe that."
"Doesn't matter. It will buy us some time."
"I'll have Dr. Ed get ready, " Dr. Edmund Jean Blaireau was one of the best and most versatile surgeons in the area. He also didn't mind doing some off hour surgery for a price. He had a very small team that did work for Jasper on occasion. As long as all he was doing was the surgery, he kept it off the books.
"Yes. See if he needs anyone else or if we can keep this small." Jasper could hear Max typing for a while before the phone when silent. Jasper knew that he was busy getting everything set up. He could hear the hum of the desert as he waited. Wind blew across the sand as insects chirped in chorus. Every once in a while, he could hear the faint hooting of a tawny owl echoing over the arid plain.
Finally, he heard the ambulance coming down the dirt road to where his car was parked. The headlights bounced up and down as it hit the dips where water had eroded the ground. When they got behind the car, he saw a man and a woman exit the vehicle with flashlights. He waved his light in the air for them and turned his attention back to Daisy. She was grimacing in pain.
"Hold on, Daisy," he said to her. By then, the paramedics had reached them. Jasper stepped back as they took over. Tubes and bandages came out of their bags, and they began to work on stabilizing her. Jasper answered a few of the man's questions while it looked like the woman was trying to ask Daisy questions. She was holding her ear close to Daisy's mouth, and Jasper could see them move ever so slightly.
They moved quickly, and soon, Daisy was on the stretcher being carried to the ambulance. Jasper followed behind the paramedics. They loaded her in the back, and the man moved into the drivers seat. Jasper could see him start to back up into the turnaround. It wasn't long before Jasper brushed the sand off his clothes, stowed the gun and flashlight away in his own vehicle, and started his car to follow them to the surgeon.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Daisy felt the hard pressure on her chest. Her eyes fluttered open. She wasn't sure how long it had been since Frank had shot her.
*Stupid man,* she thought. The pain in her chest was terrifying, and she felt incredibly weak. She could see the stars in the night sky of the desert. She could feel sand everywhere. Going to the beach as a kid had been an awful experience for her mainly because the sand got in hard to clean places. She mostly avoided sandy places even though her headquarters and home were smack dab in the middle of a desert.
Daisy glanced at the man hovering over her. He was looking far into the distance. He was the one pressing on her chest. His shoulders were broad and took up most of her vision. He had a square jaw and dark hair. Of course, it was hard to tell the color when the night was so dark. The shadow of his nose looked permanently broken, and his brows slashed menacingly on his forehead. He raised a flashlight in the air and waved it around.
She closed her eyes and grimaced. She couldn't remember because of the pain, but she knew him. Her mind snached on the words bastard and jerk, and she felt intense disgust and loathing for the man. She had a feeling owing this man was going to piss her off. She felt the frenzy of activity around her and could see a man and a woman with medic bags.
She could hear words and questions being asked but had a hard time comprehending them. She let them know her name and the last thing she remembered. She told them that it was just after midnight when she was shot and that she didn't have any allergies. She focused on the sound of velcro being pulled apart and metal clasps snapping apart while they worked on her. The medics moved her to a stretcher, and Daisy felt her body swaying over the desert.
The night breeze was colder than she expected, though that may have been because of blood loss. Frank was going to be pissed when he found out she still lived. Whoever this guy was, she owed him if she pulled through.
The medics loaded her into the ambulance, and she saw the plastic tubes and cabinets on the walls. The woman who was talking to her earlier started attaching tubes and things to her as the man went through another opening to the driver's seat. She felt the ambulance roar to life. She didn't see the other guy who found her.
She thought about what had happened. Daisy had spent her whole life working everyday without taking any vacation to bring her company, Rapt Media, to be the most influential publishing company in the world. She had been offered a lot of money over the years by investors and corporations alike. She had turned them all down. The most recent one was by...
*Damn, I can't really remember the name of the company off the top of my head.* She tried to concentrate and remembered a brief meeting with her aide. She vaguely remembered looking over the the company profile. He said that the company was rumored to be run by some unsavory characters. Some big shot from the company had even come over unannounced to try and strong arm his way into purchasing part of her company. *He really was a jerk,* she thought. In the end, she had turned them down, too. Rapt Media was like her child and she didn't want it to fall into the wrong hands.
When she started, Trinity's dad had been kind enough to lend her 30% of the seed money to get the company started with the condition that she take Trinity on as a partner. Their family continued to hold about 30% of the company shares. Daisy had held on to 51% of the shares of the company so that she could maintain control of the company while selling the rest to investors. Other people might have thought she was gullible, but deciding to give Frank a portion of her shares was her way of showing her trust in him. She thought back to why she decided to do that in the first place and acknowledged that she may have been lead to do that by Trinity and Frank.
She felt the world start to darken and knew that she was going to pass out again. *Hopefully, when I wake up, I won't be in so much damn pain,* she thought as the ambulance raced off into the night.