Blood had saturated both sides of the makeshift bandage, and he set the entire mess on a paper plate, which would be easy to dispose of along with the bandage.

He leaned over the counter to pull a clean dishrag from the top drawer, then laid it across the counter beneath my arm. “This is gonna sting, but it’ll help prevent infection.” Cam unscrewed the lid from a bottle of alcohol, then poured a thin, clear stream directly into the front of the wound.

Flames lapped at my arm and I hissed, then bit my lip against the pain. Tensing made it worse, so I tried to relax, but there was no way to relax with Cam this close. Even if he was only touching me to clean the wound inflicted by a syndicate hit man hired by his boss to kill a mutual friend’s young daughter.

Yeah, no stress there.

“First bullet wound?” He twisted my arm carefully, then held the towel beneath it to catch the alcohol as he dribbled it down the back side of my arm, over the exit wound.

“Yeah. Had a couple of knife wounds and two broken hands, though.”

Cam blotted the drips of alcohol, then laid the towel on the counter and started digging through the duffel again. “So you’ve had stitches before?”

“I am familiar with the concept, yes. But I’m not a fan.”

“Don’t worry.” He set a sealed hypodermic needle next to a small bottle of clear liquid capped in rubber. “I’m going to give you a local. You shouldn’t feel anything but some tugging.”

“Are you…um…qualified for this?” I asked, trying not to squirm as he stuck the needle through the rubber cap and drew liquid into the syringe.

“Six years’ experience in battlefield triage. Of sorts.” He tapped the syringe, just like nurses on TV. “Because some injuries you don’t want to have to explain, even to very discreet doctors.”

Even with the anesthetic, getting stitches sucked, mostly because seeing my torn flesh held together only by surgical thread was vaguely nauseating. But to his credit, Cam’s stitches were small and even—almost as good as the professional sutures my last knife wound had required. And, as usual, the worst part was having to sit still.

When I was stitched, rebandaged and still pleasantly numb, Cam set a glass of water and a pill on the counter in front of me.

“No painkillers.” I pushed the pill back across the counter toward him, careful not to move my left arm. “It doesn’t hurt that bad.” It would hurt like hell when the local wore off, but I couldn’t afford to be foggy-headed while we tried to figure out why someone high up in the Tower syndicate would want Hadley dead.

“It’s an antibiotic. To keep the wound from getting infected.” He set a large, opaque pill bottle in front of me and I squinted at the print. An off-brand of penicillin. “You’re not allergic, are you?”

“No.” I took the pill with a couple of ps of water. “Why do you have a bulk bottle of penicillin?”

“I actually have about a dozen of them.” He pulled a smaller bag from the huge duffel and unzipped it to show me more big white bottles. “Standard issue, from one of half a dozen pharmacists bound to the syndicate.”

“Because you’re no good to Tower if you die of infection?”

“Yeah.” Cam started loading supplies back into the duffel, but he left the pill bottle on the counter. “I don’t suppose you have a change of clothes in there?” He nodded toward the satchel I’d dropped on his couch.

“Nope. Had one in my trunk, though.” I knew I should have driven….

“I have something you can wear for now.” He piled everything my blood had touched onto the paper plate, then rolled the sides of the plate up like a big, bloody burrito and carried the whole thing down the hall. “Can you bring the syringe?” he called back over his shoulder.

I grabbed the disposable syringe, careful not to poke myself, and followed him toward the bathroom. But I missed whatever he was saying, because staring at the needle reminded me of the track marks on Hunter’s arm, and I couldn’t get that image out of my head. Something about it didn’t make sense.

In the bathroom, Cam pulled the shower curtain all the way back and set the paper plate in the middle of his tub. I sat on the closed toilet seat while he squatted in front of the cabinet beneath the sink, inches away, and I started a conversation about work to stop myself from asking why he ever bothered wearing clothes at all.

“So, what’s your theory on Hunter’s track marks?” I said, as he set a gallon-size bottle of rubbing alcohol on the floor.

“My theory?” He opened a drawer and set a pair of scissors and a box of matches on the counter. “I theorize that he’s a junkie who takes contracts most people wouldn’t touch—for instance, the murder of a five-year-old—to pay for his habit.”

“But that doesn’t add up,” I insisted. “Some of those needle marks were very fresh, but he didn’t act like any junkie I’ve ever met. He was coherent, and not too bad a shot, considering his view was partially obstructed, and his target was moving.” I lifted my arm as proof.

Shooting isn’t as easy as the movies make it out to be. Any decent-size gun packs a hell of a recoil, and aiming on the fly takes practice. An arm shot—a few inches from my chest—wouldn’t have been possible for anyone who maintained the level of high indicated by the number of tracks on Hunter’s arm.

Cam closed the cabinet and sat on the edge of the tub with the scissors in hand. “Okay, so he’s a very high-functioning junkie.”