Free Out of Time 01 - Out of Time by Monique Martin Page B

she said. “I can feel it my bones.”
    “Your bones are very optimistic.”
    “Better happy bones than sulky bones.”
    “I prefer to think of them as realistic.”
    “All right, if it—” she started, and then stopped walking. She grabbed Simon’s arm. “Do you hear that?”
    The soft scrape of shoes being dragged along uneven pavement, a cry of pain muffled by pride, a sharp crack of something hard against something broken—the unmistakable sounds of a struggle. She’d heard them from behind closed doors before and knew the images that filled the keyhole. The sounds filtered down the street, seeming to come from an alley barely twenty feet ahead.
    Elizabeth started toward the sound. She heard more thumps and sobs of pain as she neared the darkened alley. She rounded the corner and stopped dead in her tracks.

Chapter Seven
    E lizabeth’s breath caught in her throat. A man was on his knees holding a shaking, bloodied hand out before him. He was flanked by two large men. One casually toyed with a small blackjack, while the other leaned against the high fender of a large, expensive car. There must have been someone inside the car, because the leaning man stepped forward and lit a match, extending it inside the back seat window. Elizabeth saw a black, gloved hand steady the flame. The suffering man continued to moan, and Elizabeth was about to call out when she was yanked back around the corner.
    Simon’s eyes blazed down at her in the moonlight. She tried to struggle out of his grip, but he only held her more tightly. He pulled her away until they were pressed up against the brick of the corner building.
    “Let go,” she said.
    “Quiet,” Simon hissed. Once he seemed sure she wasn’t going to do anything rash, he peered around the corner. After only a few seconds, he pulled his head back.
    “He needs our help,” Elizabeth whispered.
    Simon gripped her arm again and pulled her back the way they’d come.
    “What are you doing?” she said as she tried to slip out of his iron grip.
    “Getting the hell out of here.” Once they were more than a block away, Simon let go of her arm and stared down at her angrily. “What in God’s name do you think you were doing?”
    “That man was being beaten,” she said. “We should have done something.”
    “Of all the idiotic—They had guns. What do you propose we should have done? Getting yourself killed wouldn’t have been much help now, would it?”
    Elizabeth quietly seethed. “I still think we could have done something.”
    Simon took her arm again and his eyes bore into her. “You must promise me you will never do that again.”
    “I didn’t do anything,” she said bitterly. She hated being a helpless bystander. One thing she’d learned in her life was that you took help when it was offered and gave it when it was needed.
    “Miss West...Elizabeth, please?”
    She was about to argue when she saw the look in his eyes. He was frightened. Not for himself, but for her. “I’m sorry. I...I just wanted to help.”
    “And we will. We’ll find a policeman and report it. It’s the best we can do.”
    Elizabeth didn’t say it wouldn’t be enough, Simon knew that as well as she did. They made their way back toward Mulberry Street, and told the first policeman they found what they’d seen.
    If his ruddy complexion and red hair weren’t enough, his accent pegged him as one of the many Irish immigrants who found their niche in the NYPD. She’d always thought it was a bad movie cliché, and yet, here he was.
    Officer O’Malley diligently scrawled the details in his small notebook, but his face paled when Elizabeth told him about the car.
    “A black and tan, ya say?”
    “Yeah, maybe a limousine. There were three rows of windows and a man sitting in the back. He was wearing black gloves. That’s all I could see.”
    The policeman’s face was a blank slate as he nodded and tucked his notebook back into his breast pocket. He absently brushed his cuff over