I wasn’t sure how long I lay there on the ground, drifting in and out of consciousness, but the lights pulled me up out of the soft blackness I was swimming in. Red and blue lights swirled around and around far above my head. I squinted into the glare. Someone had parked a dark SUV on the grass a few feet away from me. The vehicle doors opened, and two pairs of boots hit the ground. One set definitely belonged to a man, a giant judging from the size. The shoes were almost as long as my arm. The other pair of boots were decidedly feminine, smaller and smartly cut with a low, sensible heel.

The boots crunched on the frosty grass and headed in my direction, joining the ones of the security guard. I got the sense the three of them were staring down at me.

“Is this how you found her? Just lying there like that?” The woman spoke in a voice that was as light and high and delicate as a set of wind chimes. It would have been a pure, lovely sound if not for the cold, flat resignation in her tone. Mine wasn’t the first body she’d seen. Maybe not even the first one today.

“Yes, ma’am,” the security guard replied. “I was making my usual rounds and called you guys right away.”

Well, now that I had a proper audience, it was time for Gin Blanco to come back from the dead, so to speak. I pulled in a breath and rolled over onto my back. The dull wave of pain I’d been surfing on surged into a tidal wave that threatened to drown me. A low groan escaped my lips, and white starbursts filled my vision again.

Silence.

“You idiot! She’s not dead. Didn’t you check her pulse before you called us?” the woman snapped. “Call the paramedics, Xavier. Right now before she bleeds out.”

Xavier? I knew him. He was the giant who worked as a bouncer at a nightclub called Northern Aggression. Xavier also moonlighted for the Ashland police force on occasion. He wasn’t what I would call a close friend, but he’d probably help me if I asked him nicely enough. And slipped him some money later. C-notes would buy you all the friends you wanted in Ashland.

When I’d pushed the pain back down to a bearable level, I opened my eyes. The swirling police lights on the SUV made it hard to see the three figures, but I still recognized the giant. At around seven feet tall, Xavier was hard to miss with his shaved head and jet-colored skin and eyes.

“Xavier?” I mumbled, trying to move my broken jaw as little as possible.

More silence.

Then the three figures turned to stare at me once more. Probably shocked I could form a coherent sentence, much less actually speak, given the way my face looked right now.

“Do you know her, Xavier?” the woman asked.