by Dale Mayer
She wasn’t expecting an answer quickly, but when she didn’t get one, she fretted. Maybe Tracy was sleeping, or she wasn’t even looking at her phone. Having a hard time letting it lie, Alina picked up the phone and dialed. No answer. She let it ring. Finally, a woman’s voice came on the line and said, “Shut the fuck up.” And hung up.
Alina froze. That couldn’t be Tracy’s mom. So who the hell answered Tracy’s phone? Then the panic hit. She quickly phoned Logan. “I called Tracy to let her know the good news, but a woman answered. All she said was ‘Shut the fuck up.’”
She could hear the silence harden on the other end. “What’s the number?”
She read it off for him.
“I’ll call you back.”
She sat in the waiting room with her cell clenched in her fist, hating that once again she was stuck doing nothing to help. Then she worried. What if Tracy hadn’t been taken away by her mom? What if her mom had nothing to do with this? Who the hell said it was even her mom?
She got up, walked to the room where Tracy’s bed had been placed and opened the door. The bed was still there, and it wasn’t even made yet, but the linens were right there. How could they have moved her? She wouldn’t have gone willingly. It would be easy enough to give her a shot, put her in a wheelchair and take her out. But then again, why? Still confused, she kept sorting through the bedding and then froze. On top of one of the sheets, under the blanket, was a needle. She took a picture of it and sent it to Logan, then a text.
I think they got Tracy.
His response was instant.
Stay there. Stay safe.
She’d walked away from Tracy, gone to the bathroom, only to find out Tracy and her mom had gone. How long ago had that been?
She sent Logan another message.
Contact Tracy’s mom. Find out if she was at the hospital. Because if she wasn’t, then a woman is involved, because a nurse told me her mom was with her. I didn’t see or meet her.
She wandered to the window, searching for any sign of Tracy, her fists clenching and unclenching in a rhythmic motion as she waited for somebody to get back to her.
Finally, her phone rang. She raced out of the hospital at the rear parking lot and answered it.
“Her mom is on the way,” Logan said, “but she hasn’t arrived in Boston yet. It wasn’t Tracy’s mother.”
Alina flopped down on one of the benches. “Oh, dear God. I didn’t get a chance to see who was with her.”
“The hospital has video cameras. We’ll get a visual on her within minutes. The police are already patching it through.”
“Thank God for that. I’m such a fool. When I came out of the bathroom, I heard her mom was in with her, and I should leave them alone for a few minutes as they needed privacy, so I went for a walk—I wasn’t gone ten minutes.”
“You are not responsible,” he snapped in her ear. “Got that?”
She nodded. “I got that. I’m not, but somehow I feel I am.” Of course she understood that was the same refrain she’d already said several times over. She shook her head. “Are the kidnappers’ lives actually on the line if they don’t deliver somebody? And is she the easiest replacement they know of?”
“It could be any number of things. But we’ve got the truck with the driver and somebody else. There was a backup vehicle too. We got it. The last man isn’t getting away either.”
“And who the hell was the woman?”
“The missing link.”
He rang off, and Alina sat still for a long moment. Then she went back to the nurses’ station and said, “The police are going to be here any minute, but that woman who said she was Tracy’s mother has effectively kidnapped her. The police have contacted Tracy’s real mother, and she is enroute, but she is not in Boston yet.”
The nurses stared at her in shock; no one knew what to say. Or dare not say anything.
Alina could understand. They’d let a patient be kidnapped. The PR storm over this would be horrific. Their jobs could even be on the line. She leaned forward and said, “Please, do you remember what she looked like? I wasn’t here when she arrived, and a nurse told me not to go in, so I didn’t get a chance to see her. The police will look at the video cameras, or maybe they can do that from the station.” She shook her head. “I don’t know, but can you give me a description of her—anything to tell me what she looked like?”
One of the nurses lifted her cell phone and said, “I can do better than that. I took a picture of the chaos when the big accident came in,” she confessed. “My boyfriend doesn’t think it ever gets crazy here. I’m not actually in the ER on duty, but I wanted him to see.”
She pulled up the photo, and sure enough, it was a full-on nightmare at the hospital. Paramedics were everywhere, and beds were moved all over the place. And jammed up against the reception counter was a woman, her hair pulled back in a bun at the nape. She was well dressed, a stranger.
“Can you send me that image please?”
The nurse nodded. Alina brought it up on her phone and sent it to Logan.
This is her. Accidentally caught in a photograph in the hallway.
She headed out the back exit with the woman’s image strong in her mind. There was a huge parking lot. But how would the woman have gotten an unconscious Tracy into a vehicle? That couldn’t have been easy. Unless she had help. Had the woman managed to get Tracy straight out of the hospital, or was the woman hiding somewhere inside?
Amid this much chaos, she could have done any number of things.
Alina raced to the parking lot. “Dammit, where are you, Tracy?”
Of course there was no answer. Her phone rang. It was Logan. “The woman’s well-known to the police. They sent out an alert looking for her and Tracy. We also have a vehicle registered to her. With any luck, we’ll get her.”
“I’m not feeling the luck very much now,” Alina said. “She can’t have left the hospital more than twenty minutes ago. The cops need somebody in the air looking for the vehicle.”
“I’m sure they’d like to. It doesn’t mean they have the manpower.”
She shook her head. “This is ridiculous. That woman came in and walked away with Tracy, with absolutely nothing and nobody stopping her.”
“Hospital administration will have to look at that. But because you got the face, we now know who we’re looking for.”
Tracy walked to the far side of the parking lot, her rage so extreme her footsteps gave off a staccato sound. “She could still be here, you know? How could the woman get Tracy into the vehicle on her own? Tracy’s small, but she’s still a dead weight if she’s unconscious. And it’s obvious she’s been drugged again, so what the hell?” she cried out in her frustration.
“Look for a black Honda Civic.” He rattled off the license plate. “We’re only minutes away.”
She heard the letter C, but the rest of it went over her head. She spun around looking for black cars. “Do you have any idea how many black cars are here?”
“She’ll likely be driving carefully to not bring attention to herself. It wouldn’t have been easy to get Tracy out of the hospital and into the car, so she’s probably still there. Cops are on the way.”
As she turned around, she said, “A black car, a Honda, is heading to the exit. I’m running toward her. I must confirm Tracy is in there.”
There was a lot of traffic, and no one would let her vehicle in.
“She’s trying to make a left turn onto the main road here but can’t cross.”
Coming alongside the car, Alina saw Tracy collapsed on the back seat. “It’s her. Goddammit, it’s her.” She opened the passenger door.
The woman hit the brakes and shouted, “Get out. Get out.”
Instead, Alina jumped inside and came up fast, slamming the woman against the glass of the driver’s side window. The steering wheel jerked to the side, sending the small car to the curb. Alina didn’t have any fighting skills except for her pure rage at watching this goddamn woman stealing poor T
racy all over again. Her ire knew no bounds. She kept hitting and hitting and hitting. The woman screamed, fought back, but Alina was like a bedeviled animal.
She could hear Logan in the background, shouting at her from her cell. Yet, she couldn’t say anything. The outlet for all her rage, fear, and torment was to keep hitting the woman. When Alina finally drew a shuddering breath, she realized the woman’s face was bleeding, and blood was all over the side window. Alina could hardly breathe.
With her left hand, she picked up her phone and gasped. “Oh, my God, I killed her. I think I killed her.”
“Stay calm. Where are you?”
She gave him the details.
“Is the vehicle still running?”
Realizing they were sitting in an idling vehicle, she reached over and pulled the keys free. At his instruction, she pulled up the emergency brake to stop them from moving.
“Stay right where you are. We’re on the way.”
She shook her head. “We’re blocking traffic. Oh, my God. What have I done?”
“You’ve done exactly what you needed to do to save Tracy. Now stop thinking about it. Do not leave the vehicle. Do not leave Tracy. And if that woman gets up, hit her again. Do you hear me?”
She gave a shuddering breath and broke down. “Oh, my God! What am I?”
“You’re an animal in pain, sweetie, that’s all. You did what you had to. I’m already on the way toward you. I am not very far away. Give us five minutes. Hold on for five more minutes, and we’ll be there.”
She stared almost blind out at the traffic. Vehicles were going around them. She couldn’t look at anybody. She couldn’t even begin to lift her face. And then some of her training took over. She reached out with her bloody hand and touched the woman on the neck. Relief flowed through her as she felt a pulse. “She’s alive.” And she burst into tears.
*
Logan swore under his breath. The cops drove ahead, leading the way as fast as possible. Harrison drove their car with Logan as a passenger. And like him, Harrison was having a hard time keeping behind the cops, wanting to race ahead. “She found Tracy lying in the back of the vehicle. She’s beaten the woman driver to a pulp.”
Harrison raised an eyebrow and said, “Holy shit.”
Logan leaned back and closed his eyes. “Yeah, that’s an understatement.”
“Is the woman dead?”
“Alina said she is still alive. She’s pretty unnerved over what she’s done.”
“I understand that. I’ve seen women do some pretty scary things when they’re afraid. We’re all capable of killing in the right circumstances.”
They pulled up to the hospital, coming in through a different entrance, Logan exiting the car before Harrison rolled to a stop. The cop ahead of them drove to the far corner where he could see the black Honda Civic parked. Two other cop cars came in behind them. Others were driving around the stalled car, merging into the traffic on the main lane. Not sure what he would find, Logan raced forward, his hands out to the cops. “Let me talk to her.”
Sure enough, Alina sat in the front seat, covered in blood. A woman sat in the driver’s seat, her head against the driver-side window, bloodied from top to bottom, moaning.
He opened the passenger door. “Alina, take it easy.”
She turned, and he could see the shock in her face, the deadness in her eyes.
Finally, she registered who he was, and lifted her arms like a two-year-old. He wrapped his arms around her and picked her up, taking her out of the vehicle. The cops surged in with a doctor and several orderlies pushing a stretcher from the hospital. With her in his arms, the two of them watched as Tracy was carefully removed from the back seat, and the woman driver was carried on another stretcher that arrived soon afterward.
Alina whispered, “I hope she’s gonna be okay.”
“I hope she is too. So she can spend a lot of years locked up in prison. Come on. I’m taking you inside to get that hand looked at.”
She gave him a broken smile and held up her bruised, bloodied hand. “I guess I’m not going back to work for a while.”
“Honey, you’re not going back to work until you find a new job in Texas.”
She glanced at him. “How could you want to possibly help me after this?”
He leaned down and gave her a kiss on the temple. “Not only do I want to, I don’t have any intention of letting you go. Not often do we see people with the character willing to go the distance and do what needs to be done to save others. You jumped into my heart when I first met you. You were so valiant and strong. Nothing that has happened since has changed my mind.”
Laying her head against his shoulder, she whispered, “So you only want to be with me because I’m some honorable Amazon woman?”
Logan grinned. “Because you’re sexy, and the sweetest girl I’ve ever met. Because I really want to take you to meet my mom and all my friends.” His grin widened. “And because you’re some honorable Amazon woman.”
She cast him glance, and her eyes were huge. “Really?”
He heard the hope and fear in her voice. He shifted her in his arms and kissed her full on the lips. “Absolutely.”
Chapter 16
The rest of the day and evening was awash in chaos. Not only did she have to be treated again, but the police were all over her. And through the entire process, she held a deep hidden fear that she’d beaten up an innocent woman. Yet, in her mind, she kept seeing Tracy stretched out unconscious on the back seat. If that woman was innocent, why was she moving an unconscious woman?
Since finding her in the car, Logan hadn’t left her alone. He was either carrying her or had his hand in hers. Making sure there was physical contact between them. And she was just as bad. Anytime he made a move, she reached for him. Thankfully, he’d always reached back. She didn’t understand this bond.
That it was born through danger was one thing she’d like to think would strengthen as they discovered who each other was. She wanted to believe what they had was something to grow, build, and nurture. She knew he felt the same way, but this was new. And as such, it was like a young sapling springing roots. Something to be protected. To be watered and given sunshine and nutrients. Something that would grow strong, straight, and true over time.
That’s what she wanted for their relationship. She wasn’t sure how to give him exactly what he needed. She’d never made it that far. All her previous ones had broken up after a few months. Never had she felt about the men the way she did Logan. He’d been her hero and had been there for her every step of the way. She knew she’d make that move to Texas now, without any qualms. Just to be close to him. Just to give this, whatever this was, a chance.
At the same time, she had a lot of nightmares to deal with. Not the least of which was finding out that, within her own inner core, was a savage animal determined to protect somebody so much less fortunate when needed.
She’d seen women, mothers, do the same thing when protecting their children. So she shouldn’t have been surprised. But she’d never seen that in herself before. Tracy certainly hadn’t been her child, but she felt responsible. And seeing her taken once again, had been too much.
The police were all over the damn hospital. She was sure the staff was waiting for them to get the hell out of their lives. She’d had evenings like that. The hospital was overwhelmed with patients from the multicar pileup. Some were taken to surgery, and others were moved in, registered and taken to different floors and specialty areas.
Once again, she was here. Her hand was looked at, and the doctor sent her for an X-ray. So far nobody mentioned the woman. And she was terrified she’d hurt her permanently. With Logan holding her left hand, he led her toward the X-ray room. She sat on the chair and waited. He held the paperwork in his hand, and they sat in silence. When Alina couldn’t stand it any longer, she asked, “How bad is she hurt?”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I don’t know. They’re working on her.”
She le
t her breath slowly escape. “That could mean anything.”
He squeezed her fingers. “Yes, it could.”
“Am I going to get charged?” She rolled her head to look at him, to see his beautiful green eyes staring at her. “How is it I haven’t even noticed what color your eyes were before?”
He shook his head. “No reason why you should. You were protecting yourself and saving Tracy from a human trafficking ring, of which you had already been a victim.” He smiled. “And no judge in this country would convict you for beating up the kidnapper to save the victim.”
But that was his version. Until she heard that from the cops, she knew she wouldn’t relax. Finally, she was taken in, her fingers very carefully spread out into various positions as they took numerous pictures, and she was led back into the waiting room. Logan was there. She sat, and her hand started to really hurt. She’d tried hard not to cry as they had positioned her fingers for the best pictures, but it had hurt. She looked down at her hand and said, “I’m pretty sure a couple of my fingers are broken.”
He nodded. “If they are, they are.”
She tossed him a smile. “It’s my right hand. I do everything with it.”
“Especially punching,” he teased. “That means no more for you.”
She rolled her eyes. “If I knew how to punch properly, I wouldn’t have broken my fingers.”
He chuckled. “I was going to mention that, but I figured I’d save it for another time.”
“I wouldn’t mind learning self-defense,” she admitted. “When I was tied up on the bed, you can bet that’s one of the things I regretted not having learned.”
“We can work on that too. Everybody at the compound is high up in martial arts of one kind or another. We do hand-to-hand combat because of our work. We’re all trained with various weapons.”
She stared at him. “Compound?”
“Where me, Harrison, and the others live and work.”
She nodded. “It seems like such a different world to what I know. You kill people, and I heal them.”