by Gayle Wilson
“She’s already in the ICU,” Ethan offered.
“The pretty brunette?”
An apt description, Ethan thought. Of course, he’d already admitted his bias in that respect.
“She went in maybe ten minutes ago.”
“But we sent her back out,” the nurse said, coming over to them. “There was a problem with one of the monitors. She was going to come here and wait until it was resolved.”
Automatically Ethan scanned the faces of the people gathered in the room, although he would surely have noticed if she’d returned. Raine was definitely not among them.
“Maybe she decided to wait in the corridor,” he suggested.
“But…I just came that way. There’s no one there.”
“Maybe she left,” Griff said, his voice hard. It was obvious that as far as he was concerned, that would be nothing but good riddance, despite the static state of the Phoenix’s investigation.
“She seemed very anxious to visit her father,” the nurse said, peering around the room as if she thought they might have missed her. “I can’t imagine where she’s gotten off to.”
Uneasiness stirred in Ethan’s stomach. If Raine wasn’t in the waiting room or in the corridor…
“I’ll help you look,” he offered.
“Of course, she could come back during the next regular visitation time,” the nurse said, apparently ready to give up the search as too time consuming in the face of her other duties.
“Not if I can help it,” Griff said under his breath.
“I’m sorry?” The nurse appeared puzzled by the comment.
“There are some…family tensions.”
Ethan doubted Griff would appreciate his explanation, but maybe it would be better if the staff understood that Gardner’s relatives weren’t pleased about sharing the precious few minutes they had to visit him with someone they viewed as an imposter.
“Is there a ladies’ room nearby?” Ethan asked.
“Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? She was upset when the alarm sounded.”
The nurse continued to talk as she led the way back to the waiting room door, Ethan following. He’d leave it to Griff to explain the situation to Claire.
He only hoped the two women hadn’t chosen the same rest room in which to attempt repair to their shattered emotions. When the nurse searched the one nearest the ICU, however, she found it was empty.
“Maybe she decided to go down for coffee,” she said. “If you see her, would you tell her that her father is still the same. And that she was right. The problem was in the machine.”
“I’ll tell her,” Ethan promised.
He watched as the woman walked down the corridor and pressed the button that would give her admittance to the ICU. Standing there alone, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
Raine had been determined to see the old man. If her visit had been cut short, then she should have been waiting around here to be readmitted.
Except she wasn’t. Knowing how furious Claire had been about the idea of letting her in to see her grandfather, he didn’t believe Raine would risk the family taking steps to prevent her from doing that again.
Claire’s departure from the waiting room had been her window of opportunity. He couldn’t see her giving it up to go down to the cafeteria for coffee.
And if not, then where the hell was she?
THERE HAD BEEN NO HESITATION in the gunman’s guidance. He was obviously very familiar with the hospital or he had explored this route before he’d come to wait for her outside the ICU.
As she’d followed his directions down the dingy, narrow corridors of a part of the building obviously frequented only by staff and maintenance, Raine had thought they would surely encounter someone. If they did, she planned to try to signal to them that she needed help.
The only people they’d passed, however, had been a couple of nurses, who hurried by them with their eyes downcast. Tellingly, they had both been carrying purses.
Coming in to work from the parking deck? If so, that must where her captor was taking her.
If this were like the parking facilities of most hospitals, it would be filled with cars and people at this time of day. He probably wouldn’t be willing to use the gun out there among them. That wasn’t a given, of course, but she thought a more likely scenario was that he would put her into whatever vehicle he’d driven here and take her with him.
The crucial questions were why he wanted to do that and where he intended to take her—neither of which she could answer. She couldn’t begin to speculate on what this abduction might be about—other than the Phoenix’s investigation, which also seemed to have precipitated the attack on her father.
Someone obviously believed the two of them knew something about the organization Ethan Snow had mentioned. Maybe her father did, but if so, why hadn’t he given that information to Ethan and Cabot when he had the chance?
As for her, she knew nothing about The Covenant. She couldn’t remember hearing the name before Ethan had mentioned it in her living room last night.
“To the left,” the man behind her directed.
His hold on her arm hadn’t loosened, nor had the muzzle of the weapon he held shifted. As they walked, she could feel it rubbing against her spine.
“Punch the up button,” he instructed as they approached a bank of three elevators.
As soon as they were in front of the doors of the first, she obeyed, reaching out to push the ascending arrow. The sign on the wall listed a color match for each parking level, four of which were above the floor they were on.
This might be her last chance, Raine realized, especially if he had parked on the top level, which in any deck was apt to be sparsely populated. The last opportunity to effect an escape before he got her alone.
If there’s someone inside when the doors open—
Two chimes signaled the near-simultaneous arrival of two separate cars. Still without any clear-cut plan, she tensed, preparing to take whatever opportunity presented itself.
Would he shoot me in cold blood with a witness present?
Her sense from the first had been that he would. Certainly if he was pushed.
If she was right about that, as soon as he got her into a deserted area, then he would kill her. But if he’d been instructed to take her somewhere instead of killing her here—
The doors of the elevator in front of her, as well as the ones on the one beside it, began to slide open. She took a breath, afraid that if she did anything more to prepare, she would communicate her intent to him.
The opening doors revealed an elderly woman and a man in a wheelchair. The man looked frail, but the woman was tall and raw-boned. Her white uniform seemed to indicate she was the man’s caregiver rather than a relative.
“Excuse us, please,” the woman said cheerily as she began to maneuver the chair out of the elevator.
Raine and her captor were standing so close it would be difficult for the caregiver to get the chair out around them. Despite that, the man behind Raine made no move to step aside, perhaps fearful that in doing so, he might reveal his weapon.
“Watch your toes, dear,” the woman warned as she attempted to roll her charge by them.
Taking advantage of the situation, Raine pretended she was forced to take a step to the side in order to get out of the way of the wheelchair. The move caught her captor by surprise, and the hold on her elbow loosened fractionally.
When it did, she jerked her arm forward as hard as she could. Incredibly, it slipped out of the man’s grasp.
She sprinted to the next elevator, whose doors, with perfect timing, began to close as soon as she ran between them. That didn’t prevent her from pressing the close-door button when she’d located it.
Outside there was an ungodly commotion. It sounded as if, in pursuing her, her captor had somehow become entangled with the wheelchair, maybe upsetting it. The female aide was shrieking something unintelligible. The man with the gun shoute
d an obscenity just as the elevator doors slid together.
Heart racing, her breath coming in audible gasps, Raine tried to think what she should do next. If she were right about her captor having deliberately parked at the top of the parking deck…
Frantically she punched the button for the floor below it. Her eyes watched the elevator’s climb while she prayed she’d been in time. A soft ping gave the answer to that plea.
As soon as the doors opened, she stepped out and began running full-out down a corridor that looked very much like the one she’d just left. She needed to find another set of elevators or figure out how to get back into the main section of the hospital as quickly as she could.
Once she’d done that, she would think about what came next. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go back to the ICU, since that’s where the man with the gun had been waiting for her.
And in all probability, it was where he would begin his search for her this time. If he were brazen enough to try to take her again.
Of course, the ICU area was also where Ethan Snow was. Despite the fact that he was little more than a stranger, her inclination was to find him as quickly as she could.
He was the ex-CIA agent. He was also the one who had gotten her into this. And beside that, he was—
The sound of a chime from the other end of the corridor put a halt to her list of Ethan Snow’s crimes and attributes. The chances that the occupant of that arriving elevator was her captor were remote. Unless…
She tried to picture the elevator bank where she’d pulled off her escape. Had the floors where the elevators stopped been shown above each car? If so, it was possible he’d tracked her by simply watching those numbers flash by until the elevator had stopped on this particular floor.
The spurt of adrenaline produced by that realization pushed her to increase her speed. Breathless, she finally rounded a corner to see a small offset with a double bank of elevators.
She rushed into the center of it, pushing the up and down arrows on both sides repeatedly. Rationally she knew that wouldn’t make them arrive any quicker, but she felt she had so little control over what was happening that doing something—even if it were pointless—seemed to help.
The first car to arrive was going down. And it was empty. As she stepped in and pushed the close-door button, she heard what sounded like someone running down the corridor she’d just traversed.
The footsteps were heavy. A man’s hard-soled shoes, slamming against the polished tile with each step.
When the elevator doors closed, she leaned, weak and panting, against the cool metal wall before she realized she hadn’t made a floor selection. She straightened, looking at the control panel. The only lighted indicator was for the first floor. If she didn’t do something soon—
The chime and a soft bump indicated it was too late to change her destination. An upward glance at the numbers above the doors confirmed she had already arrived on the main floor.
Maybe that would be an advantage, she told herself. More people. More protection. Security guards.
The doors opened to reveal none of those things. She was in another offset hallway, the corridor that fronted it as deserted as had been the one she’d just left.
Except for the sound of those running footsteps, she amended.
She shot a look above the elevator she’d just exited, which confirmed her worst fears. The numbers of all the floors were displayed, the L, for lobby, now brightly lit.
He would have been able to follow her from floor to floor, so the footsteps she’d heard had undoubtedly been his. Which meant there wasn’t a moment to lose. As soon as he could get an elevator, he’d follow her down here, too.
She ran out into the corridor and turned right without taking time to look at the signs on the wall. Her most immediate need was to get away from the elevators. As far away from them as she could before he arrived.
Despite the rather obvious fact that this wasn’t a major hallway of the hospital, she passed far more people than she had since she’d made her escape. Not enough to constitute a crowd. Certainly not enough to hide among.
Several stopped and gaped as she ran by. Belatedly she realized that calling attention to herself like this meant that any of them would be able to describe her to her pursuer and tell him exactly which direction she’d been heading.
She slowed to a walk, at the same time trying to ease her ragged breathing. Trying desperately now to blend in with the other visitors.
Suddenly the corridor she’d been following came to an abrupt end. Her two choices were clearly communicated by the arrows on the wall. The one that pointed to the left said Main Lobby. The other indicated that it led to the financial and administrative offices. And the cafeteria.
She hesitated, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of entering either of the most public areas of the hospital. Could they possibly have someone watching the main entrances and exits in case she managed to escape from the man with the gun?
If so, she’d be better off following the arrow that led to the business offices. There would be plenty of exits there. Fire doors if nothing else. And at this point she wasn’t averse to setting off some alarms.
She adjusted the strap of her purse more securely over her shoulder, taking a quick look behind her. The man who’d held a gun to her back wasn’t behind her. Not yet at least.
She turned in the direction leading away from the lobby, walking purposefully down the cross corridor. There were a comforting number of people, most of them probably headed to the cafeteria. The smell of food was tantalizingly close, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast.
She walked past the line of patrons waiting to go in, careful to keep her face turned away from the glass-enclosed serving area. Beyond the relatively crowded entrance lay a broad hall, whose tile floor gleamed empty and inviting.
Business offices. Administration and finance. All she had to do now was to find an outside door—
Just as she congratulated herself on having successfully evaded her pursuer, a masculine hand closed painfully tight around her elbow.
Chapter Five
“Where the hell have you been?”
Ethan. Despite the fury in his question, Raine had to fight the inclination to throw herself into his arms. She couldn’t remember responding to any other man like that in her entire life.
Since she’d never been in this situation before, it was hardly surprising that she was relieved not to be confronting her pursuer. What she’d felt when she recognized Ethan, however, went far beyond relief. It encompassed feelings that she would have to reexamine at a time when someone wasn’t trying to kill her.
“There was a man…” she began.
Suddenly she realized that her explanation, although necessary, shouldn’t take place in this exposed location. She had already turned, trying to draw him down the hallway.
“What man?” he demanded.
“We’ve got to get out of here.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Just come on. I’ll tell you as soon as—”
The hold on her elbow tightened, pulling her to an abrupt stop. “Tell me now.”
His gray eyes were as cold as his tone. And it was ob vious he wasn’t going to budge until he’d heard at least some of what had happened.
“A man was waiting outside the ICU. He knew my name. He asked me to come with him….” She hesitated, trying to remember exactly how he’d managed to lure her away. “He said he was taking me to rejoin my party. I thought that meant he was taking me to meet you.”
“Describe him.”
She remembered her first impression of the man who’d been waiting for her. Although she had no proof of what she’d thought then, she blurted it out in her hurry to get Ethan out of the center of the hall.
“I think he was an agent.”
“An agent?”
“CIA. He looked CIA.”
For a long heartbeat, Ethan said nothing. “And he tried to take y
ou somewhere.”
“He said he was following orders. I refused because I thought the nurses wouldn’t know where to find me if I left the area, and that’s when he… He had a gun. He said it was a 9 mm, and he put it against the base of my spine…” She was talking too much. Taking too much time to get the explanation out. All she needed to do right now was make him understand the urgency of getting out of this crowded hallway.
“He tried to take me to the parking deck, but I broke away from him. He’s following me.”
“Now?”
“Unless I lost him. Please come on,” she implored, taking his hand to urge him away from the cafeteria.
His gaze focused over her head, examining the corridor behind them. She turned, her eyes following his, and searched the faces of the people behind them.
“You see him?”
Although there was still a mob around the cafeteria entrance, she couldn’t spot the man who’d tried to abduct her. “No, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t back there somewhere.”
“Good,” Ethan said shortly.
He forced her forward with his hand at the small of her back. And the direction in which he was guiding her was toward the cafeteria.
“What are you doing?” Almost of their own accord, however, her feet had begun to move, carrying her along beside the man who was striding rapidly down the corridor.
“Trying to find whoever’s been chasing you.”
That response summed up the obvious differences between her and Ethan Snow. She had sense enough to avoid men with guns, especially if they were threatening her with them; he seemed to want to confront them.
“Why in the world would you want—”
“Because that’s the only way we’re going to find out who he is. Or more importantly, who sent him.”
“You think you’ll recognize him?”
Caught up in his sense of urgency, she was no longer attempting to slow their forward progress. As they approached the line in front of the door to the serving area, her eyes considered the faces of those waiting. The man with the cold, amber eyes wasn’t among them.
“If he really is CIA, then I might.”