Sullivan stood, looked at Dana and Grace again. “Don’t know if it’ll do any good, but God told me to warn you. Don’t repeat what Alyssa did. Don’t give into lust like animals. It was the lust and the sin that got her killed.”
Jack stepped between Sullivan and the women. “How can you be sure of the motive for her murder when you don’t even know who killed her?”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “I know what I know,” he grumbled. “And this meeting is over.” He went past Jack and Vince and to the door but not without first giving Dana and Grace another long look. He finally walked out.
“Very high creep factor,” Dana mumbled.
Grace shivered. “That was a glimpse of the daily guilt dose I used to get from my mother. She never mentioned Alyssa, of course, but the gist was the same. Have sex and you die, burn in hell or both.”
And maybe the killer felt the same way.
“I want financials on Sullivan,” Jack told Rusty. Because the killer had certainly spent a lot of money to orchestrate that grenade launch attack and the two arsons.
They went toward the door, but Rusty stopped ahead of them and peered out. No doubt waiting until Rory Sullivan had driven away. Jack took the moment to look at Dana, to see how all of this had affected her, but she was looking at him, maybe to see the same thing.
“Soul mates,” she whispered as if to explain why they always seemed to be on the same wave length.
They were a pair all right, just as Layton and Alyssa had been, and for a moment Jack got a glimpse of how outsiders must have viewed them. The men in the Zeus project had wanted Alyssa, and Layton had been the one she’d chosen.
Or maybe fate had chosen them for each other.
Either way, it would have been a bitter pill to swallow, and for just that glimpse he understood how Janski, Eric and Sullivan must have felt when they lost her. It wouldn’t have driven him to kill, but Jack thought it would have brought him to his knees.
He slid his arm around Dana’s shoulders when they went outside, and Jack glanced back at Grace and Vince. Something other than lust was brewing there. He didn’t know what, but they weren’t touching, and the glances between there were a little wary.
“You two have some kind of fight?” Jack asked.
The last word had barely left his mouth when Jack felt something slam into his throat. The pain was instant. Searing. But just as quickly, it went numb.
Hell.
He’d been shot. Probably with a tranquilizer dart.
Dana screamed, and that was just the start of the shouts and the noise. Rusty, Anthony and Vince drew their guns, and they started running. Jack couldn’t. His feet wouldn’t move, and he tried to reach the dart, but his hands didn’t work either.
Vince hooked his arm around him and got them moving to the SUV. He gave Jack a shove. Dana, too. Before he crammed Grace in. The moment they were inside the vehicle, Vince pulled the dart from Jack’s neck.
“Anyone see this SOB shooter?” Vince snarled.
“No,” Rusty answered. “But we left a man in place back there. He’ll get the bastard.”
Maybe. Jack was too woozy to figure out the trajectory of the shot, but it had perhaps come from the parking lot. He wasn’t sure how that was possible unless the killer had hidden behind one of the vehicles. It seemed a huge risk to take with all of them there, and this killer wasn’t the sort to do a suicide attack.
Unless…
“The tranquilizer gun’s probably mounted somewhere on a timer,” Jack managed to mumble. Maybe they heard him, but they were all focused on getting out of there.
Jack heard the SUV engine, felt them speed away. Amid the shouts and Dana’s cries. But everything in front of him started to move in and out of focus.
“Stay with me, Jack,” Dana said, but her voice sounded so far off. “We’re getting you to the hospital.”
Jack tried to remind Rusty that this could be part of a trap, something the killer planned to get them to a place where he could pick them off.
Like a hospital.
But his mouth didn’t work any better than the rest of him. Jack couldn’t warn them. Couldn’t protect Dana.
He could only lie there while everything around turned to gray.
#
“Do something!” Dana shouted, though she knew they were already doing everything that could be done.
Rusty was driving them out of there, fast. Vince, Anthony and he all had their weapons drawn, and Vince had pushed Grace down onto the floor so he could shield her with his body. He’d tried to do the same to Dana, but she wasn’t leaving Jack’s side.
God, she couldn’t lose him.
“He’s not conscious,” she relayed to Rusty. “How soon before we get to the hospital?”
“Soon,” was all he said. Both Anthony and he were on their phones arranging security while they kept watch around them.
Vince leaned over the seat and put his fingers to Jack’s throat. “He’s alive. And he’s breathing. Remember, the killer just uses the barbiturates to sedate, not to kill.”
Yes, that’s what he’d apparently done to Patricia and James. Layton and Alyssa, too. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t decided to change things up and kill them as fast as possible.
Vince caught onto Dana’s chin, forced her to look at him. “Jack will be okay.”
She wanted to believe him. Had to. Because she couldn’t think of the alternative.
Dana put her head against Jack’s chest. On his heart. It was still beating, and Vince was right about the breathing. Jack was alive, but she wanted those drugs out of his system ASAP.
“How the hell did this happen?” Grace asked, sitting up and looking behind them at the pitch black road. “I thought the area had been searched.”
“It was,” Vince assured her. He, too, looked around, no doubt to make sure the attack was over. “Before he lost consciousness, Jack said something about a tranquilizer gun mounted on a timer. Probably more like a remote control. That way, the killer could fire and not risk being seen or caught.”
Dana shook her head. “But wouldn’t we have seen the gun?”
“Not necessarily. He could have hidden it somewhere in the parking lot or on the roof.”
She thought about that a moment. “That means the killer knew about the meeting place in advance.”
“Yeah.” And that’s all Vince said for several seconds. “Sullivan probably sold us out. And that means if he’s not the killer, he knows who it is.” He met Rusty’s gaze in the mirror, and the PI nodded.
“I’m on it,” Rusty assured them.
Dana didn’t doubt that Rusty was working this, but there was something else troubling her. “Why go after us this way? Even if the killer did manage to hit one of us, he must have realized we’d help the one who was hit.” She stopped. Froze. “He’s planning to come after us at the hospital.”
"Oh, God," Grace mumbled.
Vince nodded and glanced down at the dart he’d pulled from Jack’s neck. He slipped it into his pocket. “And that probably means Jack got a mega dose of barbiturates. Enough for us to have to get him to the nearest hospital.”
Dana echoed Grace's Oh, God. “So Jack could die.” Her voice broke. Dana broke, too, and the tears filled her eyes. “What can I do? How can I stop this?”
“You don’t panic,” Vince said. “The killer’s expecting us to do that, to go flying into that hospital ER parking lot without a thought of him being there. He’ll be there,” he promised.
“So what do we do?” Grace was shaking from head to toe. Her voice, too. “We can’t let Jack die.”
“We aren’t,” Dana insisted. “Give me a gun.”
Vince mumbled some profanity. “I said don’t panic. That’s panicking. Rusty and Anthony are making calls for backup. They won’t arrive in time, but that’s okay. They’ll be there as soon as they can to secure the scene. Isn’t that right, Rusty?”
The PI didn’t stop his phone conversation, but he nodded. On the
road ahead of them, Dana saw the sign for the Red Creek Hospital. Just a mile away.
“When we get there,” Vince continued, “Rusty will pull right up to the ER. He or Anthony will go in first. The rest of us will go in together after he’s given us the all-clear. No one stays outside. No one parks the vehicle. And most important, we stay together until we have security in place.”
“I’m not leaving Jack,” Dana told him. “Not even when security arrives.”
Vince huffed, clearly not pleased about that, but he didn’t argue. He turned to Grace. “Stay right next to me when we get out. You, too,” he warned Dana. “And if anything goes wrong, I want you both down on the ground.”
As terrifying as another attack was, Dana’s biggest concern was for Jack. What if the killer had put too high of a dose in that dart? She silently cursed the killer and the mess. While she was it, she cursed Dr. Hartwell, too, for setting this in motion all those years ago.
Rusty put away his phone as the SUV squealed into the parking lot of the hospital. Just as Vince had said, Rusty stopped directly in front of the ER doors, looked around and then got out. He tucked his gun inside his jacket and raced into the hospital while Anthony and Vince kept watch.
“Jack?” Dana said, trying to get him to respond. Nothing. He wasn’t moving, and she thought maybe his heartbeat was getting weaker. “We have to hurry,” she told the others.
But they couldn’t move. They could only sit there while Dana felt Jack slipping away.
It seemed to take hours, but she knew it was only a few minutes before Rusty reappeared and gave them a nod. Behind him, two medics rushed out with a gurney. Vince, too, tucked his gun away in his jacket, but he kept his hand on it.
“Someone tried to kill him,” Vince volunteered.
The medics’ eyes widened, but that seemed to make them go even faster. “We’re staying with him,” Vince told the medics.
Neither of them challenged that. Probably because Vince didn’t look like the sort of man you’d want to argue with.
Rusty moved in front of the gurney. Anthony, behind. The others stayed on the side. And they raced into the ER reception area. Dana glanced around and saw two nurses and a man in scrubs.
Then, she saw someone else.
A man.
Vince, Anthony and Rusty all drew their guns and pointed them at Kirby Arrington.
Chapter Twenty-three
Jack heard the voices. Some he recognized. Dana’s, for certain. She was whispering something to him.
Wake up, Jack.
She kept repeating it, adding a please with every other one. Jack’s eyelid felt like lead, but he forced himself to open them anyway. At first, all he saw was a blur, and then Dana’s face came into focus. She was standing right over him.
For just a split-second there was relief in her eyes before she looked away. “He’s awake,” she said on a rise of breath.
She leaned in and kissed him. Not a kiss of passion. Like the quick breath, it was laced with relief.
“You’re okay,” she whispered and kissed him again. “The doctor gave you some kind of blocker medication to counteract the drug. In a few minutes you can get a second dose.”
It took him a moment to focus, to remember. He’d been shot with a tranquilizer dart, and from the looks of it, they were now at a hospital.
A place that wasn’t safe.
“It’s a trap,” Jack tried to say.
“Probably,” someone agreed. Vince. He was standing in the doorway, gun drawn. He didn’t look at Jack but rather at someone on the other side of room. “Check his vitals and give him that other shot he needs because we have to get him out of here.”
That helped sober up Jack “How much time do we have?”
“The sooner we leave, the better,” was Vince’s answer. “Right now, we’re just bracing ourselves for the worst and hoping all of this is overkill in the security department.”
Dana moved back but didn’t let go of his hand while a man dressed in green scrubs started to examine Jack. According to the guy’s nametag, he was Dr. Jason Sadler. And judging from his expression, he was scared. Jake hated to tell the doctor that the fear was warranted. If the killer came in here, he wouldn’t be selective about who got hurt.
“He should be admitted for observation,” the doctor insisted.
“Not going to happen,” Jack insisted right back. “Hurry up.”
Jack checked to see who else was in the room. Grace was there. Rusty, too. He was on his cell phone, gun drawn and was keeping watch out the single window in the room. Then, Jack’s attention landed on someone he damn sure hadn’t expected to see there. Someone he recognized from investigation photos.
Kirby Arrington.
He was seated, and Anthony was holding him at gunpoint.
“What happened?” Jack asked Dana. “Why is he here?”
Arrington opened his mouth, but Vince shot him a glare that could have unthawed the Arctic. “He said he got an anonymous call, telling him to show up here,” Vince snarled.
“I was set up,” Arrington said, and that caused Vince to give him another glare. “I didn’t know anyone would try to kill you.”
Even though the doctor was checking his pupil response, Jack sat up so he could look straight at Arrington. He managed the sitting up part only with Dana’s help, and he figured the straight look was a bust since he couldn’t see anything clearly.
“So, tell me if I got this right,” Jack grumbled. “Someone told you to come here, someone you didn’t know, and you did as he said despite the fact there’s a killer on the loose?”
Arrington nodded. Shook his head. Groaned. “The caller said it was important, that Layton had left a message for me.”
“What kind of message?” Jack asked, though he figured Vince had already demanded that info. Still, he wanted to see the man’s expression when he answered.
“The caller didn’t say, but I figured it was about the money.”
“The money he stole from Layton,” Vince clarified. “The little weasel says he’s still worried about that and believes one of us wants to kill him because of it.” Vince’s eyes narrowed. “He’s right about that part. I do want to kill him but not because of the money. But because the asshole’s lying.”
Jack figured Arrington was lying about something, that was for sure, but judging from everyone’s vigilant postures, they weren’t as interested in the lies as they were getting out of there.
“Give me the shot,” Jack ordered the doctor, and he tried to get to his feet. Again, Dana came to the rescue. So did Grace. They got on each side of him and helped him off the examining table.
The doctor mumbled something about this not being proper procedure, but he took a big hypodermic needle from a metal tray, and Grace eased back enough so the second injection could go in his arm. That’s when Jack realized he was shirtless. And without a gun. His shirt, jacket and shoulder holster were on the table next to the tray of medical supplies.
“We’ll deal with you later,” Jack warned Arrington, and he tried to get his things. That didn’t work either.
Without taking her arm from around his waist, Dana grabbed the clothes. Grace got the shoulder holster, and Jack took out his gun.
“You should deal with me now,” Arrington said, getting everyone’s attention. “I’m pretty sure Eric’s alive and he’s posing as a PI named Samuel Wright.”
“So?” Jack snarled. God, it felt as if he’d had a sack of rocks dumped on his head.
“So, I can get him for you,” Arrington insisted.
“I can get him better,” Vince fired back. He looked at Jack. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Wait!” Arrington shouted. “He gave me a message for you.”
“Who?” Jack asked, but they were already moving toward the door.
“The caller. He said to write it down, and I did.” Arrington pulled a piece of paper from his shirt pocket and thrust it toward Jack.
Grace snatched it from
the man’s hand, and with Vince leading the way, they walked out. Rusty, however, kept his attention on Arrington. As soon as they were safely away from this place, Jack wanted to see what was in that note.
Considering the source, it might be nothing.
“Move and you die,” Rusty warned Arrington.
It was exactly what Jack had wanted to say to the man. That, and something along the lines that he’d deal with him later. And he would. When his head wasn’t spinning like an F-5 tornado, he’d get to the bottom of why Arrington had really shown up at the hospital.
“I should just kill him,” Vince mumbled. “Or at least break his arms and legs when I beat the truth out of him. Break his dick, too. That way, he wouldn’t be able to strangle and rape anyone.”
Jack wasn’t for the killing part, just on the off chance that Arrington was an innocent man, and there wasn’t time for maiming or beating out the truth. Everything inside him was yelling for them to get out of there.
“There’ll be a tail on Arrington,” Rusty whispered to Jack as they went into the hall. “Janski and Sullivan, too.”
“What about Samuel Wright?”
Rusty shook his head. “Haven’t been able to locate him. That’s another reason to tail Arrington because he said he could deliver the man to us.”
Jack wasn’t sure that was anywhere close to the truth, but one way or another they needed to find this so-called PI and either rule him out as a murder suspect or else deal with him.
They made their way down a hall that was empty except for two of Jack’s men. Grace and Dana continued to support his weight, but with each step he felt a little stronger. But not nearly strong enough to fight off an attack. He hated relying on others, especially Vince, but Jack couldn’t find fault with the way the man had handled this situation.
After all, they were alive.
The SUV was parked just outside the door, and two more of Jack’s men were guarding it. Anthony threw open the side door, got them in, and Rusty drove them away. Jack was about to remind everyone to keep watch, but they were already doing it.
Dead Ringers Page 20