by Lisa Childs
The reason she wanted to make sure Manny was okay was that she owed him. He had saved her life more than once.
“I need to know how he’s doing,” she said, and then she felt a pang of guilt for not thinking about his friend and amended, “How they’re both doing. Can you find out for me?”
“I’m sure he’ll come to you as soon as he’s done being treated,” the trooper replied.
She was, too. But he hadn’t come yet, and that was what frightened her, that he wasn’t physically able.
“Please,” she implored him. “I’m really worried about him and the other bodyguard—Dane Sutton. I need to know how they’re doing.”
The trooper shook his head. “He told me to stay with you.” And the guy had stuck to his promise to do just that.
“But we’re in a hospital,” she said. “Nobody will try anything here.”
“I do need to get his statement,” the trooper murmured.
He had already taken hers. She’d told him everything she knew, everything she had endured. Maybe that was why he hesitated to leave her. She’d told him too much.
“Yes, you should talk to Jordan Mannes,” she said. “I don’t know what happened when he went outside. Shots were fired.” Or so she assumed. She hadn’t been able to hear anything over the roar of the fire consuming the cabin around her. “And he may have gotten a look at the guy.”
“You really haven’t ever seen his face?” the trooper asked. He sounded almost skeptical that she didn’t know who the stalker was.
Did he think she was one of those celebrities who would do anything to get in the headlines, even burn down her own cabin? She knew fame whores who’d done things like that—staged robberies, assaults, stalkings...all just to get their names in the news again.
Maybe that was why the police had never found him. They hadn’t believed her, so they hadn’t bothered looking for him—like Manny and the Payne Protection Agency had looked for him. She needed this trooper to believe her, though, so that he would talk to Manny.
“The times the stalker has been close enough for me to see, he’s been wearing a ski mask,” she said. “I haven’t been able to see his face. Maybe Manny or his friend was able to get a better look at him.”
The trooper nodded with understanding. “Then we could get a description out there. I’ll go take their statements.” He opened the door to the hall but turned back. “You’re sure you’ll be fine alone?”
She smiled as another nurse walked in to check her blood pressure. “I’m not alone.”
The medical staff was keeping a close eye on her. The stalker wouldn’t risk trying something in a busy hospital. The trooper must have concluded the same thing because he finally left her alone.
“Now that he’s gone, you should try to get some rest,” the nurse told her as she left, too.
But Teddie wouldn’t be able to rest until she knew that Manny was okay, that he hadn’t been badly hurt. She leaned back against the pillows, though, and closed her eyes, just to rest them. Irritated from the smoke, her eyes hurt so badly. She hadn’t shut them for more than a second when she heard the door open again, noise spilling in from the hallway.
So much for telling her to get some rest when they wouldn’t leave her alone.
With a sigh, she opened her eyes to see what they needed to check this time. But even though this person was dressed in scrubs, she doubted he actually worked for the hospital. A scrub hat covered his head and a mask his face. But she recognized the eyes peering over the mask. She had seen those eyes before when she’d been attacked.
She was wrong. Her stalker would obviously risk anything to get to her.
* * *
“You really never got a look at him?” Manny asked, frustration eating at him. He needed to get to Teddie and make sure she was okay. But not only were his own oxygen levels low, he was also concerned about Dane. The guy had taken one hell of a blow to his head.
“I didn’t even have a chance to see stars, he hit me so hard,” Dane replied. “I don’t know how the hell he got the jump on me.”
The guy had been sneaking around for a while, stalking Teddie probably even before she’d realized it.
“He’s gotten good at being invisible,” Manny mused.
Dane uttered a ragged sigh. “It’s going to be hard to catch this guy when we have no clue who the hell he is.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Manny assured him. They had to. Teddie wouldn’t be safe until the guy was caught.
Or dead...
“I think I hit him,” he said as he replayed the recent events through his mind.
“So you must have gotten a good look at him,” Dane said.
“I mean with a bullet,” Manny explained. “He was running away.”
“And you shot him in the back?” It wasn’t Dane who asked the question. He would know better. The voice came from the man who pulled back the ER curtain.
“No,” Manny said. “I was aiming for one of his legs. I wanted to stop him. Not kill him.” But he could have killed him—if he’d wanted. He had been trained for the kill shot, and he’d never missed before.
But Teddie had distracted him as she’d crumpled to the ground unconscious. So he didn’t know if he’d actually hit one of the stalker’s legs or not. He certainly hadn’t stopped him. Probably the only way to do that would be to kill the guy. Maybe he should have taken that shot...
“Why are you here?” Manny asked with sudden alarm as he recognized the trooper with whom he’d trusted Teddie. Of course, he wasn’t the only state trooper in Michigan. Maybe this trooper had turned her protection over to another trooper or hospital security—although as small as this hospital was, Manny doubted they had much of a security staff.
“I need to get your statement,” the trooper said. He turned toward Dane. “And yours. What the hell happened out there? I spoke to Ms. Plummer and I still don’t know.”
Manny heard the skepticism in his voice. “This isn’t a stunt,” he assured the lawman. “Ms. Plummer isn’t looking for publicity.” She would rather avoid it.
Dane touched the bandage on the back of his head. “I can definitely vouch for that.”
“So you saw the stalker?”
“No,” Dane admitted. “He hit me from behind. I’ve got the rock. Maybe you can get prints off it.” The rock, smeared with soot and Dane’s blood, sat on the table beside Dane’s gurney. It was probably one of the rocks that had encircled the campfire Manny had found that first night in the woods.
“I’ll have a tech process it,” the trooper said.
Manny had a feeling their guy wasn’t in the system. If he was someone invisible, like Manny suspected, then the stalker had never been caught before. He intended to change that, though, and soon.
“And what about you?” the trooper asked Manny. “Did you ever get a look at his face?”
Manny shook his head. “I can’t tell you much about the guy. He’s about six feet tall, lean build...”
The trooper glanced at the two of them, as if he wondered how some skinny guy had overpowered either of them. Manny wondered, too, but then, the guy was crazy, and crazy gave some people an almost superhuman strength and courage no matter what their size.
“We need to check with the hospital,” Manny said, “and see if anyone’s come in with a gunshot wound.”
The trooper nodded. “So you think you might have hit him...”
“Manny doesn’t miss,” Dane answered for him.
But Manny shook his head. This time was different. Teddie had distracted him. From the moment he’d seen her, Teddie had distracted him. Hell, even before he’d met her, she had been a distraction for him.
A fantasy.
Once he’d discovered she was the client, he had had no business staying on this assignment. If he’d taken Cole up on relieving him, the stalker migh
t have already been caught. And Teddie wouldn’t be suffering from smoke inhalation. She wouldn’t have been touched at all.
Especially not like he’d touched her. And kissed her. And held her.
“I’ll check with admissions,” the trooper assured him.
An uneasy feeling gripped Manny, and he had to ask, “You didn’t leave her alone, did you?”
The trooper’s face flushed. “She pleaded with me to check on the two of you.”
Manny surged up from the gurney. And this time he was so mad and scared that his legs held his weight. He reached for the holstered weapon, which he’d left on the little cart next to his gurney.
“It’s a hospital,” the trooper said. “Doctors and nurses are going in and out of her room. He’s not going to try anything here.”
A rational person wouldn’t. But the stalker was beyond rational thought. He would take any opportunity to get to the object of his obsession—to Teddie.
Chapter 14
Teddie opened her mouth to scream, but her throat was so raw from all the smoke she’d inhaled that she barely managed a croak. Before she could try again, a latex-gloved hand pressed tightly over her mouth. While she tried again to scream, no sound made it out. It just burned in the back of her sore throat.
She struggled beneath the hand pressed over her face, but the man held her head down, pushing it into the pillows. His other hand encircled her throat in a tight vise, and he squeezed, cutting off her breath as well as her voice.
She reached up and clawed at his arms, trying to get him to release his hold on her so she could breathe. But either she was still too weak to fight him, or he was just too strong.
Her heart hammered in her chest as fear overwhelmed her. Panic pressed on her lungs, stealing away the last of the breath in them. He was cutting off her oxygen.
She stared up into his face. But the gauzy mask covered most of it. All she could see were his eyes.
Had she ever seen those eyes, this man, before?
His eyes were dark, though not the deep, velvety chocolate of Manny’s eyes. Just dark and cold—so cold. If anyone had ever looked at her the way this man was looking at her, she would have remembered it. She would have remembered that madness and hatred. It would have haunted her, just as he’d haunted her all these months since he’d sent her that first threatening note.
She rallied her strength. He was not going to beat her. At the moment she might not be physically strong, but she had always been emotionally strong. Growing up she’d had to fight hard to help her mother keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies. She would fight now—for her life.
Because she could feel her life slipping away from her as she struggled for air. Digging deep with her nails, she clawed harder at his arms. Then she reached up for that mask, trying to tear it from his face. If she was going to die, she damn well wanted to know who was killing her—and why.
What had she ever done to him?
But he pulled back enough that she couldn’t reach his face. His arms were longer than hers. And as his hand tightened even more around her throat, her vision began to blur. She could barely see him at all anymore as consciousness started to slip away from her. She was going to die—without ever learning who wanted her dead and why.
* * *
The trooper had given Manny the room number where he’d left Teddie. But he wasn’t sure he would reach it in time. He knew—he just knew—that the stalker had already beaten him there. The hospital building was old and laid out like a maze, wings added on as the need had risen for more departments.
He ran down the corridors, narrowly dodging patients and medical staff. But he felt like he wasn’t running fast enough, like he was caught in quicksand. Even as he was getting closer, she was slipping away from him.
Finally he turned the corner to the wing where she should be—if she were still here. He crashed through the door to find someone leaning over her.
The scrubs, the hat, the mask...the disguise was complete. But he knew it was only a disguise. He hurled himself at the guy, knocking him off the bed. They rolled across the floor and slammed into the wall. Manny grunted but the man made no sound at all. His arms and fists flailed, striking out at Manny. Then he grabbed for Manny’s holster, for his gun.
Manny surged back to his feet, then reached down for the other man. Like the stalker had been holding Teddie by the throat, Manny caught him and lifted him to his feet, holding him only by his throat. Then he squeezed.
He should have killed him when he had the chance back at the cabin because it might be too late now. There was no movement from the bed, not even a whimper. The only sound was the door from the hall bursting open again and Dane’s labored breathing.
The sound distracted Manny for just a moment, and he loosened his hold fractionally. The guy struck out, slamming both fists against Manny’s arm so he broke free of his grasp. But he had nowhere to run, not with both Manny and Dane in the room. Except the window. He turned and hurled himself through it.
Manny cursed.
“I’ve got him,” Dane said as he used his sleeve to knock out the jagged glass before he jumped through the frame behind the stalker.
Manny turned back toward the bed, where Teddie’s body lay limply against the pillows. His hand shaking, he reached out to check for a pulse. Before he could touch her, though, her lashes fluttered as her eyes opened.
She gasped for breath.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Hospital staff poured into the room, pushing him aside as they treated her. Was she going to be okay?
He wanted to ask one of them, but he didn’t want to interrupt. Trying to stay out of their way, he stepped into the hall, but he held the door open, leaning his back against it. He couldn’t let her out of his sight. He never should have let her out of his sight.
But he struggled to see her now with so many hospital staff members hovering around her bed. “Sir!” a voice called out. He turned to see a nurse at a desk a short way down the hall, waving wildly at him. “Sir?” she called out. “Are you here with Ms. Plummer?”
He nodded.
“Her mother is on the phone,” she called out. “She’s hysterical.”
Manny’s stomach tightened into knots. He wasn’t good with mothers. The girls he’d dated in high school had broken up with him right after they’d brought him home to meet their mothers. Because he was one of those Mannes men...
And then there had been the moms of the fellow Marines he’d lost. The ones he’d tried to comfort at their sons’ funerals, only to have them cry harder.
No. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Teddie that he wasn’t good with mothers. His own mother barely tolerated his presence, probably because he reminded her too much of his father and brother.
“Please, sir,” the nurse implored him. “She saw the news and she’s scared to death.”
So was he. He turned back to Teddie’s room just as the staff stepped back. His heart plummeted to his stomach. Had they lost her?
But then they began to move the bed toward the doorway. He stepped back—out of their way—as they maneuvered it into the hall.
Were they taking her to surgery?
“Is she okay?” he asked anxiously.
Teddie held out a hand, which he grabbed as he walked alongside the rolling bed. There were calluses along her palms, and her hand was strong—not delicate like he would imagine a model’s hands. Her nails were jagged with bits of skin and blood beneath them. She’d fought her stalker. She’d fought for her life.
Guilt overwhelmed him. She shouldn’t have had to fight. She’d hired Payne Protection to take care of her. And they—he—had failed her.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
“I’m—I’m okay,” she whispered.
“If you hadn’t gotten to her when you did...”
one of the nurses murmured and shuddered.
He had nearly lost her. More than once.
He had never failed so dismally as a bodyguard until now, until it mattered most. Why did it matter most? Because this was his first assignment where he was primary or because the client was Teddie?
“Where are you taking her?” he asked.
“We’re just moving her to a room without a broken window,” the nurse explained.
Of course. He should have ordered that right away. Not that he expected the stalker to come back, unless it was on a gurney of his own. Dane would catch him. Wouldn’t he?
Dane was hurt. He probably shouldn’t have gone off alone after the stalker.
But while Dane was his friend, Teddie was his main responsibility. He wasn’t going to leave her alone again. Not until he knew for certain that the stalker was caught and she was safe.
As they walked past the nurse’s station, the older woman held out the phone toward him. “Sir...”
He caught the bed and held it to keep Teddie within sight. “Your mother’s on the phone,” he told her.
She shook her head and whispered, “She can’t hear me like this...”
She didn’t want to worry her mother.
“You talk to her,” she urged him in a whisper.
If she didn’t want to worry her mother, then she shouldn’t have him talk to her. But he reluctantly accepted the receiver. “Mrs. Plummer?”
“Miss,” the woman automatically corrected him. “Who is this?”
“Jordan Mannes,” he replied.
“Who are you?” she demanded to know. Teddie had said that her mother was feisty. He knew now that she hadn’t been exaggerating.
“I’m your daughter’s bodyguard.”
“Not anymore,” she said. “I just called your boss and fired the Payne Protection Agency. You haven’t done anything to keep her safe.”
He couldn’t argue with her. And he couldn’t justify his failures. How could he explain? “I was sleeping with your daughter when the stalker set the cabin on fire”?