“We want IV antibiotics.”
Axel opened his mouth to argue further, but Durango gestured for him to be quiet. “How long will the antibiotic treatment take?”
“Forty-eight hours,” the nurse said.
“I don’t have that much time! I need to get out of here now and make sure they got that son of a bitch!”
The first nurse stepped back and gave Axel a nasty look for his language while the other stifled a laugh behind her hand before dropping the supply of sterile towels on the counter. She walked away, leaving her colleague to deal with Axel alone. She seemed quite capable of it.
As Durango watched, the nurse finished cleaning up the wound and stepped back. “The doctor will be in to stitch this shortly. Please don’t run off.”
She looked at Durango when she said that last bit. He nodded his head just slightly to show he understood her warning.
“I’m sorry they called you out on a Sunday,” Axel said as Durango approached the gurney.
“I was already at the office.” Durango crossed his arms over his chest as he looked Axel over. “Can you tell me what the hell happened out there? This was supposed to be a simple protection detail.”
Axel grunted. “There was nothing simple about this.”
In a low, slow narrative, exhaustion and frustration and other, unnamable emotions in his voice, Axel gave him the story. Durango crossed his arms over his chest and listened, only asking questions when clarity was necessary. When Axel was done, they faced each other in silence for a long moment.
“Do you know how she is?” Axel asked into the heavy silence.
“Ms. Rains? No.”
Axel nodded and tension flashed over his face.
“We should hear from the recovery team any minute. When that’s done, I’ll let you know how we plan to proceed. But . . .” Durango rested a hand on Axel’s shoulder. “You’re no good to me if you’re in the hospital with a massive infection.”
“I want to talk to the guy when you have him in custody. Abbie—Ms. Rains—believes that a device she worked on at Harvard might have something to do with his behavior. I want to know if that’s true. If it is, she might still be in danger.”
“We were only hired to protect her from this one man.”
“I understand. But we can’t allow her to go home if it’s possible someone else is after her.”
“We do what we’re hired to do. You know that, Axel.”
His eyes were dark when they came back up to Durango’s face. That caught him by surprise. Durango and Axel had worked closely together since Mastiff opened their doors. He’d never known Axel to be sentimental, to feel anything more for a client than what was necessary to get the job done. Durango would be stupid not to realize that some of his operatives entered into affairs with their targets, most only lasting for the duration of the case. But Axel had never been one of those. Was it possible he’d fallen for this girl? Why now?
The doctor came into the room then, talking a mile a minute as he approached Axel and the tray set up with the suture kit. Durango moved back, leaning against a counter as he watched the procedure. He’d seen drunks worse off than Axel get stitches in places no man should have to have a needle inserted. This was nothing watching the doctor sew up Axel’s open wound.
But it led to thoughts of autopsies and huge excisions and . . . he couldn’t get Kyle out of his head.
“You don’t look so good, Durango,” Axel commented halfway through the procedure.
“Had a bad night and even worse morning.”
“Yeah? How many women were involved?”
As well as Durango liked to think he knew Axel, he understood that Axel knew him almost as well. He dragged his hands over his head again, brushing his dark curls away from his face.
“You’re going to find out anyway. Everyone’s going to find out soon enough, once it hits the news.”
“Find out what?”
“I don’t even know how they’ve kept it from the press this long.” Durango sighed, his stomach clenching up on him again. He didn’t want to say the words.
“You’re not closing up shop, are you?”
Durango shook his head. No. He probably needed Mastiff Security now more than ever. Their resources were the only way he’d find the Harrison Strangler now.
“Kyle . . . she was found dead in her apartment this morning.”
Axel jerked his head, causing the doctor to lose his grip on the sutures. He cursed, causing the nurse beside him to gasp.
“Dead? How?”
“Strangled.”
“Fuck!”
Axel was clearly done with the fussiness of the medical staff around him. He tried to pull away, but the doctor admonished him. “You must sit still, Mr. Kinkaid.”
Durango’s phone rang at that moment, too, so he couldn’t have answered any questions Axel had even if he’d had the answers he wanted.
He listened to the voice on the other end, not making a comment. It wasn’t really necessary.
“Well, it looks like you got your wish, Axel,” he said as he disconnected the call. “Your guy was gone by the time the recovery team got to the farmhouse. We’ll have to keep Ms. Rains under guard until he’s located.”
Axel’s expression was filled both with relief and frustration. But Durango thought the relief was more prominent.
He touched his shoulder as he moved to leave. “Let them give you the antibiotics. Ms. Rains will likely be in the hospital for a few days. Maybe they can give you neighboring rooms.”
Durango meant to go back to his car, to head back to the office and join in the discussion regarding their next move in this next case. But, somehow, his feet turned toward the elevators, taking him down into the basement where they always seemed to hide the morgue.
The hallway outside the big double doors was empty. He walked right through although he’d only been in this room once or twice and had no relationship with any of the personnel beyond that door. They had no reason to grant the need burning in his chest. But he had to try.
“Can I help you, sir?” a small woman with soft blond curls asked from where she’d been eating a sandwich at one of the small metal desks scattered at the back of the room.
“I believe you have a body here.” He stuttered when he said body. “Kyle Peters?”
The woman nodded, setting down her sandwich as she climbed to her feet. “She’s in cooler five. We’ve scheduled her autopsy for tomorrow morning. Dr. Hammond himself wants to do it.”
“May I?”
The woman shrugged a single shoulder. “You on the case?”
“I am,” he said. And, really, it wasn’t a complete lie.
She gestured for him to go to in while she turned back to her sandwich. He crossed the room, reading the teeny labels on each of the cooler doors. When he came to number five, he hesitated, the hope that when he pulled it open he would find a stranger stronger than any desire he’d ever had. But when he pulled it open and unzipped the morbid body bag, it was Kyle’s beautiful, kind face that stared sightlessly up at him.
He gasped, so shocked by the sight of her that he couldn’t stop himself. It took every bit of willpower he had not to lift her up and cradle her in his arms.
Logic. He needed to look at this logically.
Carefully, his hands shaking, he pushed down the zipper on the damn bag and looked closely at the clothes she was wearing, the bruises forming around her neck and on her arms. She clearly fought whoever her killer was. She had a black eye and a swollen lip, too. He must have hit her multiple times in the face before getting control. Long before she died if the damage was any indication. That wasn’t like the other victims, but Durango had always assumed he was able to get close to them because he initiated sexual contact. Kyle wouldn’t have gone for that.
If it was the same guy. But the similarities were too many for it not to be.
He wished he could take pictures, but he assumed that would tip off the assistant coroner that he wasn
’t who he said he was. He had to content himself by studying every inch of her, making note of everything that seemed significant. Then he touched his fingertips to his own lips before touching them to hers.
“I’ll find who did this to you, Kyle. I’ll make him pay.”
He covering her up carefully before pushing the cooler door closed. He offered the assistant coroner a little wave as he walked out and nearly made it all the way to his car before his knees went out from under him. He sat heavy between two cars, the pain too much to survive. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t cry, couldn’t vomit anymore. All he could do was sit there and rock back and forth until the pain slowly began to let up.
He could survive this. He would survive this because Kyle needed him to. Kyle and Sarah both deserved justice, and he was going to get that for them if it was the last thing he did.
Chapter 27
Springfield, Illinois
Lincoln Medical Center
Axel hated the goddamn IV pole that had to follow him everywhere he went. He felt like a damn dog on a leash. But Durango’s advice was not something he felt free to ignore.
Someone had finally told him where Abigail was. They wouldn’t tell him how bad her injuries were or if she was going to be okay. He had to be family for that information to be passed to him. But now that he had a room number, he could go see for himself.
He felt like a fool, walking through the hospital corridors in a damn gown—a fucking dress—but at least they gave him something of a bathrobe to cover his bare ass.
After fighting to find her for the better part of four hours, he hesitated as he stood outside her door. What if she didn’t want to see him? What if the injury was worse than he originally thought? What if she was unconscious and wasn’t going to wake ever again? What if . . . what if she didn’t want to see him?
That thought froze him in place, leaving him unable to go forward or turn back. He wanted to see her, wanted to know she was okay. He wanted to see her beautiful eyes, wanted to touch her silky skin. He wanted to hear her voice. But an unreasonable conviction told him that he had lost the right to those things when he allowed them to take her from his arms and put her in the waiting ambulance at the airport.
Axel wasn’t used to lacking confidence. He’d never given a shit what anyone thought; therefore, he didn’t worry about what people might be saying behind his back. It’s easy to be confident when nothing but what you want and what you do matters.
But that wasn’t the case anymore, was it? How did this woman get so far under his skin in such a short time?
A nurse walked by, winking at him as she did, breaking him out of his paralysis. He waited until she left, then pushed open the door, his heart in his throat as he studied her figure in the narrow bed. Most of her body was covered by a white sheet, apart from her injured leg which was propped up on pillows, a wide, white bandage with red and yellow stains covering the area of injury. Her head was bandaged, too, another set of red and yellow stains bright against her pale skin above the area where the gash on her forehead had been. He could see bruises on her arms and more forming on her pretty face, but there didn’t seem to be any surprises. She wasn’t hooked up to a dozen wires, just an IV much like his own, and there were no other bandages. There could have been a few under the sheet, but he could only see the curves of her gorgeous body, not the lumps and other telltale signs of heavy bandaging.
He cautiously made his way to her bedside, not wanting to wake her, but wanting her to wake. He hated this lack of confidence, this uncertainty. But seeing her chest move regularly up and down, being aware of the life still pumping inside of her, did offer him some relief. He needed to see her to soothe his crazy fears that she’d died and no one had bothered to tell him.
Axel pulled up a chair and sat beside her bed, content to just study her face. He sat quietly, his thoughts moving from one thing to the next in quick succession. He remembered watching her sleep last night in that stranger’s house, remembered the peace on her beautiful face. He remembered the fear and panic she struggled to control after that lunatic intercepted her call to 911. He remembered the taste of her kiss, worried about the danger that still existed outside these doors. He knew Durango had men posted discreetly all around the hospital, had spotted a few when he made his way here. But he wouldn’t be content in her safety unless he could be by her side, could see that all was good in her little piece of the world.
He didn’t want to leave her. That was completely new to him.
There had never been a place, never a home or woman, he thought twice about after walking away because he always knew the foster homes, the group home, and the women were temporary. He didn’t know that with Abigail. Or maybe he just didn’t want to believe that with her.
It suddenly occurred to him just how dangerous Abigail could be for him. He’d lived an ordered life, making and meeting every goal he’d set for himself. Although the military didn’t work out the way he’d hoped, he was still on goal to retire by the time he was fifty and settle somewhere quiet and isolated, to have the life of solitude he desired. His growing feelings for Abigail could make his goal unreachable.
Was he willing to give up his plans? Was he willing to risk allowing this woman into his life and turning everything upside down, pulling him out of his comfort zone for something that might not last longer than the conclusion of this case?
And that wasn’t the only thing that held him back. What about his job? What about the danger that followed him everywhere he went? He’d made a conscious choice to never have a family for more than one reason. His job wasn’t always as intense as this past case had been, but there were dangerous moments. He didn’t want to hesitate in a moment that required split-second reactions. And he didn’t want to be like some of his brothers in the military, leaving behind women and children, siblings and parents, who would suffer financially and emotionally after their deaths.
Abigail moaned as he wrestled with his thoughts. He leaned forward and picked up her hand, draping it gently over his open palm.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” he said softly.
Her eyes flitted open, confusion burning in them for a long second before she could focus and discern who he was. Then she smiled, a soft smile full of pleasure.
“Hey.”
“How are you feeling?”
She licked her lips, running her tongue slowly over her full lips. She turned and looked down at the bandage on her leg, her fingers brushing the bandage on her head.
“Sore,” she muttered. “And thirsty.”
He reached over and poured a cup of water with one hand, still holding hers with the other. There was a straw and he managed to get it up with a little wrangling with his teeth. He held it up to her lips and watched her sip, watched her eyes slide closed with relief.
“Better?”
“Much.”
He set the cup down and lifted her hand to kiss her fingertips. “I was worried. They wouldn’t tell me what was going on with you.”
“I’m sorry.” Her eyes flitted to the IV pole behind him. “What about you? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. They’ve just decided I need IV antibiotics because they didn’t appreciate my home remedy for this cut.” He touched the side of his head where he had a bandage like hers. “And my boss pretty much told me if I didn’t stay and let them do it, I was off the case.”
“Is there still a case?”
He sighed, leaning down to kiss her fingers again. “I’m sorry. I should have stayed behind and made sure things went well.”
“What do you mean?”
“The hitman was gone when the recovery team got there to bring him in. We don’t know where he went.”
“Oh.” Her eyes flashed with fear, but not like he expected. She moved against the pillows. “It’ll be awful to have to stay around here with you.”
He thought she was serious for a split second. But then she smiled at him.
“You’re not in a hurry to get back to the farm?�
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She started to sit up, reminded of something she’d forgotten. She cursed softly, a sound that would have been amusing if the circumstances were different.
“Don’t worry. We’ve got a team on the ground near there. I’ve asked Durango—my boss—to send someone over and check on the animals. The police should be at Mrs. Philip’s house, too.”
She settled back down. “I could call someone to stick around until I get out of the hospital.”
He squeezed her hand lightly. “You won’t be able to go back until this guy is found. We’ll move you to a safe house after the hospital, keep you under guard until we know this is over.”
“A safe house? Can’t I just stay with you?”
It was an opportunity. The second such opportunity she’d laid in front of him. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
“You’re a client of the company I work for, Abigail. Our personal relationship can’t happen while I’m still on the clock.”
Abigail looked away for a second. “Okay. I understand.”
He ran his hand slowly over her palm. “The thing is, Abigail, I think we got carried away in a stressful situation. And now that the worst is over, now that we’re no longer fighting for our lives, I think it’s better if we part ways. I mean, I’ll still be around until this guy is found, but—”
“But you’ve got all those other women you need to get back to, right?”
He could hear the anger and the tears in her voice. He wanted to take it back, to explain that he’d never done this sort of thing before, that he’d never felt this way about a woman before. But he couldn’t allow himself even that small sliver of vulnerability.
You let someone in just a teeny bit and you hand them the power to destroy everything you’ve worked so hard to build. He couldn’t allow that.
“That’s right,” he said softly.
She pulled her hand from his. “Then I guess you should get to it. Don’t want to waste any more of your time.”
Mastiff Security: The Complete 5 Books Series Page 15