Love Inspired Suspense April 2015 #1

by Terri Reed

  The last real conversation he’d had with Allie had been in a hospital room like this one. It was even possible that this was the actual room where that conversation had taken place. This could be the same bed he had been lying in when Allie started weeping and told him, “I can’t do this anymore, Rick. I love you, but we both know I am not cut out to be a cop’s wife.”

  The strain his job placed on their relationship had been building for a long time. There had been one too many night shifts, and one too many plans ruined when he was held over for mandatory overtime. Seeing him near death in a hospital bed had been her breaking point.

  He saw again Allie’s tearful face, heard again her apologies as she slipped off the engagement ring. She had left the ring beside his water cup before she walked out the door, leaving a gaping wound no doctor could stitch back up for him.

  “Rick?” Stephanie’s sleepy voice asked from the recliner. “Are you awake?”

  Rick worked to bring his mind out of the past. Stephanie kicked off her blanket and padded in her socks to his bedside. “Do you need anything?”

  He stared at the ceiling. “Nah, I’m fine. Just ready to get out of this place. You didn’t have to stay.”

  “Where was I supposed to go?” Stephanie sat on the edge of his bed. “You’re my bodyguard, remember?”

  He released bitter air between his lips. “Some bodyguard.”

  “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

  “No thanks to me.” He turned his head on the pillow to look at her. “Thanks for sticking around, though.”

  She waved her hand out in front of her. “Look at these luxury accommodations. There’s even an officer standing guard out there in the hallway. Where could I be that’s any better than this?”

  He gave her a thin smile. “I’m thankful for the company, but I wish you didn’t have to be so uncomfortable. Hospitals are no fun.”

  “What do you mean? Yvonne isn’t enough fun for you?”

  Rick snorted in response. “Oh, yeah. She is loads of fun.”

  Stephanie placed a soft hand on top of his. He soaked up the comfort from it. Everything about her seemed soft in the dim light. Soft curls, soft pink lips. And although he couldn’t see it, he knew her heart was soft, too. He couldn’t help noticing again how very different she was from Allie.

  Even in high school, Allie was sophisticated and high-maintenance. Moving into her twenties, she had become more and more polished, with a coolness that was alluring. But sitting next to him on the edge of his hospital bed in the middle of the night, Stephanie was all lightness and ease. The warmth radiating from the inside out was so comfortable and inviting.

  He really did appreciate her company, although appreciate felt like the wrong word. It was more than that; he felt it much deeper. He turned his hand over and squeezed hers, thankful that she hadn’t pulled it away.

  She continued, “Seriously, don’t worry about me being uncomfortable. I really don’t mind.” Her voice light and teasing, she said, “I’m not the one with a bullet wound and a busted-open forehead.”

  “What? This?” he asked, lifting the bandaged arm. “It’s merely a flesh wound.”

  He almost wished the bullet wound was more serious so he could blame it for being stuck in the hospital again. The bullet had entered and exited his shoulder without too much damage. They probably would have released him already if that was all that ailed him. It was the stupid bump on the head that had made the doctor insist that he stay overnight for observation. Taking a bullet was so much more heroic than tripping over his own feet.

  Stephanie squirmed a little. “Can I ask you a question? It’s kind of personal.”

  He winced. “You saw the scars?”

  “Yeah”

  “Pretty ugly, huh?”

  “More like badges of honor. I was pretty impressed, actually.”

  She glanced down at their hands clasped together, and said in a quieter voice, “I felt the scars on Axle’s belly, too, and I have been wondering about it, but you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” She tried to pull her hand away, but he grasped it tighter, unwilling to break the connection so soon.

  Until now, he had not wanted to discuss that night. He had been too busy trying to recover, and he’d resented everyone wanting him to relive the nightmare. It had been important to put it all behind him and move on. But talking to Stephanie felt natural. He wanted her to know him.

  “I was working a night shift, and I got an alarm call from the Industrial District. A security guard thought he saw suspicious activity going on at the warehouse across the street from his building.” Rick’s mind took him back. “I wasn’t too concerned. We had been slammed with a string of false alarms at businesses all year long. While I waited for my backup, Axle and I searched the perimeter. I had no idea that we had actually stumbled onto a holding site for a human trafficking ring. Several women and girls were being held prisoner inside that building until they could be moved to some other location along the I-5 corridor. We must have spooked their guards when we showed up. One of them jumped us with a knife.”

  Stephanie’s fingers squeezed his hand gently, encouraging him to keep going with the story. That night, Rick had been maybe fifteen feet back from rounding the building when a man flew around the corner at him wielding a knife. He had been trained to understand how fast and lethal a knife could be. He knew how within seconds fingers could be sliced off or tendons severed, or how within the span of those same seconds, a person could be lying on the ground with a knife sticking out of a vital organ. But no amount of training scenarios could have prepared him for the speed and intensity of the real thing.

  Looking back, he was able to recall the man’s face. In his dreams he still saw how those eyes were filled with both rage and fear simultaneously. But in the moments of the attack, Rick had had no time to observe. There had only been time to act. The scene replayed across his memory again now. He saw the flashes of movement in sync with his heartbeat, the glint of streetlight off the blade, slashing, slashing and then stabbing. He saw his gun rising, heard the bullets, as round after round fired from his gun. He saw his assailant crumple to the ground, dead. Rick had killed a man.

  Rick closed his eyes, but kept talking. “I was finally able to fire my gun, but not before his knife had done a lot of damage to both me and Axle.”

  “Wow.” Stephanie was quiet for a while. Then she said, “Those women owe you their freedom, Rick. It sounds like a story from a third-world country, but not here, not in America.”

  “It’s more common here than anyone wants to admit.”

  “You’re a hero,” she said.

  Rick shook his head, making him dizzy. “I’m no hero. I just stumbled onto that situation and barely made it back out alive.”

  She didn’t say anything more, and Rick didn’t feel the need to talk more, either. He had avoided talking about that night for so long, it surprised him how easily it had spilled out of him and how good it felt to tell her.

  Rick wasn’t sure how much time passed before he remembered that he was holding Stephanie’s hand again. He did not want to let go of her, but the very room they were sitting in reminded him of the way he had failed Allie. He couldn’t want this. Yes, Stephanie was a very different woman from Allie, but she was still a woman who deserved better than what he would be able to offer her. What she needed from him was to help her stay safe, not to be confused by his developing feelings for her. He let go, hating how empty his hand felt after he did.

  She cleared her throat and stood up. “You better go back to sleep while you can,” she said, a teasing tone returning to her voice. “It won’t be long before you get another visit from your friend Yvonne.”

  “Okay,” he said, fatigue pulling him under fast. “But be ready to go early. If you aren’t firing me as your bodyguard, I’ve got a new plan.”

  TEN

  Monday

  Detective Shelton leaned against the doorjamb of Rick’s hospital room
. He sighed and made an announcement: “No sign of Hale, in or out of the water.”

  Stephanie’s head dropped. She had heard the news from another officer in the ER waiting room, but she hadn’t had the courage to tell Rick last night. She had been holding out hope for Julian’s being caught overnight. Her eyes flew to Rick to see his reaction. He struggled to sit up in his bed, worrying her that he would reopen his stitches. She ran to his side to help him, but he waved her off. His anger was palpable.

  “How could that happen?” Rick demanded. “We had him in the water.”

  The detective’s shoulders slumped. “We searched all day and through the night. They brought the dogs. Divers looked for his body in the water. We had helicopters in the air. All manpower not tied up in the bombing investigation at the hotel scoured the area. Somehow he pulled another disappearing act on us. I’m thinking he must have slipped out of the water and into the downtown crowd while we were still on the dock. With all that construction happening, I’m guessing he was gone before we even got the search truly off the ground.”

  Rick punched the bed with his good hand. Even though it was Stephanie’s life being threatened, Julian’s capture was just as important to these two men as it was to her. Having these driven men on her side made her feel somehow safer, even if Julian Hale was still out there somewhere. These two would not stop until she was safe again. Actually they wouldn’t stop until all of Seattle was safe from him again.

  “There was some good news from yesterday, though,” Detective Shelton said.

  “Really? I’m definitely ready for some good news,” Stephanie told him.

  “Hale is taking risks he hasn’t taken in the past. He is so desperate to prove that he is in control and holding the power, his pride is going to be his downfall. At some point he is going to trip up, and we are going to be there to get him when he does.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Rick said. “But if Hale is still loose, then Stephanie and I need to get out of here, the sooner the better.” He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. All the color drained from his face and he dropped his head into his hand.

  “Dizzy?” Stephanie asked, but this time she held herself back, not wanting to annoy him again by being too helpful.

  “I’m fine,” Rick said, but he kept his head on his hand. “Or at least I will be,” he conceded.

  The doctor had ordered a twenty-four-hour watch on his concussion. It was 7:00 a.m., six hours short of the twenty-four-hour mark. Stephanie tried to reason with Rick. “But why the hurry? We’re safe here, aren’t we?”

  Rick lifted his head off his hand and squinted at her as if she had a third eye. “Safe? Like we were in the hotel?” He put his head back in his hand. “Do you want to wait around for Hale to deliver another present for you? Maybe I’ll call down and order breakfast and see what he has next on the menu.”

  “All right, I get it.” He didn’t have to be such a jerk about it. Where had the softness she had seen in him the night before gone? He was being so cold to her this morning. “I’m just worried about you. You don’t seem ready to go anywhere.”

  “If you want to worry about something, worry about the kind of damage Julian Hale could do here if we stay,” Rick told her.

  Imagining another bomb going off, this time in the hospital full of fragile people, was enough to make Stephanie swallow her other retorts. They might be safer in here, but the other patients wouldn’t be safe if they stayed. She and Rick were like Jonah on the ship during the storm when he fled from Nineveh—throw them out and the hospital would be a safe haven again. If Rick was physically capable of leaving, they really did need to get far away.

  “Where do we go from here?” she asked. “Last night you said you had a new plan.”

  “As soon as I can break out of here,” Rick said, looking anxious to make that happen soon, “I am taking you camping.”

  “Camping?” she asked, but he wouldn’t elaborate.

  *

  Stephanie signaled and then double-checked over her shoulder before changing lanes. She wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans one at a time. It had been a long time since she had driven any vehicle in the city traffic, let alone one as big as Rick’s pickup. Even with a dog in the backseat, it smelled masculine and clean and new.

  Rick’s head rested against the passenger seat with his eyes closed. She was glad he couldn’t critique her driving, but she still worried she would mess up and do something to damage his truck. Watch me crash a police officer’s $30,000 truck.

  She looked over at Rick, hating how pale he looked. During the hospital discharge process, they had handed him painkillers and a prescription for more as needed, but so far he had refused to take any of them, claiming he wanted to stay sharp. From her perspective, he didn’t look alert; he only looked miserable. She wished she knew how to help, but he’d probably be too stubborn to accept her help, anyway, even if she did know what to do.

  He still hadn’t explained the new plan to her, but she didn’t want to bother him to ask about it. Before they left the hospital, Detective Shelton had brought Rick a change of clothes, given him his gun and cell phone, and dropped off Axle along with Rick’s truck. Nobody had told Stephanie anything except to drive the truck around to the entrance. She had pulled through the circular driveway and found Rick with a police escort and a volunteer who had wheeled him out in a wheelchair. He hadn’t opened his eyes since he had climbed into the cab of the truck. All he had said to her was, “Start driving north.”

  She had fought the urge to salute him with a “Yes, sir.” Why wouldn’t he just tell her where they were going?

  She glanced sideways again. She didn’t think he was actually sleeping. He’s probably awake and just doesn’t want to see it happen when I total his truck.

  A red Mazda Miata chose that moment to zip in front of her without signaling, forcing her to stomp on the brake. “Nice blinker, dude,” she hollered after him. The driver waved his apology as he whipped ahead of her and off the next exit.

  “Relax,” Rick said without opening his eyes, his face pinched with pain. That sudden stop couldn’t have felt good.

  “That’s easy for you to say. I don’t even know where I’m going.”

  Rick slowly sat up and moved the car seat back into an upright position. “We are going to my grandparents’ cabin on the Skagit River. It’s in the mountains off the North Cascades Highway about two hundred miles from here. It’s the most remote place I know to go. I’m hoping it’s remote enough to finally shake Hale off our trail.”

  “You never know with Julian, though, do you?” she said. “But why didn’t you tell me where we were going? Why all this secrecy?”

  “Maybe I’m getting paranoid, but I’m sick of Hale popping up like a Whac-a-Mole everywhere we go. I figured the fewer people who knew our plans, the better.”

  “Including me?” She probably sounded snarky, but the lack of sleep was making her feel grumpy, and she didn’t like being kept in the dark.

  “Of course not. When could I have explained things to you without being overheard?”

  “You should have found a way. I deserve to know what’s going on.” She blew a curl out of her eyes and stared ahead.

  “Fair enough,” he mumbled.

  She signaled and changed lanes again, looking for the nearest exit for I-5 North. “Do you think he has someone telling him where we are?” she asked Rick.

  “I don’t know. I can’t imagine anyone in the department feeding Hale information, but I still can’t figure out how he’s tracking us. Until I know how he’s doing it, we have to be careful who we trust. That’s why Shelton and I decided to decrease our security detail and to keep our plans quiet. I have two buddies from the department—Russ Miller and Jason King—who will meet us up at the cabin, but other than that there are only a select few in the loop.”

  Stephanie searched the traffic behind her in the rearview mirror. All the cars and drivers looked like innocent, bored commuters to her. “H
ow will I know if he’s following us?”

  “You won’t be able to tell in the city. We’ll stop in Marysville for food and supplies. The traffic will thin out after that and we’ll be able to tell more.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes again. “Hopefully we’ll catch a break for once.”

  Stephanie agreed. And hopefully the nice Rick from last night will come back.

  *

  After the stop for supplies and a run through the McDonald’s drive-through window, Rick noticed that Stephanie’s death grip on the wheel began to loosen. The farther north they drove, the more they both seemed to relax. He kept an eye on the traffic around and behind them, but he didn’t see anything suspicious. It didn’t mean Hale hadn’t followed them again, but if he had, Rick couldn’t see him.

  He wasn’t used to being a passenger, but the dizziness was still too strong for him to drive safely. The over-the-counter painkiller he had swallowed with his soda at lunch had taken the edge off his pain, though, and eventually he began enjoying the drive. As they started the slow climb up into the Cascade Mountains, the scenery became less urban and more rustic and nostalgic by the minute. It was the background of so many of his childhood memories.

  “The highway reopened only a few weeks ago, so the road might be a little rough,” he told Stephanie. “They always close it for the winter.”

  Stately evergreens lined the highway, and giant mountains still wearing their winter white loomed all around them. “Ever been across this pass before?” he asked Stephanie.

  “No,” Stephanie answered. “It’s gorgeous.”

  Rick agreed. “They call these the American Alps.”

  She leaned forward and peered through the windshield. “I grew up in Eastern Washington, but we always took Stevens or Snoqualmie Pass to get to Seattle. Those passes have pretty views, but this…this is…wow.”

  Rick smiled. It was fun seeing it all anew through Stephanie’s eyes. She was having a hard time keeping her eye on the road as she gawked at the passing vistas.