Final Surrender: The Surrender Series, Book 1

by Jennifer Kacey

  He pulled apart his tie and unbuttoned the top button on his dress shirt. The detectives both turned at his approach and one of them tried ushering him back down the steps.

  “This is a police matter, if you could step behind the barricade, an officer will be around to talk to you as quickly as possible.”

  Clay shook his hands off, practically yelling, “My name is Clay Waters and I am the head of security for Angela Meyers, who I think was the target of the attack.”

  The detective finally looked at Clay and a broad grin changed his face.

  “Well, I’ll be damned. Waters, I wondered what happened to you a few years ago when I heard you left the Marines.”

  Clay looked at the man standing in front of him. Same height and short black hair and a hint of recognition crossed his face.

  “Wyatt? James Wyatt?”

  The detective clapped him on the back. “Hell, yeah!”

  James had been one of the men in his unit, that fateful day, quite a few years ago.

  They shook hands and stared for a minute, each remembering the last time they had been together.

  “It’s been a while,” they both said in unison.

  Clay chuckled. “What in the world brought you here? You always said you were going to be a military man ’til the day you died.”

  James shrugged. “I truly believed that until the day I looked death in the face and lived. It just wasn’t in me after that and I have you to thank for giving my sorry ass another opportunity.”

  Clay ignored the praise, soberly replying, “You would have done the same for any of us.”

  James looked like he wanted to say more, but they had more pressing matters at the moment.

  “You were the detail for Ms. Meyers?”

  “Yes, as of yesterday.” Clay glared and continued, “She had some issues with harassing phone calls and creepy letters last year. She was attacked several times then and again around a week ago. She had a phone call tonight before we left to come here. They didn’t outwardly threaten her with a bomb, but she just happened to be the only one standing there when it went off. I don’t believe in coincidences,” he added.

  James shook his head back and forth.

  “We were part of the investigation last year and we all found it extremely convenient,” he raised an eyebrow, “that everything just stopped on its own, especially when the threats were escalating for months and then all of a sudden…nothing. Then they start up again, with no trigger? At least not one we know about?”

  “Exactly,” was all Clay needed to say as James turned around and led him back to where the other detective stood.

  “Clay Waters, this is Terry Sadler.”

  They shook hands and James continued, “Terry’s been my partner for almost three years now and Clay was my Staff Sergeant back in the Marines. We went through hell and back, and I owe him nothing short of my life. He also happens to be the head of security for Ms. Meyers.”

  Terry seemed skeptical of the intrusion, until Detective Wyatt explained.

  “Good to meet you, Waters.”

  “So what do you guys think? I’d really like to hear your theories before I have to go see Angela in the hospital and explain how she got blown ten feet in the air on my first assignment for her.”

  He looked down at his once-white dress shirt, which was now stained in blood, and immediately Terry and James dove back into the conversation they were having, and Clay filled them in on the specific threat earlier that evening.

  “Timing like that doesn’t just happen. It could have killed Angela if fate hadn’t stepped in at the last minute,” Clay told them.

  Terry interjected, “Couldn’t it have just been a coincidence though? Couldn’t it have just been set on a timer?”

  Clay shook his head as he looked at pieces of the bomb they had already collected from the area. “No, I’d bet my life on the fact that the person who detonated it was probably here in the crowd, watching. We should get the video footage from the hotel, even though it won’t help much with how many people were here, and on cell phones talking or taking pictures.”

  “I agree they probably set it off with a cell phone. It’s the most common detonator and anyone with access to Google can find out how to wire it up. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s why the timing sucked.”

  Clay seethed, his nostrils flaring, “Would you prefer them to keep practicing so they get it right?” he snapped back.

  Detective Wyatt opened his mouth, but went still. Clay thought maybe he hadn’t heard him and was about to say it again when James said, “Clay, you just gave me an idea.”

  “What idea?” he grumbled.

  “Practice.”

  “If you think for a minute I’m going to sit around while this nut job—”

  “No, no. I think they’re definitely novices at this and they are trying to make a point. Send a message, especially while there are photographers all around. You know this will be all over the papers tomorrow, and she wasn’t hurt that bad. Dammit! Stop giving me the death ray glare and listen. If that bomb would have been any bigger, she would have been taken out of here in a body bag, not a gurney.” He took a breath while glancing across the street where flashbulbs were still going off left and right. “But I don’t think this is their first attempt at trying to hurt Ms. Meyers with violent means.”

  Terry looked at James with a skeptical look. “Wyatt, what are you thinking? She’s never been blown up before, nor has she ever told us about a bomb threat.”

  “Not that she knew of,” James added under his breath.

  A suspicious look crossed Terry’s face as he said, “We couldn’t prove anything then.”

  “Yes, but now we can compare this blast wreckage to the components recovered at the airport.”

  “What components at what airport? And what would that have to do with this?” Clay asked, not having a clue what was going on. He hadn’t heard anything about a bomb from Angela or Mark, but he would certainly be discussing it with her if she knew more info and hadn’t trusted him with it.

  “Last year, there was an incident at JFK International Airport. There was a bomb threat and two of the terminals had to be shut down for hours. An anonymous caller with an electronic voice tipped us off. Sound familiar?”

  “The bomb squad got to it and moved it before it went off. The same squad is here now checking to make sure no other bombs are set to go off. Precautionary, though they don’t think there are any more.” Terry finished.

  “I’ll bet each of you donuts for a month, if we look up the initial tests on those components, they will be the same, or very similar, to what we have tonight,” James challenged.

  “But I still don’t see why you think that has anything to do with this?” Clay was about to argue when he noticed the questioning look James was giving Terry.

  He could tell James was asking silently for permission to say something. Terry nodded and then went off to talk to some of the other cops still trying to secure the scene.

  James turned around and looked at Clay, “Are you ready to go to the hospital? We can talk on the way,” he added at the end.

  Clay ran a hand through his hair. “As I’ll ever be.”

  He climbed in the passenger side of James’s vehicle while James got in and pulled away from the curb in less than a minute.

  “What was all that about?” Clay asked when they were fully ensconced in traffic.

  James took a deep breath and glanced over at him. “I’m going to share something with you that must be held in the strictest of confidence. Only one civilian that we know of knows this detail, outside of the detectives of the NYPD and the FBI and Homeland Security.”

  “You can trust me, you already know that. I want to know what’s going on so I can try to help catch this fucker as quickly as possible.”

  James was
weaving through downtown traffic, trying to get to the off ramp for the hospital. Concentrating or stalling for time, Clay didn’t know which. “The reason I think this bombing is related to the one at the airport is because the packaging on both bombs were identical. The first was addressed to A-MEYERS.”

  Clay sat perfectly still, staring out the window, trying to calm his seriously frayed nerves. He had this unending need to punch something and clenched his hand into a fist.

  The scrapes he had gotten earlier and had forgotten about broke open. Blood ran into his palm between his fingers.

  “Did Angela know that?”

  “No, and you can understand why we kept it from her, can’t you? She wasn’t even at the airport when we found it. Turns out she had to catch an earlier flight that morning. We thought we finally had the person that was tormenting her, but they’re smart. They use completely generic packaging material and labeling. No fingerprints, no fibers, no saliva, no sweat, no tears, no nada,” he added with disgust.

  “That’s when it all stopped,” James continued as they pulled up to the hospital parking garage. “All the phone calls, the letters and newspaper clippings just disappeared like she moved and left no forwarding address. We were shocked. Normally these people are just obsessed fans or stalkers, and they escalate until they do something really stupid and get caught, or the victim knew who it was from the beginning and they can get a restraining order in place. If the threats are bad enough, they can be arrested for it as well. But in Angela’s case none of these things happened. In her case…we’re no closer to finding the stalker and we have no idea why he stopped before.”

  “Or why he started back up again.”

  “Correct.”

  James turned off the engine and both men exited in silence and made their way toward the front door of the hospital’s Emergency Room entrance.

  Clay didn’t fail to notice the photographers hanging around outside, like vultures.

  “Are you going to tell her about it now, the first…occurrence, I mean?” Clay asked in a low whisper.

  “Officially I can’t, since I’m having to withhold that detail as evidence, but if someone else wanted to share it with her, after I leave, I couldn’t stop them.”

  They entered the building and James went to the front counter, showing his badge. “Angela Meyers was brought in a little while ago, and we need to speak with her. Is she still in the ER?”

  The receptionist looked at her computer, punched a few buttons in and said, “No, Detective Wyatt, she’s up in X-ray right now, on the sixth floor. She might be there for a little while because she’ll have to have a full CT scan. You can get there by taking the elevators down the hallway to your right.”

  Clay had to stifle the urge to roll his eyes, knowing exactly how Angela got when her mind was made up about something.

  James flashed a charming grin along with his “Thank you,” to the woman behind the desk, who was already reaching to answer another phone call coming in.

  They got on the elevator and headed to the sixth floor. After the doors shut, James cleared his throat and said, “Clay, don’t take this the wrong way, but I need to ask you a question. I don’t know how well you know Angela, but do you know if she is one-hundred-percent trustworthy? With the info you need to discuss with her, I have to make sure that said info isn’t going to show up in The Times tomorrow, or it’s my ass that will be in the ER. Unemployed.”

  Clay turned to stare at him. “If there is one person on the planet that can keep a secret, it’s Angela.”

  James nodded once.

  “Did she at least call you when the harassing started up again? Please tell me, even if she kept it from everybody else, she had sense enough to keep you informed.”

  James nodded again and faced the elevator doors. “I believe we have every event cataloged with the originals, even the latest ones from the last few weeks. I’m kicking myself for pulling the tap on her phones though. I knew this dickwad wasn’t through. This time, we’ll catch whoever it is. I’ll wager my badge on it.”

  Clay remained silent, praying Angela would win that bet. Her life was worth more than just a badge. She now had him with her 24/7, along with Wyatt. If he was even half as good at being a detective as he was at being a sniper for the Marines, Angela was in good hands.

  Finally, the doors opened with a whoosh and a ding on the sixth floor. They went quietly down the hall to find X-ray.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Angela was pretty sure she had been hit by a freight train.

  She had been right, her dress and shoes had been ruined, and she now lay in a hospital gown with bare feet, on a bed with wheels and bars on the side. If someone came in and asked how many fingers they were holding up one more time, she was going to shoot someone…with her IV bag.

  As soon as she had arrived in the ambulance they had wheeled her in with everyone rushing around like chickens.

  Ordering this test and that one, like she was code red or blue or pink with purple polka dots, whichever one was the most critical. She was certain there were other people in the hospital that needed more attention, and she would be more than happy to give them hers if all of the people whispering and casting her furtive glances and scurrying away would just knock it off.

  She tried assuring them she was fine and she could feel everything and all of her parts seemed to be working as they should. That killed about twenty minutes.

  They even had to run a pregnancy test before she was sent to X-ray for the CT scan on her head.

  She actually laughed when they asked if it was a possibility.

  Being pretty sure you still had to have sex to get pregnant the old-fashioned way, she assured them there was zero-percent chance of her being pregnant, but they just patted her hand and said they had to run it anyway, just to be sure.

  Be sure, my ass, she thought as she closed her eyes. Trying to block out the noise and movement all around her.

  Being poked and prodded wasn’t her idea of a good time, and she wanted to rip the IV out of her arm, wrap the too-flimsy garment around her naked butt and catch a taxi home.

  Surely there aren’t any photographers around, she thought.

  They had cleaned her wounds, which were unfortunately plentiful, but mostly a case of road rash they called it, when she scraped the concrete.

  She was really thankful she didn’t remember any of that part.

  The last thing she remembered, before coming to and seeing Clay sitting next to her was talking to photographers. She couldn’t remember anything in between.

  Now she lay in the CT room, waiting for a tech to come back with the go-ahead from the tests, so they could take lots of pictures of her head and hopefully send her home.

  She didn’t want to be there, but they told her it was either the CT scan or an MRI, and the MRI lasted an hour longer.

  They also told her she had to stay awake, this being her second concussion, but all she wanted to do was sleep for a week.

  She was exhausted physically, mentally and her emotions were on a very short string.

  All of a sudden, what was left of the hair on her arms under the bandages stood up on end. She turned to the section of glass the technician looked through to see Clay staring at her.

  The look on his face seemed pained and she wondered if he had been injured in the blast. She hoped not, but just couldn’t remember enough to be sure.

  She was going to smile at him, but he turned to talk to someone else right out of her view through the almost window, and he looked annoyed. At least it wasn’t at her this time.

  Just then a technician came through the door and said, “Okay, Ms. Meyers, sorry for the holdup. We are all ready now.”

  “Good, I’m ready to go home.”

  The technician smiled and helped her onto the movable table attached to the CT machine, and she only thought s
he felt naked before in the thin gown.

  With Clay standing right outside staring at her, she was even more exposed.

  She knew he’d seen it all before, but that fact just didn’t calm her down any.

  The tech explained how the test was going to work, and that really all she had to do was keep still and not panic when he put her in the tube. Once he positioned her properly and she understood what she needed to do, the tech covered her with a blanket. She moaned.

  “Yeah, I know the way to all the ladies’ hearts. Warm blankets,” proclaimed the tech as he made his way toward the door.

  “You’ve got my vote.”

  He opened the door and went outside. Angela turned her head to see him ease by Clay, who was still standing there with his arms crossed over his chest like a bodyguard.

  Oh yeah, that’s exactly what he is, she realized.

  “Okay, I’m going to move you now, Ms. Meyers. I’ll start the test when you say ‘Ready, set, go.’ Just remember to stay as still as possible and I’ll have you out of there in a jiffy. Whenever you’re ready, Ms. Meyers.”

  Angela took a few deep breaths and said, “Okay. Ready,” a bit shakier than she would have liked.

  The tech made good on his promise and she was done quickly.

  When the table moved her body out of the tube, she automatically looked for Clay, but he wasn’t standing there anymore.

  She was stupidly disappointed, but didn’t have long to think about it before the tech was back in the room, helping her shift over to the hospital bed.

  He wheeled her back down to the ER, where she saw Clay immediately.

  Sitting on a hospital bed, with a nurse cleaning up his bloody hands.

  “Hi,” she said as she passed him, with as much of a grin as she could muster. It felt foreign on her face though. The adrenaline was finally wearing off and the exhaustion wasn’t going to hold for long.

  “I’ll be right over there, Angela, as soon as I’m done,” he added as she saw the nurse wiping blood away.

  Angela looked away quickly, not wanting to see the penetrating stare Clay had on his face.