Race Against Time

by Sharon Sala

  * * *

  Nick had been smelling food out on the floor for a while now and guessed they were making the rounds delivering lunch. A few minutes later the door opened and Quinn’s nurse came in with a tray.

  “Hey, Betty.”

  “Hello, Detective... I have a tray for you, too,” she said and glanced at Quinn. “Sleeping, is she?”

  “I appreciate the food, and yes, she’s been sleeping awhile. I’ll wake her up and help her to the bathroom,” he said.

  Betty went back for the second tray and set it on the ledge below the window.

  “It’s meat loaf, one of our better efforts. Enjoy.”

  “Thanks,” Nick said. Then he popped a pain pill and washed it down with a drink of iced tea from his tray.

  Betty quickly checked Quinn’s vitals and then left as Nick leaned over to wake her up. Asleep, and with no makeup, she looked like the little girl he’d once known. Only this woman was no longer a child, and he wondered what it would take to bridge the secrets in the darkness in which she lived. Her skin looked so soft, her lips so tempting—Whoa, where had that come from? Spending all this time by her side, protecting her again—he somehow felt connected to her, as though they’d been destined to find each other after all this time. But it would be taking advantage of her helplessness if he gave in to this sudden yearning, so he settled for a gentle stroke of his fingers on the side of her forehead instead.

  She sighed.

  He ran the back of his finger down the side of her cheek and thought how the little Queenie he’d known had done a fine job of growing up.

  “Wake up, Your Majesty. Lunch has been served.”

  Quinn roused, then winced as she rolled over.

  “What did you say?”

  “Lunch is here. Want to go to the bathroom first?”

  “Yes.”

  He let down the guardrail and pulled back the covers as she struggled to sit up.

  “Let me help,” he said and eased her into a sitting position and then out of bed.

  “I don’t need—” she started to say.

  Nick winked. “But I do. Hold on to my arm.”

  She moaned when the room began to spin.

  “I guess I need help after all,” she said and grabbed his arm.

  Nick waited as she steadied herself, and then he walked her to the bathroom door. After she went inside, he moved a distance away to give her privacy. As he was waiting, he remembered another time when they were together just like this. She’d gotten sick and wound up in a hospital, dehydrated from constant nausea. He had been afraid she was going to die. When she finally came home, he sneaked into her room after lights were out and slept on the floor beside her bed, afraid to leave her on her own.

  Although he hadn’t thought of her in years until she rode back in his world, that same feeling of responsibility and devotion he’d had for her then had come back in spades.

  Moments later the bathroom door opened, and he let go of the past and went to meet her. She was pale and trembling, but the tentative smile she gave him made his heart thump.

  “Thanks,” Quinn said and made her way back to bed with his help.

  She was super conscious of his body looming beside her. She was tall, but she had to look up to see his face. His shoulders were wide and his strength was evident. She wondered what it would feel like to be held within his arms. She still couldn’t believe she’d found him again, and while life had taught her not to believe in happy endings, she was glad he was here for her now.

  Quinn wrinkled her nose as she removed the cover from her food. It didn’t look any better than it smelled, but Nick’s palate was obviously not as picky. He was already chewing his first bite.

  He noticed she wasn’t eating and grinned.

  “Wait until you taste it. Kudos to the cooks for saving the salt for another day.”

  She smiled at his joke. He seemed to be such a happy man. She forked a green bean and put it in her mouth, then wrinkled her nose again. He was right. It needed salt, but she’d been hungry too many times in her life to quibble about seasoning.

  They ate in mutual silence for a couple of minutes, and then Nick paused to take a drink and caught Quinn looking at him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” she said quickly, poking at the meat loaf and taking a small bite.

  “Then I’ll start,” Nick said.

  Quinn looked puzzled.

  “Start what?”

  “Asking the questions that fill in the blanks.”

  But Quinn didn’t want to talk about her life and headed him off in another direction.

  “No, I’ll ask the questions,” she said with a smile. “Have you ever been married?”

  “No, but engaged once,” Nick said and took another bite of meat loaf.

  “What happened?” Quinn asked.

  “She changed her mind and joined the army. She chose Uncle Sam over me.”

  Quinn smiled.

  “You’re a funny one, aren’t you? I don’t remember that about you.”

  “I figured out early on that if I made the jokes and laughed first, then it didn’t matter what anyone else said or did. I was the one calling the shots. And my aunt and uncle helped. They gave me confidence. Knowing they’d come looking for me made me feel wanted. And when they took me home with them, I took heart from the fact that I’d been chosen. I finally mattered to someone.”

  “I know I was just a little kid, but you always mattered to me,” Quinn said, then quickly reached for her glass and took a sip of iced tea to keep from tearing up.

  “Thank you,” Nick said. “Now it’s my turn. What are you running away from?”

  He saw her flinch, and then her head came up, her eyes narrowing before she looked away.

  “The devil,” she muttered and shoved her tray table away.

  “Who was he to you?”

  “My last foster father.”

  Nick realized almost instantly that she didn’t want to talk about this. As much as he wanted to know, to understand, he didn’t want to upset her.

  “Do you still like peanut butter and honey sandwiches?” he asked.

  She blinked. Where had that come from? Then she saw the compassion in his eyes and was instantly grateful he’d backed away from the tough questions.

  “Yes, on white bread.”

  He grinned. “I think I remember, the gummier the bread was, the better you liked it.”

  She laughed.

  “As long as it’s white, I’m good,” she said.

  “Where did you graduate high school?” he asked.

  “Still in Chicago, just a different suburb. Is your family close by?”

  “Yes. They live here in the city. They’re finally retired and spend all their time and money spoiling their four grandkids.”

  Quinn was staring again, fascinated by the changing expressions on his face as he talked.

  “How many children do they have...counting you?”

  He scooped up a spoonful of some kind of fruit pie and aimed it at her mouth.

  “Open,” he said, and she did. “Four...counting me,” he added. “Santino is just older than me. He and Lara have two little boys who look and act just like him. Melina and her husband, Aidan, have one baby girl, and Francisco and Donita have a girl. She’s about three, I think. I can’t wait for you to meet everyone, especially Aunt Juana and Uncle Tonio.”

  Quinn’s chest tightened. Meet his family? What will they think of a woman like me?

  “They won’t approve. I’m wired all wrong,” she said and then picked up her spoon and took another bite of his dessert.

  “Bullshit. You don’t know them, so don’t go getting yourself all worked up for nothing.” He handed her his dess
ert and took hers. He scooped up a bite and popped it in his mouth, then winked, trying to tease the shadows from her eyes. “Ha. Got the first bite from both of them.”

  Quinn paused, watching how laughter lit up his face, then finished the dessert.

  Once they were done, Nick stacked their trays and set them aside to be picked up later. Another nurse named Trina came in to check Quinn’s wound, which changed the mood in the room.

  Quinn reached for Nick’s hand, clenching it as the nurse began removing the bandage to be replaced. She grimaced at the spots where it was stuck, mutely bearing the pain.

  The nurse was finally through and getting ready to leave when out of nowhere the sprinkler systems came on and began to soak the room. A few seconds later the fire alarm went off.

  “Stay here,” Trina cried and ran out of the room.

  Before Nick could react, Quinn came out of the bed like she’d been shot all over again and ran for the door.

  Nick caught her in his arms.

  “Wait, honey, wait! She told us to stay here.”

  But Quinn was frantic. The water in her face had triggered the panic. Her heart was pounding; her breath was coming in gasps. She’d lost all sense of reality and in her mind was trying not to die.

  “Let me go! Let me go!” she screamed. “You’re going to drown me!”

  Shocked, Nick immediately turned her loose and stepped back, holding his hands up in the air while the water rained down upon them.

  “Look at me, Quinn! Look! I’m not holding you. I’m not touching you.”

  She covered her face.

  “Make the water stop. Please make the water stop.”

  He had no idea what had triggered this panic in her, but ran into the bathroom, yanked the plastic shower curtain from the hooks and came back to find her squatting in a corner of the room with her hands over her head. He crouched down beside her and pulled the shower curtain over the both of them as the water continued to pour.

  “It’s okay now. There’s no water on your face. You’re safe.” But Quinn just moaned and kept rocking back and forth.

  “Damn it,” he said softly and pulled her into his arms. To his surprise, she didn’t resist but collapsed against him, her face buried against his chest.

  Just as suddenly as the sprinklers had come on, they went off. Nick tossed the curtain aside, then picked her up and took her to the recliner.

  He didn’t talk as he held her close. There was nothing to say. He’d seen enough PTSD to recognize a flashback. He didn’t know why she reacted to water in her face, or who was responsible for the trauma, but he would find out. He was damn good at finding the bad guys.

  Six

  The sprinklers were still raining water down on the fourth floor, and nurses were hurrying door by door down the halls, making quick bed checks to assess the condition of their patients and move people where necessary. The firemen had just arrived and were looking for whatever had triggered the sprinkler systems and alarm.

  Betty, the RN, was in a rush and counting heads when she saw thick smoke snaking out from under the door of Star Davis’s room. She ran toward it, calling for the nearest firefighter as she went, then pushed the door inward. A cloud of gray smoke billowed out, and she coughed and dropped to her knees just like she was trained. Once the initial cloud had escaped the room, the smoke wasn’t so bad. She passed the source of the issue as she crawled through the doorway—the wastepaper basket must have caught fire somehow, though the water seemed to have put it out.

  A short distance into the room she froze, horrified by what she saw. A body spread out in front of her and the contents of a lunch tray scattered about brought her to a sliding halt on the wet floor. She recognized him as the man who’d been guarding Star’s door, but Star was nowhere in sight. As more smoke escaped the room, the scene became clearer, as did the plastic knife in the man’s throat and the blood running out of his nose and scalp. The nurse gasped and reached for his wrist, searching for a pulse. It was there, but weak. Relieved, she dashed to the bathroom, hoping against hope that Star might be in there, but the room was empty. She ran back to the door, shouting for help.

  Within minutes the room was full.

  The wounded man was put on a stretcher and was on his way to surgery, while the firemen agreed this was the source of the fire that triggered the alarm, then shut down the sprinkler system and took a report, leaving the rest to the police and hospital staff.

  Hospital Security was on the scene until the police arrived, knowing they would be working with two possible scenarios. Either Star Davis had been abducted by whoever attacked her guard, or she’d attacked him herself and set the fire to escape. Security put a guard on her room to protect the evidence, although there was probably little to gather since everything was water-soaked, and went to check security footage.

  * * *

  When Anton’s driver pulled into the hospital parking lot he was immediately denied access to go farther.

  “What’s happening?” Anton asked from the back seat.

  “I don’t know, sir, but it appears there’s been an emergency at the hospital. There are fire trucks and police cars everywhere.”

  “Get me as close as possible,” Anton ordered.

  “Yes, sir.”

  They parked at the back of the lot, and then Anton and his bodyguards got out and headed toward the front entrance. They didn’t get far before they were stopped again by the police barricade and a trio of officers.

  “Sorry, sir. Emergency entries only at this time,” one officer said.

  Anton frowned.

  “Why not? What’s happened here? The mother of my son is a patient on the fourth floor, and I need to see her. I need to make sure she’s okay.”

  “The fourth floor?” the officer said.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Star Davis.”

  The officer frowned.

  “Sir, I need you to come with me.”

  Thinking he was being personally escorted in, Anton was surprised when the officer swerved to the right a few yards from the front entrance.

  “Hey!” Anton yelled.

  The officer turned.

  “This way,” he said.

  Anton ignored him and stormed toward the front doors, determined to get to Star while he had the chance. But when he veered back toward the entrance, cops came running.

  Despite Anton’s best arguments, his bodyguards were sent back to the limo, and he was marched toward a trio of men in suits standing beside an ambulance.

  Anton didn’t know what was going on, but he was no longer willing to argue. The fact that they were not in uniform made him anxious. If they were FBI, maybe all his careful planning was already too late. Maybe they had what they needed on him. This could be the moment he was put under arrest.

  A bald man with a sheen of sweat on his head flashed his badge.

  “Mr. Baba, I’m Detective Pitney with the Las Vegas Police. We were told you were with Star Davis when she was admitted. Is this correct?”

  “Yes,” Anton said. “She is the mother of my son. I came today to take her home. What’s happening here? Why am I not allowed to go inside?”

  “There was a small fire on the floor she was on. They’re cleaning up now,” Pitney explained.

  “Did Miss Davis know you were coming?” the second man asked. He had thick, curly hair cut close to his head and looked like a miniature version of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  “Who are you?”

  “Special Agent Gleason, FBI,” he said and pulled out his badge.

  Anton’s heart skipped a beat, but his best defense had always been offense, and so he immediately challenged the Fed.

  “I’m not answering another question until someone tells me
what’s going on. I want to see Star.”

  “What about your son? Do you want to see your son, too?” Gleason asked.

  Anton’s gut knotted, but he didn’t let them know they’d touched a nerve. He’d do what he’d always done: deny, deny, deny.

  “What does Sammy have to do with anything?” he asked, feigning surprise at the question.

  Gleason looked at him sternly. “If Sammy’s mother is here in the hospital, and you’re here in front of me, where is Sammy?”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on. Sammy’s with the nanny! What does this have to do with anything?”

  Agent Gleason was watching Baba’s face and couldn’t tell if the man was lying or truly ignorant of the fact that the law had his son secreted away. But he was about to find out.

  “There was a fire on the fourth floor that started in Star’s room. They found a man—the guard you apparently paid to stay outside her room—unconscious on the floor and bleeding from multiple wounds.”

  Anton gasped. “Luis? No! Oh no! Where is Star? Is she okay?”

  “We were hoping you could tell us,” Gleason drawled.

  “You what? What does that mean? She’s not here?”

  Gleason nodded.

  Anton didn’t have to pretend anymore. His shock at this news was real. He couldn’t believe that she’d done it again, that she would betray him twice this way, but he couldn’t let them know she was running from him. Obviously the Feds now had his son; that much was clear to him by the way they were talking to him, but he didn’t have to let on that he knew it. He could still play the role of panicked father if it came down to that.

  “None of this makes any sense,” Anton said. “Luis is one of my more experienced bodyguards. He was supposed to be keeping her safe. You’re telling me he was injured, that there was a fire in her room? How did that happen? And why isn’t she here? Was she abducted?”

  Star Davis had not been abducted—not by anyone but Baba. She’d obviously run, just like she’d run from Baba before. Gleason wasn’t going to tell him they’d already seen her making her escape on the security footage, though.

  “We don’t know yet. We’re still viewing security footage.”