by Julie Miller
Shaking off both the cold and the negativity of her fatigue-fueled thoughts, Lucy crossed the driveway and followed the sidewalk around to Saint Luke’s visitors’ parking lot. She found Niall’s SUV easily enough and slung the long strap of her knitting bag over her shoulder and across her chest before locking it again.
Glimpsing a distorted movement reflecting off the side window, she shut the back door and swung around. She slowly released the breath that had locked up in her chest and nodded to the older couple walking past the rear bumper. Of course. It was probably them that she’d seen, reflecting at a weird angle as they approached and then passed Niall’s SUV. After that close call outside their condominium building last night, she was probably being extra paranoid about silver cars and parking lots. Still, it was hard to shake the sense that there was something unseen just beyond the corner of her eye, something that she was missing.
A shiver skittered down her spine that had nothing to do with the penetrating breeze. Had she imagined the car following her? Or simply confused another resident’s new vehicle with something similar she’d seen down in no-man’s-land? Holding the strap of her knitting bag in both fists, she walked to the rear of the SUV and looked up and down the lane of parked cars. Was someone watching her? She seemed to have a sixth sense for when Niall was studying her, and she lifted her gaze to the hospital’s fifth floor. Was he spying on her from the waiting-area windows, making sure she didn’t disappear before all the mysteries swirling through that brilliant head of his could be solved? Lucy frowned. All the glass on the front of the building reflected the sea of clouds, making it impossible to tell if anyone inside was overly curious about her. Best to get moving and go back inside.
Although she felt fairly certain that neither Roger nor the drunk from the aptly named no-man’s-land Thomas Watson had described would have any clue how to track her to this part of the city, she still found herself looking at all the cars she passed as she hurried across the parking lot. She was specifically looking for a silver sports car, but it was daunting to see exactly how many gray and silver vehicles there were in the parking lot, and impossible to know whether any of the people walking in and out of Saint Luke’s main doors belonged to one of those cars or if anyone, seen or unseen, was watching her.
The uneasy suspicion remained when she reentered the hospital’s lobby and moved through the main visitors’ area to the bank of elevators. Maybe it was just the chill of the dreary February air staying with her. Maybe that’s why she’d felt someone’s eyes on her—they’d thought she was a fool for venturing outside without mittens or a cap or even so much as an umbrella to ward off the coming rain.
The elevator doors opened, and Lucy watched with an envious tug on her heart as a nurse pushed out a wheelchair with a new mom holding her baby while the dad and a big brother and sister followed them with balloons and flowers and a basket of gifts. And though she managed a smile and “Congratulations” to the expanding family, Lucy’s arms tightened around her middle. That was never going to happen for her. Roger Campbell and her mother had seen to that. Despite her good fight to remain optimistic, a gloom as chilly and blah as the weather outside settled around her shoulders.
Once the elevator was clear, Lucy stepped inside. She had five floors to push the past out of her head and fix a legitimate smile on her face for Niall and Tommy and Millie and the Watsons and the rest of the world she intended to take on until she located Diana and reunited her with Tommy. She retreated to the back rail as two men converged on the waiting elevator, giving them space to come in. But the younger man darted past the gentleman carrying a bouquet of flowers, pushing a button as he slipped inside.
“Hey, I think that guy wanted—” The young man pushed the close button with rapid-fire repetition, nearly catching the other man’s outstretched hand between the sliding doors before he wisely pulled back to wait for the next car. “Okay.”
Guess you’re in a hurry.
Lucy arched an eyebrow at his rudeness and kept her distance from the preoccupied man. With his back to her and the collar of his leather jacket turned up, masking all but the top of his coal-black hair, she could only speculate whether fear for a loved one’s health or excitement over a new birth or simply being self-centered were what drove him to get to where he needed to go so quickly. She couldn’t even see around him to find out what floor number he’d pushed. But he certainly smelled good—if one liked the scents of Italian cooking that filled the elevator. He must be a chef or come from a family who—
“You were downtown yesterday, asking about Diana Kozlow?”
Lucy’s wandering thoughts smashed into the steel door of reality. Her gaze shot to his upturned collar and her heart raced with a wary excitement. “You know Diana? Can you help me?” She took a step forward but quickly retreated to the far corner of the car when he shifted his back to her, not only to keep his face hidden, but to expose the sheath of a long knife, strapped to the waist of his dark jeans. “Where can I find her?”
“You need to stop asking questions.” His accent, a mix of guttural consonants and rolling r’s, reminded her of the argument outside her laundry room and the answering machine message at her office.
“Were you at my building last night? Was Diana with you?” Was he the man Diana had sounded so afraid of on the answering machine? Had he hurt her? Had he threatened her with that knife? Hell, he wasn’t that much taller than Lucy, but he was muscular enough to do damage with his bare hands.
His only answer was a terse “Shut up. You’re only making it worse.”
“Making what worse?” She desperately wanted him to answer. “Who are you? Is Diana okay? Where is she?” One answer. Any answer. She was beginning to understand Niall’s obsession with resolving loose ends. “Please. She’s like a daughter to me. I just need to see her and know she’s okay. Can you help me? I need to talk to her.”
His shoulders hunched inside his jacket, and he exhaled an audible groan of what—impatience? Frustration? “What about the baby?”
He knew about the baby? “Tommy is hers, isn’t he?”
“Tommy?” The man angled his face partway toward hers, although she still couldn’t make out much more than olive skin with beads of sweat making the black strands of hair stick to his forehead.
“Tell me the baby’s real name. What does Diana call him?”
“Is he safe? He is well?” Was that a wistful note in his cryptic words?
He cared about Tommy. He knew Tommy. “Yes. Didn’t you see him last night? I think Diana did. He needs his mother. Can you take me to her?”
“Tommy is a good name. Whatever you do, don’t let that baby out of your sight. And don’t let him anywhere near Diana again.”
Again? Diana was the woman who’d left the lipstick kiss on Tommy’s forehead. “How can I? I don’t know where she is. What’s going on? Did you break into my apartment? Wait. What kind of car do you drive?” The elevator slowed its ascent and stopped with a soft bounce. She glanced up. Fourth floor. He was getting off without telling her anything except veiled threats that made her even more afraid for Diana. “Please. Is she okay?” He slipped between the sliding doors before they were fully open. Forgetting the knife and the muscles, she lunged forward and grabbed his arm to stop him. “I just want to talk—”
He winced and muttered a foreign curse before he jerked free of her grip and shoved her back into the elevator. Lucy barely caught a glimpse of dark eyes and sharp cheekbones before he reached back in to push the door-close button.
“Hey. Hey!” She clipped her elbow on the steel railing, sending a tingle of momentary numbness down to her fingertips, before landing on her bottom. But she ignored the bruising pain and scrambled to the control panel to reverse the command. She caught the door as it stopped, then opened again, narrowing her gaze on the bloody palm print sliding out of sight between the elevator and outside wall.
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br /> Confused shock stopped her for a moment. That was her palm print. The blood was on her hand.
But she wasn’t bleeding.
The mysterious man was injured.
And he was getting away.
“Hey, stop!” The staff and visitors walking the hall paused and turned as she rushed out. “Come back!”
“Miss?” A black man wearing a white lab coat over his tie and dress slacks put a hand on her arm. “Are you all right?”
She twisted away, taking a step one direction, then the opposite, looking for a leather coat. “Did you see a man get off the elevator? A dark-haired man?”
The woman beside him also wore a lab coat and carried a tablet computer. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. There was a man in the elevator. He must have been running.”
“This is Dr. McBride,” the woman introduced her companion. “Do you need him to look at that hand?”
“No.” Lucy flashed a smile and dismissed their concern. “This is his blood. I have to find him.”
“Him?”
“Did you see—” An elevator beeped beside the one she’d exited. “Do you know if that’s going up or down?”
The woman shrugged an apology as Dr. McBride asked, “What’s the man’s name?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never met him before.”
The doctor crossed to the nurses’ station and ordered them to notify security about the injured man.
“Do you need to wash up?” his assistant offered.
“No. I need to find...” Lucy’s gaze zeroed in on the door marked Stairway gently closing and took off at a run. “Excuse me.”
She pushed open the door and stopped on the concrete landing, glancing up and down, adjusting her hearing to the sudden quiet compared to the noises and voices out on the hospital floor. There. Footsteps running down the stairs.
“Wait!” she shouted, hurrying down the steel and concrete stairs. “I need your help.”
Lucy wasn’t an athlete by any stretch of the imagination, but she’d walked miles on the treadmill in the gym back in her building, so she pushed herself to move faster and catch the man before he exited the hospital. She slung her bag behind her back and balanced her hand against the railing, leaving her bloody mark as she spun around one landing and the next. She was nearly breathless, as much from desperation as from her sprint down four flights, when she burst through the stairwell exit onto the sidewalk outside.
“Where...” So many cars. Too many people. Too many bushes and trees.
Lucy almost headed over to the main entrance to see if the man who’d given her the cryptic warning had taken a turn somewhere and come out into the main lobby. But then she saw the small red blob seeping into the sidewalk a few feet away. She jogged out to the edge of the driveway, spotted another blood droplet on the opposite curb and hurried across into the main parking lot. There. A spot on the fender of someone’s car. Another one on the white arrow marking the turn lane to the exit. She wasn’t aware of the gray sky anymore, was barely aware of the damp chill in the air as she hurried behind the bloody trail. She was nearly to the road at the far end of the parking lot when the path she was following ended.
“No.” Her nostrils flared as she took a deep breath to slow her panic. “You’re my best lead.” She scanned the grassy brown berm for one more clue to finding the man, praying she hadn’t reached a dead end. “Help me. Help...”
Lucy looked up and saw an orangey-red pickup truck, its noisy engine idling and sending out plumes of stinky exhaust as it waited to turn onto the hilly road that ran in front of Saint Luke’s. She saw the driver, staring at her through the window.
Dark hair. Brown eyes. Sad brown eyes.
Lucy’s heart leaped in her chest. “Diana!”
The how and the why didn’t matter. Overwhelming relief gave her a second wind. Lucy charged up the hill.
“Diana!” The young woman splayed her fingers against the glass, turning away and shaking her head. Was that a wave goodbye? “No. Wait!”
She saw the blur of movement between two parked cars a second too late.
“I said to leave us alone!”
She caught a glimpse of shiny gray steel before something hard struck her in the temple, spinning the world around her. Lucy crumpled to her hands and knees as the man in the leather jacket charged past her.
Her jeans and sweatshirt were soaking up the moisture from the grass by the time she heard the squeal of tires against the pavement and her world faded from gray to black.
Chapter Six
Niall would allow Lucy ten minutes to come back from her errand.
At eleven minutes, he excused himself from the meeting with his father and Jane Boyle, which had somehow devolved into a discussion about overstepping personal boundaries and who’d be in charge of what once she moved in to care for Seamus. Leaving the two of them to butt heads, Niall went back to the waiting area, looking for dark curls and a knitting bag but finding neither. Adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose, he scanned up and down the hallway. No Lucy. Something was wrong.
Although he still hadn’t figured out why she’d pulled away from that kiss—and hadn’t even had time to fully process the impulse that had prompted him to put his fingers in her hair and taste every inch of her rosy lips in the first place when a verbal thank-you would have sufficed perfectly well—there were two things he knew for certain about Lucy McKane: she was a woman of her many words, and she didn’t want to be away from Tommy any longer than was necessary. If she’d promised to be right back, she should be here by now. She would be with the baby.
While assessing his options and formulating a plan, Niall rubbed his palm on the thigh of his jeans, trying to erase the memory of Lucy’s silky curls twisting around his fingers as if they’d grabbed hold of him with the same enthusiasm her grip against his chest had. He needed to concentrate on the clues around him and figure out his best plan of action. Realizing her purse and cell phone were still sitting there in the chair where she’d left them, and that calling her wasn’t an option, he quickly moved on to plan B.
Spying Keir and Millie conversing outside the ladies’ room, Niall strode down the hallway to join them. “Is Lucy in there?”
Millie shifted back and forth on her feet, rocking the cooing infant on her shoulder. “No. Tommy and I were the only ones in there. I haven’t seen Lucy since we left.”
“Keir, have you seen her?” Niall wondered at the little gut punch of satisfaction when Tommy shifted his alert brown eyes to him at the sound of his voice.
“No, bro.” Keir gave him a playful punch on the arm. “Aw, come on. I liked her. You haven’t scared her off already, have you?” His teasing grin quickly faded when he didn’t get a rise out of Niall. “Hey, just kidding. Is something wrong?”
Niall couldn’t wait here and play negotiator while his father and Ms. Boyle tried to reach a compromise. And he sure as hell didn’t have time to be responsible for keeping Duff’s mouth shut in there to prevent a serious rift between the family and the woman they needed to see to their grandfather’s recovery. Instead, he took Millie’s arm and walked her toward Seamus’s room. “Are you okay watching Tommy a little longer?”
“Of course. What’s happened, Niall?”
“Lucy went out to the car. She should have been back by now.”
“She said she thought someone had been following her the past couple of days. Do you think he found her?”
“What?” Niall stopped and looked down into Millie’s crinkled blue eyes. “Who’s following her?”
“She didn’t know. Someone in a silver car.”
“Ah, hell. There was a car like that at our building last night. Silver Camaro. Nearly ran her over.”
Millie wrapped her hand around the back of Tommy’s head,
as if she didn’t want him to hear this surprising tidbit of news. “She said she spotted it downtown when she was looking for her foster daughter and then again about a block from your building. She didn’t mention anything about last night.”
“Probably because she didn’t want to upset you,” Keir suggested. “But if this guy has located where she lives and saw you two leaving this morning—”
“He could have tracked us to her office and then the hospital.” Niall raked his fingers through his hair, berating himself for making such a rookie mistake. “I wasn’t even looking for something like that.”
“When you work a crime, you’re used to the people being dead, not chasing after you,” Keir pointed out. “It’s been a long time since your academy training.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“Maybe it’s her foster daughter, trying to make contact again,” Millie suggested.
Niall doubted it. “Or the creep trying to hurt Diana and Tommy.”
Keir was the detective here. He pulled out his phone. “I can do a search for silver Camaros in Kansas City. If you’re thinking about tracking one down without a license plate or even make and model, though, it’ll be a long shot. Maybe we can narrow down the search grid to certain neighborhoods.”
Niall nodded and resumed walking. He wondered why Lucy hadn’t mentioned seeing the Camaro more than once when she’d seemed so open about everything else, including some disturbing hints regarding her past. If someone had been following her, that could explain her instinct to punch first and ask questions later, or run outside to confront whoever was tailing her.
When they reached room number 5017, he pushed open the door and ushered them inside. He dropped the diaper bag on a chair and crossed to the bed where Seamus Watson lay. The old man’s bright blue eyes tracking Niall’s movements were the only color in his wan face. “Grandpa, I brought someone to keep you company.” He leaned over and kissed Seamus’s forehead beside the layers of gauze that covered the bullet hole and surgical incision there. “I have to go to work. Millie’s going to introduce you to little Tommy. He belongs to a friend. He’s...” He palmed the small, warm head resting on Millie’s shoulder. Tommy’s eyes looked up at him, too. “...a baby.”