Painted Walls

by Megan Mitcham

  The door gave way. Ava swung the gun high, scanning high to low. No one there. Committing again, she rushed to the corner of the stairwell and cleared the remaining area that had been blocked by the door.

  Empty and quiet.

  The trail smeared its way down the stairs into the bowels of the hospital. To the modern-day catacombs.

  Thank God for sufficient lighting.

  An ear-cracking slam came from her left and Ava’s heart lodged into her esophagus. Her skin seemed to stretch off her skin and snap back into place. So much for centered.

  The fucking door.

  In all the scanning and clearing and blood trailing she’d forgotten to catch the door.

  Shit!

  If Rory was still down there, that surely alerted him. Though her drumming heartbeat might’ve given her away had the door not. Every tiny noise reverberated in the concrete cave like a beacon.

  One step at a time, Ava followed the trail.

  Focus on the present.

  Fear batted around in the back of her mind. What if this was Keen’s blood? What if this was all a well-baited trap?

  One step to go until she reached the next landing. Ava clamped her hand over her mouth to seal in her scream.

  Two legs in charcoal dress pants lay prone on the last two steps of the landing below. The scuffed soles of two wingtips stared up at her.

  27

  She didn’t so much as run as gravity yanked her down the steps. Her hand squeaked on the railing, but she held tight. If she let go, she’d topple over.

  Black hair. The man on the steps had black hair.

  Air moved again in Ava’s lungs. Her Gumby legs toughened to bone. It wasn’t Keen. At the same time her throat constricted and tears obscured her vision. Unable to give the relief its proper reverence, Ava sucked it up, literally.

  Rory was still out there and a body lay a few feet from her.

  Ava rounded the landing. She put the entire next level into her view. Just that quickly she faced the barrel of a gun.

  Gun to gun they stood frozen for the slightest of moments.

  “Jesus Christ, Ava, I could have shot you,” Keen whispered.

  She glanced to the blood on the ground between them. “I thought you were dead.”

  They lowered their weapons. Keen stepped around the body and came toward her. He grabbed her shirt front with his free hand and pulled her close. His head nestled atop hers for a sweet moment. She grabbed him back, buried her face in his chest, and inhaled.

  One hit was all she got. He kissed her hair and then unfolded her from his arms.

  Ava blinked the tears away. No time for them now. But later, she feared the emotional letdown. She’d thought she’d lost him right after she’d found him, really found him.

  Keen cleared his throat. He trapped her chin with his knuckle and thumb and made her look at him. Her heart squeezed. Here in the scary cave of death, Ava smiled.

  When he stepped back and the body came into view, her smile faltered. She stepped closer and leaned over the man. With two fingers she checked his pulse, but the skin held no warmth.

  “He’s not even… He’s been dead a while.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I know.”

  “From the look of things on the ground floor, this guy just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  He squatted next to her and reached into the man’s pants pocket. The edge of a small brown double billfold peeked out. Keen opened it. “Doctor Eric Reiter.”

  “No.” She tried to stand, to get away. She landed on her ass in the trail of blood.

  “What is it? Who is it?”

  “He was a great guy, a little full of himself, but he saved lives every day. That would heighten anyone’s sense of worth, right?”

  Keen stuck out his hand. “I’d fall over, just trying to get out of bed or tie my shoes.”

  Ava grabbed his hand and held on, literally and figuratively.

  He hoisted her off the floor. “At least you’re wearing black pants.”

  She knew he was trying to lighten the mood. Her fingers squeezed his extra hard before letting go. “Rory must have seen us together. We went out a few times two years ago.”

  Keen turned to continue the descent. “Stay behind me.”

  She clutched his arm. “It’s a trap.”

  Her hand didn’t halt his progress or even slow it. The only thing grabbing him did was tip her off balance. She stumbled down the steps and collided against his back. The blood on her pants suctioned them to her bottom.

  Keen’s gaze remained locked ahead. “I know.”

  Ava clamped both hands on his arms and dug in her heels.

  When he turned toward her, all the warmth that’d been in his eyes when he’d pulled her to him had dissolved. A darkness she’d never seen before clouded them. He pulled her hands off his arm.

  “He won’t haunt you another hour or kill another person. This ends now.”

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  He was right and she hated it. Uncharacteristically, she wanted them to fall back into a defensive position. She wanted others to take the lead. Others to be in the killer’s sights. She wanted Keen protected above all, even more than she wanted Rory Coghlan’s head on a spit.

  The only way she could shield him from harm was by moving forward with him. There was no stopping Keen. There was no backing down for him.

  She agreed with a nod and they cleared a path one flight at a time until they reached the sub level. They moved as a team through the doorway and into a long corridor that branched at the far end into what seemed a maze of halls.

  Gone was the stark white of the hospital. In its place, a forgotten world of grey. Exposed pipes ran overhead with raw concrete under foot. Stale air assaulted her nose. A fine sheen of sweat clung to her skin.

  They moved down the main passage in search of the killer. Keen took the most vulnerable position, shoving her a step behind him.

  With a nod of his head, Keen pointed out a series of blood droplets. Two were perfectly round spots with a third smudged…by a shoe. A hint of red stamped the floor in stride-length intervals until it faded completely two yards away.

  Maybe Rory had gotten socked in the nose. Perhaps Eric had busted the bastard’s lip. Maybe he’d left her another body. She strangled the gun in her hand.

  Keen signaled and they advanced. The corridor ran the length of the hospital. They moved one step at a time. Several doors lined the sides. Ava tried the first. The latch didn’t budge.

  The second, third, and fourth were sealed tight. Literally, there was no place to go. If Coghlan decided to pop out of any one of the doors—which seemed more and more likely by the second—they were carnival targets, only easier.

  They’d walked right into his hands. Keen knew it too. The gleam in his eye and the set of his jaw said as much.

  Ava’s mind screamed at them to run. Run back down the corridor and into the stairwell, the only place they weren’t open marks.

  Before Ava could voice those thoughts Keen snatched her hand and propelled her forward with such speed she could barely keep up. Her heart galloped in her chest. Her legs did the same across the dank floor.

  Each door they passed was a kill shot waiting to take them. An opportunity for life’s end.

  Two-thirds back toward the stairwell door a sinister voice broke the silence. “Uh-uh!”

  Keen spun with the agility of an NBA star. His big hand caught her by the shoulder in a smooth motion. Before she could blink she was on the ground. Keen skidded to a knee in front of her.

  “It’s not your time yet,” the sing-song tone mocked.

  Two shots that said otherwise zinged above their heads.

  Keen fired two shots before the first crack of Rory’s bullet smacked into the concrete behind them.

  He turned toward her. His expression was tight and calculated. “Get to the door now.”

  She rose, unwilling to waste a moment ar
guing. The balls of her shoes dug for traction on the damp concrete floor. Her muscles, honed from years of running, tensed and stretched. She pulled the air and pushed it back.

  Another shot split the air. She couldn’t see where it came from or where it landed.

  “Hurry,” Keen yelled.

  The reassurance of his voice carried her to the door. Her shoulder jammed into the metal frame, bouncing her into the cover of the stairwell. She dropped to her knees and scrambled to the threshold.

  Keen still knelt on one knee, his gun aimed at the last door at the end of the hallway.

  In a roar of terror and fury Ava screamed to Keen, “Move!”

  He fired off one shot, turned in a crouch, and ran. He took to the far wall. It left him more exposed, but it gave Ava the line of sight she needed to obliterate Coghlan. If only he’d give her the chance.

  Ava’s finger itched to pull the trigger. All she needed was a target.

  Come on, move out just a little.

  No movement came from the door Coghlan had shot from. Before she even got a chance at a target Keen crashed into her.

  They sailed back through the door way, landing with a thud. His hand caught her head, cushioning its blow against the concrete floor. He crushed her with his weight and force. Behind him, the metal door closed with an echoing gong. Above them, furious footfalls reverberated, growing closer by the second.

  Ava lifted her gun.

  Again Keen didn’t give her a chance to shoot. He grabbed her shoulders and lifted her off the ground, and then shoved against the wall. His broad back steadied her, or rather trapped her, from moving. Gun at the ready, her guard—Keen—waited. His breathing steadied and nearly ceased as the steps grew nearer.

  Ava kept her gaze and gun on the door they’d just flown through. Well, the closer the footsteps drew the more her gaze bounced back and forth between the steps and door.

  On the landing above, all sound ceased. They’d reached the body.

  A shadow moved cautiously around the banister and into their line of sight.

  “Christ, Beaumont! What the hell are you doing down here and why the fuck do you have a gun?” Keen interrogated.

  The gun, which had been at the ready, lowered. He eased it to his side, but his gaze fluttered around as though looking for the right explanation, instead of the truth. “I saw Ava sneak out of the waiting room and when she didn’t come back I got worried. As for the gun, I usually carry one. After all these murders and Lara’s attack, I’ll have it close at hand from now on.”

  Keen maintained his centennial stance from in front of her. He’d caught it too. Mason was hiding something.

  “I was in the ER when Winslow talked to the nurse about locking the place down. So, I knew something was up. There were agents outside the OR. I figured Lara was safe enough in there. I also guessed you were up to your ass in it and here you are—a dead body up there and I heard the shots at the top of the stairs.”

  Finally, Keen eased off Ava and dug his phone out of his pocket and dialed. All the while he kept his gaze on Mason Beaumont. “Winslow, where are you? Is the hospital locked down?”

  Apparently satisfied with the answers, Keen switched to demands. “Get plans for this bullshit they call a sub level. We need to find all the entry and exit routes. Get someone with keys to the twenty doors down here. Get a crime scene unit down to the first level of the southwest stair case. And get me lots of men with lots of guns, now. Coghlan was down here, but I have a feeling he’s running.”

  28

  Goddamn son-of-a-bitch!

  Keen hated it when he was right. The weaselly bastard had vanished.

  I mean, grow a pair. Stay and fight. Be done with it already.

  But no, after taking two shots Coghlan had escaped through the guts of the hospital like the cowardly shit he was.

  Keen braced his forearms against the frame of Ava’s living room window. In brooding thought he stared blankly out the glass at the vibrant moon. Small arms wrapped around him.

  Highs and lows.

  For so many years he’d been high on her. Then low without her. Now she was his and there was no way he’d let anyone hurt her.

  “I won’t let him hurt you.”

  “And I won’t let him hurt you.”

  “The illusion of control,” he scoffed.

  “The illusion of love. It tricks us into believing everything will work out, that everything will be okay because we have love.”

  He grabbed her hands and brought them to his mouth. They were so little they nearly disappeared in his own. His lips trailed over her sweet palms and he remembered the feel of them on his dick. His shaft grew with the memory. Keen smiled a wicked smile she couldn’t see and eased her middle finger in his mouth. Leisurely, he teased it with his tongue, grazing it up one side and down the other. He suckled.

  Behind him, Ava shifted from one foot to the other. She tried to pull away, but he clamped her arm under his, barring her escape. He moved to the other hand, doing the same.

  Her dance changed from frustrated to seductive. Pointed nipples brushed back and forth below his shoulder blades. Hips ground against him, pushing him forward against the glass.

  “Let’s embrace the illusions while we can.” Her words tickled the back of his neck.

  When he dropped her hands they went straight to the fly of his pants. She massaged his rigid shaft. He gave a grunt of appreciation. In reward her hands worked his button, fly, and then boxers, releasing him from the binding cloth.

  His pants shucked, Ava turned him around. Half-closed lids and pink cheeks nearly undid him. Her eyes flashed with mischief. Her lips curved on one side in pure devilry. That hot gaze dropped to his dick. He knew what she wanted. His breath hitched, waiting to see if his innocent Ava would take what she desired.

  Slowly, she slid the shoulder holster off his broad back and set it aside. As she unfastened each button her mouth kissed a trail over the revealed flesh. And by God, when she got the final button she sank to her knees. Her lips kissed the tip of his throbbing cock.

  Sanity gone, he watched as she took her first taste of him. Electricity sizzled all the way to his toes. She savored him, rolling her tongue over his shaft again and again.

  She applied suction and took him deeper. Then the tug of war started. One second she pulled him out to the unnerving end. For one heavy second she waited before she plunged him back inside. Keen braced his hands on the window frame. She worked him with skill she had no right to possess, tugging and slurping at just the right times.

  His knees bent and his hands plunged into her loose hair. A moan vibrated her sweet throat and nearly kicked his ass off the edge of ecstasy. Keen gritted his teeth. No way would he come in her mouth. Too good at this or not, she’d been a virgin yesterday.

  Her nails sank into his cheeks like grappling hooks. She pulled him forward and the tip of his cock nestled down the back of her throat.

  “Ava.” His chin arched to the sky. His eyes watered from the strain of holding his release.

  The tension increased on his shaft. She swallowed him down. Once. Twice. Three times.

  “Stop,” he pleaded. He couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. “I don’t want to come yet.”

  Oh, that was an out-and-out lie.

  He wanted to fill her up, but he didn’t want to gag her or freak her out. And unloading in his sweet Ava’s throat didn’t seem like the best way to say I love you.

  The compression eased. She slid off his tip. He strained his eyes open and looked at her. Her red lips pursed. “You just don’t want it to be over yet.”

  Her words smacked into the tip of his cock. He sighed.

  “Just trust me.” Ava winked, and then battered his head into the back of her throat.

  Mercilessly she used her hands to pull him forward and her mouth to push him back. Forgive him, but he joined in the frenzy, straining his grip on her hair and pumping her on his dick.

  Keen groaned and sank dee
per into his squat. The pressure of no return squeezed his balls and he let it. A heavy electric current gathered at the base of his spine. Ava’s hand wrapped around the base of his cock and constricted. The current zipped along his spine and branched off to every one of the billion nerve endings in his body. The scorched bliss of orgasm hugged him close, but the hot spurts of his ejaculation didn’t race to the end of his cock.

  Ava eased off the end of his shaft with a toothy grin and tousled hair. “You just didn’t want to come in my mouth, hmm?” Her sleek little brow ratcheted.

  “Not just yet,” he admitted.

  “I may have been a virgin until yesterday, but I’m not a prude. Not doing something makes a person that much more curious. I’ve learned a thing or two through the years.”

  “Oh.” He couldn’t keep the disappointment from his tone. The word virgin didn’t mean exactly what it used to.

  She licked the tip of his still-swollen penis. “Don’t look so disappointed. It’s not like I blew the entire hockey team. My roommate did. She liked to talk. Really, I think she liked to watch me blush.”

  “I like to watch you blush too.”

  He hauled her off the floor. Her puffy red lips drew him in like a bull. He crushed her smug smile under his mouth. The soft peals of her giggle drugged him. So this was what getting high felt like.

  Keen wanted more. One by one he unfastened the dainty buttons on her blouse. Like she had, he feasted on each precious inch of skin his fingers revealed. The swells of her small breasts nuzzled his face in heaven’s valley. He hovered there, testing the gentle swells at the edge of her lace cups.

  For a moment he pulled back and leveled his gaze on hers. She giggled again and he attacked. He caught her bottom lip lightly between his teeth and ground his erection at the juncture of her thighs.

  Soon she clutched at the back of his shirt. Her hips undulated. Moans spilled from between their lips. He stripped her one piece of clothing at a time, drawing each article off as though they had all the time in the world. In truth, he had to collect himself or he might beg her never to leave him. She’d said she loved him, but hadn't she loved him before? Hadn’t he loved her?