“I’m surprised your employees haven’t taken care of that problem.” Ruger had seen the men of Rescue for Hire. Every one of them was lethal.
“They have, but the weather around the country has gone crazy lately, and the guys are working their asses off. I’m contemplating forming a team out West,” Cade replied. “Take a couple of days to think about it and get back to me. I’d love to add you to the payroll.”
“All right, I will. Thanks,” Ruger replied.
Sheriff Steve Titan dropped down into the chair next to Cade, interrupting anything else the big guy would have said. Ruger had met the sheriff and his mouthy partner, Haley, at Bishop’s wedding. He found their dynamics fun to watch.
“What’s up? You look stressed,” Cade said.
The sheriff ran his hand through his short hair. Agitation was evident to anyone watching. A waitress came by with a tray full of cold bottles of beer. Steve gestured with his finger, and she handed him one. After twisting the top off, Steve took a long, hard swallow from the bottle.
Steve set the beer on the table, before he let his big body slump back in his chair. “My deputy who was kidnaped and injured by Leonel Heartland has disappeared from the hospital.”
“How can that happen?” Cade asked.
The sheriff’s face grew red, and a muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know. I’ve been calling him at least once a week, but we had a firebug in town, and things got intense. Apparently he’s been missing for a week, and no one bothered to inform me about it. The local police are investigating, but they’re running on the assumption that Spencer left willingly. That doesn’t make it a high priority.”
“But you think different?” Cade asked.
“I knew Spencer was depressed. But he wouldn’t just disappear. I’m certain he’d have told my chief deputy, Synn Romeo, or his partner, Craig, if he were going somewhere. Since Heartland kidnaped Craig and Spencer together, they’ve talked on the phone every few days,” Steve explained. “Craig was planning to take a ride down to the hospital this week to visit Spencer.”
Ruger listened to every word the sheriff was saying. The name Spencer wasn’t a real common name. Whenever Ruger heard it, his heart always skipped a beat.
His father was a lifer in the army. The family followed him around the world. In Ruger’s senior year of high school, they ended up at Fort McCoy in western Wisconsin. Ruger liked to sit on a short stone wall across the street from the school and smoke cigarettes during the lunch period.
One day he noticed a freshman with a mop of curly blond hair and thick black glasses hanging out with a group of kids farther down the wall. Ruger found it weird that the guy never smoked like the rest of them. He seemed like an odd man out.
A couple of weeks later, shouts erupted from that group, and Ruger watched the leader push the curly blond up against the wall. The blond had received a punch to the stomach before Ruger broke up the fight by laying the leader out on the ground with a few well-placed punches of his own.
From then on, he had a blond companion when he smoked cigarettes by the wall. Very little actual talking happened. It was mostly Ruger smoking and the blond fidgeting.
“What are you going to do?” Cade asked, interrupting Ruger’s thoughts.
“My hands are tied. I can’t take over a case from another jurisdiction,” the sheriff replied.
Cade’s smile held a hint of evil, and excitement glittered in his eyes. “I think my team would be happy to look into the situation. You know we respect the law, but sometimes our way of doing things has better results.”
Steve laughed. “I have to admit most of the time your methods do get the outcome you’re looking for. Do me a favor and keep this as clean as possible. Spencer is still an employee of the Granite County Sheriff’s Department. I’m going to take a trip down there tomorrow and try to find some answers. I’ll let you know if anything turns up.”
“Sounds good,” Cade replied.
“What’s his name?” Ruger asked.
The sheriff’s dark gaze turned toward Ruger, surprise evident on his face. Ruger wasn’t a big talker, so he supposed it might have shocked the man that Ruger had spoken up.
“Spencer Ryland,” the sheriff answered.
Ruger’s heart stopped, and cool deadly intent took over his system. Turning his head toward Cade, he said, “Put me on the payroll. I’ll take care of your property, but first I’ll help you get Spencer back.”
Chapter Two
Voices penetrated Spencer’s foggy, confused brain.
“The temperatures for the next three days will be in the high eighties,” said a man whose words were crisp and articulate. “There will be a chance of rain every evening…”
A high-pitched women’s voice startled Spencer with its accusatory and angry tone. “Avery mentioned he saw you at the hospital early one morning last week. What happened? I told you how to get in without being seen. I’ve helped you avoid the cameras and get the medication. Why couldn’t you listen to reason? You just had to bring him here. You’d better not get me fired for this.”
Spencer heard Terry say, “Avery’s the security guard on duty. Of course he saw me. He waved, and I waved back. It was no big deal. Quit worrying.”
“I can’t help but worry. What if the cops come?” the woman yelled.
“Be quiet, you might wake up Spencer,” Terry said. “No one is going to find him. I was careful.”
Spencer couldn’t make out any more of Terry and the woman’s conversation as their voices became faint and a door closed.
A man’s shouts drew Spencer’s attention. He listened for a moment and decided he didn’t care that the man had a steal of a deal on a new car for Spencer.
For a moment, Spencer wondered why Terry didn’t want anyone to find him. It occurred to him that nobody knew where he was.
As Spencer pulled the covers tighter around his aching body and snuggled down deeper into the soft cushions, he let those thoughts drift away. He didn’t really care if anyone knew where he was. He didn’t care about anything.
* * * *
Ruger watched Tony Grayson’s and Boone Ryder’s fingers fly over the keyboards sending commands to what he considered mega-computers. Through a doorway to a small room, Ruger saw the blinking lights of the computers lining the walls. Side by side, the two men sat at a table, which was surrounded by walls filled with monitors. The data the m-en were pulling up streamed across each half of a huge monitor hanging directly in front of them.
The Rescue for Hire team was gathered in Tony and Shane’s home, watching the two men work their magic in these rooms that reminded Ruger of a government data collection base.
Ruger noticed everyone called Shane “Commander” and Cade “Boss.” Years ago Ruger had met the commander and another Rescue for Hire teammate, Treb Walker, on a mission in Africa.
The unit Ruger had been a member of joined up with Shane’s unit to free a group of women and girls kidnapped by terrorists. Their mission had been to get those poor victims out before the terrorists sold them to the highest bidder. Ruger and Treb had spent the day using sniper rifles to keep their units safe while the rest of the men became heroes.
Ruger was glad he’d met the weapon’s expert before. It meant they didn’t have to go through the whole “my gun is bigger than yours” bullshit dance.
A half hour ago a frustrated sheriff had arrived to explain how fucked up his trip to Mona Valley had been. The police department down there had balked at another jurisdiction questioning their decisions. The only things Steve came away with were Spencer’s personal items from the hospital.
“You know, it was all I could do not to start a war,” Steve said, shoving a hand through his short, dark hair. “They even refused to release the hospital tapes. The high and mighty sheriff informed me they clearly showed Spencer leaving of his own free will. He not so nicely asked me to quit wasting their time.”
“How did he come to that conclusion?” Cade asked
. “From what I understand, Spencer wasn’t able to walk yet because of his injuries. Someone had to have taken or helped him. And why hasn’t he contacted anyone?”
Before Steve could respond, a black-and-white picture of a hallway popped up on the monitor before the whole screen went blank.
“Sheriff, I think it’s time for you to go somewhere else,” Tony said.
The sheriff nodded before saying, “You men all have a good day. Keep me informed, but you may not want to mention my name if you have any contact with the Mona Valley Police Department. When I left, they weren’t too happy with me. I may have lost my temper and called out the sheriff and the officers in the room for being incompetent assholes.”
The monitor lit up after the front door clicked shut behind the sheriff. The whole screen showed a surprisingly clear black-and-white view of a hospital hallway.
Ruger watched as one room, in particular, had a lot of activity. Nurses were pushing medical machines in and out of the room. Different doctors wearing long white coats went in. Nurses followed carrying liquid IV bags. Ruger thought a few looked like they contained blood.
“Okay,” Boone said. “This is the hallway outside Spencer’s room the day after he was brought down from the ICU. I didn’t bother with the ICU video feeds because they keep strict records of who goes into those rooms, and Spencer didn’t have any visitors. This hospital doesn’t have cameras in the patients’ rooms, so I can’t get anything from there.”
“You’re assuming it wasn’t an employee but a visitor who took him,” Cade pointed out.
“I had to start somewhere, and we need to see if we can find a pattern or maybe a clue that will help find whoever took Spencer,” Boone replied. “If we get nothing, I’ll go back and hack into the ICU tapes.”
For the next four hours, the group watched the video feed of the hallway outside Spencer’s room. By the time Cade stood and stretched his large body, gaining everyone’s attention, Ruger was blurry-eyed. “That’s enough for today. Let’s go home and get some sleep. We’ll meet back here right away tomorrow and start again.”
A weary Ruger went back to his motel room and crashed for the night. In his dreams there was a curly-haired blond who was old enough, and Ruger was brave enough, to kiss.
Late in the afternoon of the next day, a tired and frustrated Ruger struggled not to scream. By now Boone had sped the video into fast mode. Nurses and doctors raced up and down and in and out of rooms along that hall so fast that, at times, Ruger’s stomach rolled.
“Okay, this one has potential,” Rock said, and everyone, including Ruger, sat up straighter. Rock was the tracker of the team. Ruger wasn’t surprised he had held up better than the rest of them. It took a lot of patience to see vague signs in the wild that led to the team finding people.
Boone pressed a button, and the motion on the monitor slowed. A heavy man wearing a hooded sweatshirt had come out of the elevator and walked down the hall. He hesitated while looking up and down the hall before disappearing into Spencer’s room.
“He knows where the cameras are,” Gabriel, the team’s medic, observed.
“He’s also making sure that hood on his sweatshirt is covering his face,” Treb said.
Damian, the team’s pilot, turned to Tony. “Can you dig the police report up? It has to say something about Spencer receiving a visitor. Is this the guy Spencer voluntarily left with?”
The screen split into two again. The video kept rolling showing the man with the hooded sweatshirt leaving Spencer’s room. Ruger watched as a police report with the Mona Valley insignia on top appeared on the other half of the monitor.
Slowly, Tony scrolled down the pages until he stopped on page three. “There it is.” Tony used the cursor to highlight a paragraph. “Some of the nurses stated that a large, balding blond man visited Spencer every day. They stated this man helped Spencer with his daily needs and seemed to help alleviate some of the depression Spencer was experiencing.”
“Look at that,” Gabriel said, pointing toward the wall. “According to the report, none of the nurses could recall his name. What’s going on?”
“Other than someone on the inside covering for this guy, I can only think that because of state budget cuts, the hospital is understaffed and has a high turnover rate,” Cade said. “There’s less time to give that one-on-one personal care than there used to be. I’d say the nurses welcomed any help with the patients they could get and didn’t ask questions.”
Ruger noticed by the date in the bottom corner that the video feed had switched over to the next day. As the others kept discussing the police report, he watched the big guy wearing the hooded sweatshirt get off the elevator and pass by a hospital employee pushing a cart containing food trays. The lady never looked twice at the man with a hood hiding his face. Part of Ruger was astonished, and the other part was disgusted. He hoped he never had to become a patient at that hospital.
From the corner of his eye, Ruger saw Damian nodding at the monitor. That brought his attention back to the conversation.
“The report states no hospital personnel noticed a heavy, balding guy at the hospital on the day Spencer left. It says the hospital video feed shows Spencer Ryland was not in distress and left willingly.”
“Now that we have a vague idea what he looks like and the great lengths he went to keep his identity unknown, can you pull up that video, Boone?” Cade asked.
The police report disappeared, and the hospital hallway covered the whole monitor. Boone began typing rapidly. The video feed blacked out. The monitor lit up again, and the hallway reappeared. The date on the bottom corner was the day Spencer went missing.
Before long, Ruger watched a hood-covered head lean out of the elevator, and then disappear. A moment later the hooded man left the elevator and paused. Turning back, he pulled a wheelchair out of the elevator before quickly rushing to Spencer’s room and disappearing inside.
“The time in the corner says it’s just after four in the morning. That’s daybreak at this time of year. I assume there was at least a skeleton crew from the night shift still working,” Shane observed. “How did he get in? I would think that security is monitoring the front entrance.”
Ruger didn’t take his eyes off the monitor. According to the numbers at the bottom, a half hour passed before the door opened again and a hood peeked out.
“There he is,” Rock said. “The guy is being super careful in keeping his identity a secret.”
The hood disappeared. Minutes later the door opened wide, and Ruger had his first look at Spencer Ryland in ten years.
The chair dwarfed the thin man whose hospital robes hung on him. In the black-and-white video, Spencer’s hair looked unkempt and dull. Black patches covered both eyes.
“That is not the Spencer I know,” Tony said.
“He does look rough. I hardly recognize him,” Boone commented
“Look at his body language. He can’t seem to sit up straight, and there’s sweat coming through at his underarms. His internal injuries are nowhere near healed. Right there, his head wobbled to the side and bobbed forward. He’s drugged out of his mind,” Gabriel said.
“His hands are visibly shaking,” Treb said. “Boss, we’d better hurry. He looks like he going to bite the dust at any moment.”
The hooded figure wheeled Spencer into the elevator. Boone began typing, and the screen froze.
“Can you pull up the lobby’s front doors and the patient loading area?” Cade asked.
“I’ll try for outside of the front doors,” Boone said.
Tony stared at the monitor as his fingers also flew into action. Ruger’s hand tightened on his leg as the minutes passed. On the other side of him, Rock’s leg started bouncing.
“All right, I have it,” Boone said. “The closest I can get time-wise is just after midnight. We’re going to have to start from there.”
On the monitor, the split screen showed two sets of automatic glass doors on one side, and the other side contained a larg
e concrete patient loading area next to the road. Ruger could see it was dark outside with bright, dazzling lights positioned to illuminate the hospital entrance.
There wasn’t much activity. Every once in a while someone would leave the hospital. Ruger noticed, at that time of the morning, people leaving would have slumped shoulders and their heads were bent forward as if they were tired or dejected. The people who entered walked briskly, almost running into the hospital. Just inside the doors a security guard stopped every person and talked to them.
The sky behind the road lightened, and the lights dimmed. A dark Dodge Dart drove up to the loading area and stopped on the edge of the illuminated area. Dirt or something covered the license plate, and Ruger couldn’t make out the letters or numbers in the weak light.
“That’s him,” Gabriel said.
“That guy’s got to be sweating his balls off in that sweatshirt. It’s still almost seventy degrees at that time of day,” Treb commented beside Ruger.
The car door opened, and a big man in a hooded sweatshirt walked around the car to the hospital’s front doors. The man’s head was bent, and his hand was buried inside the hood. Tony pressed a few keys and the video froze.
“He’s talking on a phone,” Shane said.
“Can you two work with that?” Cade directed his question toward Tony and Boone.
“No,” both Tony and Boone said together.
Ruger watched everyone’s eyebrows rise. It was obvious the team thought the two computer gurus could do anything.
* * * *
Spencer relaxed back against the pillows, relieved that the day was over and it was time to go to bed for the night. Usually Terry watched and he listened to television for a while, but tonight the pain was getting the best of him. Spencer wished Terry would hurry a little faster with his pain pills.
Spencer's Reluctant Rescuer [Rescue for Hire 9] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) Page 2