by Regan Black
“Your boss didn’t mention why she’s so convinced?”
“The only thing that makes sense to me is cell phone records,” Carson replied. He propped his cheek on his fist and watched her pace. “Maybe we should table this for tonight.”
She caught the flare of desire in his hazel eyes, and her body reacted immediately. Sleeping in his bed, her body twined with his, would be perfect. “Assuming we’re free to leave tomorrow, I’d like to go by the hospital first thing. We can take flowers to Grant’s friend.”
“Flowers?” He arched an eyebrow.
“How about balloons?” she suggested instead.
“You’re a special person, Lissa.” He walked over and gave her a hug. “I’m glad you stumbled into the Escape Club.”
“So you’ll take me by the hospital?”
“Definitely.” He set his mouth to her neck, just under her ear. “But first I’m taking you to bed.”
The next morning they got word they could leave the house. Even though Grant’s sting hadn’t worked as he’d hoped, he and Werner had a new team in place to protect Carson and Lissa and cops all over the city were on high alert for any sign of Hammond.
The first stop was to visit Adam, and Lissa’s knees were knocking when they reached the hospital. This was where Noelle had worked. Her heart hammered in her chest and her palms were clammy as Carson asked for Adam’s room number. She had the hysterical wish that the balloons would carry her out of there.
“Are you okay?” Carson murmured as they approached the room.
She gave a tiny shake of her head. More of a twitch. “I don’t want to be here, but I’m not leaving.” Something deep inside was screaming at her to run as far as possible. She realized just how out of control her fear was when moving to DC with her parents suddenly sounded like a good idea.
“I’m right here.” Carson’s rock-steady voice calmed her enough that she didn’t do an about-face and run for the stairs when they reached the right door.
“Thank you.” With her hand tucked into his, he knocked on the cracked door.
Adam invited them in. He looked groggy, and the bruises on his face and arms were colorful. She offered the balloons and he smiled, though it didn’t hide the pain.
“I’m sorry you were hurt,” she began.
He waved it off, seemed to struggle for a deep breath. “Risk comes with the territory. Happy...to he-help.”
Suddenly an alarm went off on the bedside monitor. Screeching alternated with a calm directive, but the words were a blur to Lissa. Carson leaped into action, checking the man’s pulse and reading the monitors.
“Call button,” he told her, climbing onto the bed.
She pressed the button and then rushed to the hallway, shouting for help. Nurses were already heading her way with the crash cart, a term she’d learned from Noelle. A man in a doctor’s coat looked up from the chart he was reading and stared straight at her.
A chill swept over her body as she recognized William Hammond. “You.” It was a whisper rather than a shout. Lissa’s blood ran cold as he smirked and turned away. He wasn’t coming to help Adam. Her fear of hospitals suddenly seemed far less irrational. On instinct she chased him, down the hall, to the corner stairwell.
She shouted for him to stop, fumbled with her purse in an effort to use her phone to call for help. His coat flapped as he rounded another landing, their footfalls reverberating up and down the stairs. A gunshot ricocheted and she ducked back, as close to the wall as she could get. Another shot, and one more, then the slam of a door far below. The sullen silence underscored her sense of defeat. She’d lost him.
“Lissa?” Carson’s voice cut through her misery. “Are you in here?”
“Yes.” She stood up, kept close to the wall as she started back up the stairs.
He met her halfway in full paramedic mode, searching her for injuries. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“I saw him,” she said. “Hammond. He’s gone.” She trudged to the nearest door with Carson. “How is Adam?”
Carson shook his head. “He didn’t make it.”
“Hammond killed him.”
“That’s a big leap,” he cautioned.
“You didn’t see his face.” She shook her head. “I’ve never been afraid of hospitals, but I didn’t want to see a doctor the night you found me. Noelle must have warned me off with good reason.”
“Let’s get out of here. We’ll find a better place to give Werner our statements.”
Thank goodness she wasn’t expected at the office. Elaine had given her another day off to spend time with her parents. Exhausted and frustrated, in the diner across from the hospital, Lissa gave her account of the facts to Werner, adding a hefty dose of her opinion. “He’s a monster. He had something on Noelle. She wouldn’t have cooperated with a criminal scheme otherwise.”
Werner explained they’d reviewed Noelle’s bank and phone records and found no evidence that she was profiting from her cooperation with Hammond. “She was in frequent contact with an unlisted cell phone number we traced to Sarah. Grant told me Sarah had been cautiously guiding victims to the Escape Club for help.”
“Okay, we all agree Sarah was clean and Noelle wasn’t but should have been,” Lissa said. “This doctor had something on my friend,” she insisted. “Carson and I were trying to figure out how anyone at the hospital would’ve seen Noelle and Sarah together. As their best friends, neither of us had any idea they knew each other. This doctor must have caught Noelle confiding in Sarah. He had Sarah killed and eventually turned on Noelle, too.”
“We don’t have evidence to back that up one way or another,” Werner said.
“I know.” Lissa groaned. “Can you haul him in for shooting at me?”
“Did you see him pull the trigger?”
“No,” she admitted, filled with misery that had no outlet. “No one else was in the stairwell.”
“That you know of,” Werner said. “We’ll follow up.”
“Great.” Lissa didn’t have a lot of confidence it would result in an arrest.
“I want the two of you to be particularly cautious,” Werner said. “As you know, the sting we tried last night didn’t lure out Hammond or his accomplices. We have more surveillance in place, but this crew has proven they are a resourceful lot. Since you saw him on the floor when Adam died, I can make sure we take a close look at him.”
It was a start, she supposed. “Thank you.”
* * *
Carson worried a little as Lissa’s agitation only increased when they were back at his house. She’d turned down food, chocolate and a shot of whiskey. And she’d turned it all down again after another round with her parents over the phone.
When he put a bottle of water in her hands, she just played with it, not drinking.
“What’s going through your head?”
“It’s a puzzle,” she muttered. “What we know doesn’t line up or point to what we need to know. I mean, we have confirmation of Sarah’s role, but not Noelle’s. I have to assume the doctor dragged her into it, that he’s the leader of this drug ring, even though the woman called the shots on Friday night.”
“Assumptions aren’t the best idea here. Give the detective and his resources time to figure it out.”
She kept pacing, completely engrossed with the problem. He counted it a small blessing that she wasn’t berating herself for Adam’s death.
“Why don’t we go to the site Daniel is flipping? It would get us out of here.”
“You could drop me at the museum.”
“No.” He didn’t want her out of his sight after the incident at the hospital. “We’re together until we hear that Hammond is in custody.” He wasn’t losing anyone else to this mess.
“Fine. What can I do at the site?”
&
nbsp; He smiled. “You can be awed by my skills while you keep stewing and pacing for answers.”
“I’ll need more than that,” she said. “I’m not good at being window dressing.”
“I figured that already.” He urged her up the stairs to the room he was happy to be sharing with her. Hard to believe that he, Mr. Solitude, wanted this woman nearby all the time. Sarah would have laughed her butt off, but he had to admit she’d been right every time she’d told him the right woman wouldn’t get in his way or chafe his independence.
Keeping the realization stuffed inside before he dropped to one knee and proposed way too early, he gave her an old T-shirt so she wouldn’t trash her good clothes and eyed her jeans. “You’re okay if those get ruined or stained?”
She nodded, her mind still working overtime on the trouble Noelle had chosen to face alone. It was the same thing in the truck. He’d say something and she’d mutter about something else. It should have annoyed him, but he found it endearing. He decided his attention was best spent keeping an eye on her while she was distracted.
“I was her best friend,” she mumbled when they were walking up to the house in progress. “Why didn’t she trust me?”
“My guess is she was protecting you.”
“I have to agree with you on that.” She sighed. “I don’t have to like it.” She stopped short and gave the house a critical eye, then shifted her gaze up and down the street, deliberately turning her back on the patrol car that cruised to a stop at the end of the block. “This will be nice when he’s done.”
“Come on inside so I can really impress you.”
Carson made introductions, and although Daniel was on shift at the moment, the job supervisor was pleased to have extra hands. They put her to work cleaning up finished areas until lunch, and they elected her to make the run. At the last second, Carson went with her, unable to trust the rest of the world even that much.
He’d spent his time installing tile, and with the calm rhythm of it, he replayed Adam’s final moments in the hospital room. The man had clearly been poisoned. Carson had told Werner his suspicions, but only an autopsy would prove it. And possibly not even that. There were too many options for a doctor who knew how to manipulate meds and symptoms.
Suddenly he swore.
Lissa jumped. “What’s wrong?”
“My last patient with Sarah was transported to Noelle’s ER.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Hammond was there. I don’t recall Noelle, but I remember him.” He pounded a fist against the steering wheel. “I saw him with Sarah. Good Lord, I can’t believe I forgot. We were attacked less than two hours later.”
“But she wasn’t transported back to that same ER.”
“That wouldn’t have mattered. She was dead.”
“I meant the decision might have saved your life,” Lissa murmured, laying her hand on his thigh while he drove.
“I can’t believe I forgot his face.”
“You had no reason to remember it until now. Be nice to yourself.”
He tried, as they picked up the food and returned to the construction site. Everyone knocked off long enough to cram in their meals and then went back to work. He was nearly done with the bathroom floor when Lissa wandered in to watch.
“Need something?” he asked.
She sank her teeth into that full lower lip and winked at him. “I’m doing okay for the moment.” She fanned her face.
He flexed his biceps as a joke, but when her gaze turned hot, he had to concentrate or he would have screwed up the tile pattern.
“Can we swing by my apartment?” she asked when they were leaving the site. “Mrs. Green says it’s ready, and we have backup right behind us.”
He checked the mirror and confirmed the patrol car in their wake.
“Is it done?” He tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice. He wasn’t eager to return to an empty house again. They never had discussed what she’d said to her parents, and it was starting to feel like the opportunity had slipped away.
If he let her know the way his thoughts were running, if he told her he loved her, he couldn’t be sure it would end well. They’d both been through so much. Would she blame the emotion on great sex and bad trauma? Sarah would tell him to picture a positive result for a change and he tried, but he kept seeing his time with Lissa ending one of two ways. Either she’d believe him and run away screaming like the smart woman she was, or she wouldn’t believe he could love her and she’d walk out of his life.
He pulled into the open parking space next to her house but didn’t look at her. “I’ve been thinking about giving Evelyn the answer she wants and going back full-time.”
“Really?” She sounded so excited for him that he did a double take. “I’ve seen you in action,” she said with a wealth of pride in her smile. “You’ll always be the guy who jumps in and gives his all.”
“That’s how you see me?”
“That’s how you are. The PFD will be thrilled to have you back, Carson.” She hopped out of the truck and started up to the house.
Dumbfounded, he followed her and paused at the top of the porch. “I panicked when we were under fire on your roof.”
“Please. You didn’t even start to panic until we were out of immediate danger.” She stepped up to him and ran her hands over his shoulders, leaned in. “And even then, I’d call it a flashback, not panic. When you go back, you’ll be amazing. Trust me. You’re one of the strongest people I know.”
“You’ve made me stronger.” Good grief. He searched for a better explanation, better words for the feelings churning in his gut.
“Same goes,” she said, linking her hand with his. “Without your help, I think Noelle’s murder might have swallowed me whole.”
“Lissa, are we friends, stuck in a situation, or headed toward something more serious here?”
A smile bloomed on her face, lighting her eyes. “We’re friends with a whole lot more going for us in any circumstance.”
Only another declaration of love would have been a better answer. He almost couldn’t believe how fortune had smiled on him, bringing her into his life. Lissa had become as essential as air and water. He needed her and wanted to be needed in turn. He felt it when they were together, and he could be happy with that. For now.
“You’ve been cooped up all day,” Lissa said. “Why don’t you wait here in the fresh air? I just want to check out the progress upstairs.”
He shook his head. “We’re more than friends and we’re sticking together.”
She tossed him a sassy grin over her shoulder as she unlocked the door. “Best news I’ve had all day.”
She entered the code on the new electronic lock and opened the door, but when they stepped inside, he realized the trap was sprung.
* * *
Lissa stared at the man sitting on the landing, gun leveled at her head. He’d shed the doctor’s coat, but there was nothing benign about his khakis, the white button-down and the pale blue striped tie, loose at his collar.
“Get out of my house.”
“As soon as you give me my product. I know Noelle stashed it here. It’s the only logical place.”
Lissa willed Carson to run, to call for help, but he remained at her back, the barely leashed energy coming off of him in waves. She understood how it felt.
“Both of you come on in. Lock the door. This shouldn’t take long.”
“Let her go,” Carson countered, “and I’ll help you tear this place apart.”
“No deal.” Hammond’s laugh was a sick, deep cackle. “She knows Noelle better than you or I. Come in. Now.”
Lissa wanted to throw a tantrum as Carson closed the door and locked them in with Hammond. The patrol car was out there, but they had no way to signal for help. Damn it. She st
arted up the stairs, one part of her all too aware of moving closer to danger, while her brain fitted the last piece of Noelle’s puzzle into place.
“What did you have on her?” she asked as she reached the landing, Hammond backing up a few steps ahead of her. “She never would’ve done anything illegal without coercion.”
“She came to me,” he said with a slick smile. “Wanted in on the action.”
Lissa knew better, from both Werner’s lack of evidence and her own heart. “I don’t believe you,” she said as they reached her apartment.
Her gaze slid to the security panel. If it was fully operational, maybe she or Carson could hit the emergency button.
Hammond pushed at it with the gun. “Disconnected,” he said. “You won’t get out of here alive if you don’t help me.”
“There’s no reason to add two more murders to your list,” Carson said, standing close behind her.
“Why not? Without you two, I’m a free man. Free to start fresh somewhere else.”
“You’re alone,” Lissa commented, a little surprised he didn’t have the thugs around for backup. Two against one put the odds in their favor. With a distraction, they could overtake him and see justice for Noelle and Sarah at last.
“Start searching,” Hammond ordered. “Try to double-cross me and I’ll shoot your boyfriend.”
Lissa shook her head. “Noelle didn’t leave anything here. Your partner already searched.”
“Really?” His lip curled in a snarl. “Then why did you stop by?”
“To see how the repairs were going.” She saw the kitchen. “You jerk!”
He’d torn it apart, and the new laminate wood planks were peeled back as if he’d been looking for a floor safe. Her palms itched to take action, to fight, though it wouldn’t be smart right here and now. She felt so helpless. “What are you thinking?”
“I want what belongs to me.” He advanced, his breath hot in her face. “I want what your friend stashed here.”
As he closed in on her, Carson jumped him from behind. The men wrestled for control of the gun. Dipping his shoulder low, Hammond got leverage. He shoved Carson back and fired the gun. Lissa screamed as Carson pinwheeled into the stairwell. Even with the silencer, the sound was horrible, compounded by the groaning down below. “Start searching or he dies now.”