by Dale Mayer
She nodded. “And I’m not prepared to go through all his history from years ago if I don’t have anything current.” She was too tired to deal with any of this, even though eating had taken off the edge. Her phone also held a ton of messages from friends and colleagues, checking up on her. She wanted privacy, and she didn’t want to deal with any of this anymore. She waved a hand at the men and said, “I’m heading to bed. Make your plans. At this rate, I’ll need time to study Abdul’s latest medical records, once they arrive—if they ever are produced—before I can even be effective. If I can do anything, treatments are not something we just whip out of our butts.” She muted her angry tone but then said, “No, I’m not pissed off at you guys. I’m pissed off at the circumstances.”
She walked into her room and very carefully closed the door behind her. If anything, she just had to be alone for a few minutes. Since she’d first found Jax, she hadn’t spent five minutes alone, except for her nap. He was either there with her, returning to her or dragging her behind him at all times. They’d been on the same ship together, had flow together, and were always sharing space, but never apart. Until tonight.
She walked over to the window, pulled up a chair, and sat down so she could just look out and be alone for a few minutes. To just be for a few minutes. What the hell was going on with Abdul’s medical records? That bothered her more than a little. She didn’t see any results from any blood test.
She didn’t see anything.
Was the boy even sick? Had Dr. Windberg even treated him? Or was it all just a ploy to get her over there? In which case, how would she even know what she was supposed to be doing in England or what she was involved in or what scenario Dr. Windberg had created so the child’s father believed the scumbag doctor?
And what massive long con had Dr. Windberg concocted this time? Did he not have any semblance of care anymore for the little boy? Or was he complicit, making the boy sick, so it looked like he needed more than the good doctor could provide?
Unfortunately she’d seen several similar cases. Usually the parents making their kids sick so the parents got more attention—a psychological disorder called Munchausen syndrome by proxy. It wouldn’t be a first. But a doctor? Even a bad doctor? Unfortunately cases like that could be found going back decades. But, as far as she could see, the child was just a means to an end. She had last seen Dr. Windberg at least five years ago, but the meeting was vivid in her mind. Mostly because she had just escaped his clutches and had crawled out the window and dropped almost two stories down to a hillside, hurting her ankle badly in the process.
But he had just laughed and said that she wouldn’t get away forever and that, when she least expected it, she’d turn around, and he’d be right there, standing and waiting for her. And, in fact, that’s exactly what had happened here.
She looked down at her hands, trembling even now. “Dear God,” she whispered, “what on earth is Windberg up to?”
And how and why did it involve her? She did nothing more than be a student in the same classes as him. She’d been friendly and polite but never overly so. She couldn’t afford to. She was so busy with med school and all her side jobs, trying to keep herself in food and with a roof over her head. She hadn’t been one of the wealthy in the world. She hadn’t had much choice.
But she’d done the hard work because the end result had been exactly what she had wanted. All she’d ever cared about was making it to med school and becoming the doctor she’d always dreamed about being. And, once there, she had no intention of just being a general practitioner. She’d gone into research, looking for cures and looking for stem-cell methodologies to improve. And so much was going on in the industry that the rapid-fire developments had almost left her in their wake.
And then she came up with this newer system on her own. And that had been purely by accident, but, once it started to gel and take shape, it sped up the process tremendously, making stem-cell transplants so much easier with fewer rejections. Not all cancers responded to this treatment but some did and some did not. It’s just odd that this doctor had followed her all this time and then had come up with a plausible scenario within her specialty for the little boy he was supposedly looking after.
In her heart of hearts, she knew that her greatest sorrow would be to find that this doctor had done something to hurt the child and that all those deaths on the cruise ship were meaningless in the wake of this man’s obsession with her. She’d have done anything to turn time back and had him not killing those passengers, but she hadn’t even known about it until the gunfire had swept through the place. And, even now, just the thought of seeing the doctor again made her physically ill. He’d been the stuff of nightmares. … And she knew that the coming days would be the worst of her life.
It didn’t matter how much Jax and Beau were there for her. They didn’t fully understand what Dr. Windberg was like.
Jax worried about her state of mind. Obviously she was tired, and her hunger had added to that, and maybe a good night’s rest would help. But her stress was evident. He motioned Jonas to the now-empty seat and said, “Do you want to join us?”
Jonas nodded, sat down, and said, “I didn’t mean to upset her.”
“Something in the files upset her,” Beau said.
“I think more than anything the whole scenario is upsetting,” Jax said. “And, if something is missing in the file, she’s got to be wondering what the doctor is up to.”
“Sounds like he’s a pretty shady character to begin with,” Jonas said quietly. “He’s got a history of stalking and obsessive behavior. And yet, he’s been manipulating all this to bring her back into his sphere again.”
“Which makes me worried about what his plan is at the hospital,” Beau said.
“Exactly,” Jonas said. “And I admit the hospital’s not very impressed at being involved in this. They’ll do what they can for the boy but …”
“Right.”
They went over the security detail plan, with their orders to stay at the hotel and to not leave the vicinity in any way for the next thirty-six hours. Then they’d be met here Tuesday morning at eight by the MI6 security detail.
“Isn’t that early for an afternoon appointment?” Beau asked.
“We want her at the hospital well before she’d be expected,” Jonas explained.
Beau shrugged. “If I were Dr. Windberg, I’d already have this hospital under surveillance, and I’d already know that you were here in our hotel with us.”
“Well, let’s hope that this guy’s more of a doctor and that his head of security is much less than intelligent.”
“I think the head of security was intelligent enough,” Jax said, recalling the look in the guy’s eyes when he realized that he had lost the game. “I just wish I knew what the doctor was up to.”
“The cruise ship was really a bizarre scenario,” Beau said. “They could have gotten on board as passengers, found out which room was hers, and taken her quietly off at the next port.”
“I was thinking about that too,” Jax said. “I think the head of security was used to engaging using more force than finesse.”
“Which is why we really need to speak to the father,” Jonas said. “He’s the man behind all this. We can’t have him thinking he can just take a cruise ship under his control and kill a few passengers in order to get what he wants.”
“Have they entered the country yet?” Beau asked.
Jonas shook his head. “Not yet.”
“You must have considered that they have methods of getting into the country without being noticed,” Beau said.
“We’ve considered that,” he said. “You know we can’t watch all the shorelines. But the coast guards have been alerted. Everybody has received a bulletin saying that this family is trying to come in and that nobody is to stop them, yet we want to be notified immediately when they do.”
“That’s as good as it’ll get,” Jax said as he stood. “Are you coming back here tomorrow or the next day?”
J
onas shook his head. “I won’t be coming back if I don’t have to. You guys have things well under control. If you can keep her under wraps, then we’re all good.” On that note, he rose and walked out.
Jax sat here with half a piece of cake in front of him and a cup of tea. “I thought we ordered coffee,” he asked, studying the pot.
“You might have, but, if you didn’t stipulate that, then they brought tea. You are in England, after all,” Beau said with a grin.
“What do you think was in that medical file that upset her?”
“I think it’s what wasn’t in the file that upset her,” he said calmly. “She can’t take the kid’s history in just an hour or even maybe an afternoon and sit down and have a consult. She needed to have the entire medical file.”
“So he’s keeping something from her is what you mean?” Jax nodded. “That would be in character.”
Beau nodded. “Either that or they have no intention of letting her see the boy at all.”
“Are you thinking that he wants her to fail?”
“Or potentially setting her up to fail. Although I’m surprised they haven’t arrived already. Especially considering what they went through to get Abby here.”
“They’ll arrive soon enough,” Jax said with a surety to his tone that he didn’t really feel.
“Well, if they don’t, it makes you wonder what they’ll try next.”
“Maybe give up the farce? If the father now knows the child’s doctor is not reliable …”
Beau shook his head. “Not likely. I can’t see these guys giving up. They might decide to take out a few more people just as a matter of form, but it’ll be because they’re pissed off.”
“I hear you,” Jax said. “We’ll keep her locked up in the hotel all day tomorrow. So they better show up soon for the Tuesday meet.”
“Good luck with that,” Beau said. “I don’t think she’s anybody who locks up well.”
Chapter 10
The next morning Abby was greeted by Jax. “What do you mean we can’t go anywhere today? It’s Monday morning. Early morning. The meet is not until Tuesday afternoon.” She stared at Jax in astonishment. When he remained silent, she argued further, “We’re in London. I have a few places I want to visit. Why can’t I?”
“MI6’s request,” he stated firmly. “Sorry but no can do. Their security detail is arriving tomorrow at eight a.m. to assist us in escorting you to the hospital. In the meantime, you can’t leave this hotel.”
She sank into the chair closest to him and stared at him. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. Remember why we’re here and the only reason we’re here. We won’t look at all the touristy hot spots or do some shopping,” he snapped. “We’re here until the family arrives, so we can get you safely to the hospital tomorrow, and so we can keep you safely there, and that’s it.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and then crossed her legs letting one swing in a snappy movement and glared at him. “That doesn’t mean our visit has to be terrible. I haven’t been on a holiday in years. That’s likely why the attack on the cruise. It’s the only time I’ve left my lab. And seriously the only time I’ve left the US. And Benjamin can’t return there.”
“Interesting theory,” he said, “but you can make the best out of this quite nicely. Yet what you can’t do is make this into something other than what it is.”
“And what is it?”
“It’s a hostage-taking scenario,” he said, his tone cool but hard. “You set demands. They’re meeting them. But, at the same time, you’re forcing a lot of other people to dance to your tune to make this happen.”
Immediately her arms fell away, and she stared at him in astonishment, then cried out, “Well, that’s not what I meant to do.”
“What you meant to do, I’m sure, was be a doctor treating a patient,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter at this point. It’s all about where you’re at now.”
“That’s terrible,” she said, frowning. “I didn’t want this to be a horrible and complicated scenario.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But the fact of the matter is that is exactly what has happened here. A lot of men, security and otherwise, are now on the lookout for these people.”
She turned her gaze to the city all around them. She’d really been hoping that she could be a tourist for part of the day, to forget the cruise and the holiday that she no longer got to enjoy, and to forget about the upcoming meeting with the man of her nightmares, but instead, she would be locked up here or at the hospital, waiting on the child’s arrival, with nothing better to do than surfing on the internet or further worrying. She got up, walked to the coffeepot, poured herself a cup, and took it to the window, where she leaned against the window frame and stared outside. “It seems strange to be a prisoner again.”
“You’re hardly a prisoner,” he said.
“It’s exactly what I am,” she said. “But that’s all right. I’ll be an adult about it because you guys are still trying to help me. And that is much appreciated.”
“We are,” Beau said, coming out of his bedroom for the first time that morning.
She smiled up at him. “Don’t you look bright and cheerful?”
“If I do, that’s a mistake,” he said. “I need at least three cups of coffee before I hit that level.” He headed for the pot, poured the last of it, and immediately put on another one.
“And you’re well-trained,” she said. “That’s always good to see.”
He snorted. “Nothing well-trained about it. I just know my caffeine requirements, and nobody else will make it for me.”
She chuckled. Jax stared at both of them and then buried his head in his laptop. She studied him, wondering why he didn’t appear to like the banter between her and Beau. But, then again, if ever anybody would show an edge, it was him. Beau, with his size, was much more affable and friendly. She glanced around at the hotel room. “Are you guys staying here all day too then?”
Beau nodded. “That’s the plan. Sleep a little, surf a little, eat a lot.”
She burst out laughing. “Given your size, I’d imagine you do need to eat a lot.”
He patted his tummy and said, “Dinner was a little skimpy last night.”
“Good,” she said. “Make sure you order some decent breakfast. But I’m hoping for lunch outside to find some fish and chips somewhere.”
“The hotel will have it,” Jax said.
“Yeah, but not the same thing as from a corner chip vendor.”
“We’ll see,” Beau said.
She sighed. “And that just sounds like a parent putting off a child who’s been difficult. That’s a half-baked promise that, if he eats his vegetables, he gets to go to the park in the afternoon.” Beau looked at her in surprise. She shrugged. “Whatever.” She walked back to where her laptop was and turned it on. “Maybe I’ll get lucky today and find something interesting to watch on TV.”
“And you have whatever you can surf on the web on your laptop,” Beau said.
She nodded and brought up her emails. Seventeen downloaded. She groaned. “People need to understand that, if I don’t get to have a life, they shouldn’t be sending me all these emails.”
“That’s an odd way to look at it.”
“Whatever,” she said. “I just don’t like answering emails.”
“Why?”
“Lots of business to tend to,” she said. “And I’m not at the office.”
“Don’t you have a business email?”
“Yes, but lots of people contact me privately,” she said. “Although these look to be a couple updates from previous patients. This one’s getting married, and I’ve been invited to the wedding. This guy was dying but is now doing fine, and his wife is pregnant again.” She smiled and perked up. “These were actually good news.” She quickly answered the ones that she could, parked one, deleted a couple, and then she got to the last one and said, “Oh no.”
“What’s oh no?”
She lifted h
er head from her laptop and said, “The asshole doctor. He just sent me an email. Dearly beloved Abby, I’m looking forward to seeing you. I’m so grateful for your cooperation,” she read out loud. “See you soon.”
“Seriously?” Jax asked. “So he reacts as if nothing is out of the ordinary about this request?”
“That would be him,” she said. “He has no idea how to interact with people.”
“Will you answer him?” Beau asked.
“Hell no,” she said. “I don’t even know how he got my personal email address.” She quickly closed her laptop, more disturbed than she could say. Then she hopped up and walked over to the coffee. She poured a cup fresh from the pot that Beau had made and said, “Just even reading his words sends shivers down my spine.”
“Just how bad is this guy?” Beau asked.
She shrugged, not wanting to discuss Windberg at all. Yet she knew she should give these guys more details so they would have a more complete picture to work with. “He’s beyond scummy. And I always figured that he was the kind who would keep somebody chained up downstairs in their basement and feed them only to keep them alive long enough to abuse them for years on end—and yet, have it all twisted around in his head that he was saving them for something better.” Her tone conveyed such a sense of disgust that she winced. “Look. Maybe he’s changed. Maybe I’m just being too hard on him.” Both men shot her a hard look. She shrugged and nodded. “No, I know I’m not.”
“It’s hard to imagine what he’s thinking,” Jax said. “But, as you know, he stalked you. He made disturbing phone calls and sent you voicemail messages and texts. He followed you, and he attacked you. This doesn’t seem like the same efforts on his part. Almost like a very different man.”
“No,” she said. “It’s bigger, much bigger. He’s always been the king of the long con. He used to get the profs wrapped around his fingers, and then, by the time they figured out what he was up to, the class was over. Most of them would just shake their heads, try to figure out what had happened, but then moved on. But for those of us students who were forced to live with him and his actions, we knew there was no moving on. And you just avoided him like the plague.”