The Painter's Passion

by Dr. Rebecca Sharp

  Ana tapped her foot, looking down the hospital hallway that was currently blocked off, an angry looking nurse staring her down for trying to get past her security twice already.

  Morgan had said the thief was coming out of recovery this afternoon. She’d gone into surgery the night she’d been admitted so that they could cauterize and stitch up the places that had been torn by the knife in order to stop the bleeding. Early this morning, she’d been in the ICU as they monitored her and then this afternoon she’d gone in for more scans to make sure that all the bleeding had stopped and that there hadn’t been any damage to any major organs. Ana assumed that she remained unconscious this whole time since Morgan hadn’t said that she’d given him any information; then again, he hadn’t been very specific as to whether or not she’d woken up at all since they’d admitted her.

  And, if she was honest, she’d been a little distracted all day to think to ask.

  But, Morgan had said those tests would only take a few hours, which meant that he should have checked back in by now.

  He hadn’t

  And he hadn’t returned any of her texts or her seven phone calls.

  Now, that she was at the hospital, she knew why.

  Well, not exactly.

  When she got there, it had taken her almost twenty minutes to find out where the woman’s room was since she didn’t know her name and they’d probably admitted her as a Jane Doe until she came to. Thankfully, it was pretty late, so there weren’t a lot of visitors around to hold her up. By the time she’d finally sorted through all of that red tape and made it over to the ICU, there was a whole hallway blocked off, the doors guarded by a nurse.

  She immediately approached the woman.

  “What’s going on?”

  “There was an incident with a patient, ma’am,” the nurse coolly responded, shuffling through a stack of charts that she was holding in her arms.

  “My brother is back there with a woman who came in as a Jane Doe last night. Stab wound. I need to get back there,” Ana responded firmly, giving the other woman her best ‘I’m-an-agent-do-as-I-say’ look.

  “Sorry, missy. Can’t let anyone back yet. If you could take a seat.”

  “I’m sorry, can you please see if my brother is back there? I really need to speak with him.” She crossed her arms over her chest, straining her neck, looking around as though Morgan would magically appear because his twin needed him to.

  “Miss, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to wait. I can tell you that no one was injured, but I can’t let you back there.”

  She fumed, but, for the moment, did as she was told and sat in one of the chairs in the small waiting area.

  While Ana strongly believed that there was no such thing as a ‘twin thing,’ she knew that this was the reason something hadn’t felt right. When the nurse disappeared through the doors, Ana could see the slew of security guards beyond the door and she thought she glimpsed Morgan as well.

  Before she met Pierce, she never would have considered what she was about to do. She was about to go against explicit instructions – probably breaking some sort of law – to get back there and find out what happened. However, she was doing it because someone she deeply cared about was in trouble and making sure he was ok was more important than the consequences to herself.

  She wasn’t sure if Pierce’s influence in this respect had been a good or a bad thing; her heart told her that doing something for someone that you love – no matter the cost – was a good thing.

  Waiting a moment and glancing around her, she made her way towards the doors, determined to get through whether she was allowed or not. She pushed the door open and slipped through. Two of the security guards looked at her inquisitively, so she went with confidence over cowardice.

  “Excuse me, I’m looking for a man – Morgan Wells. I’m with Interpol and I have some questions for him,” she stated bluntly, raising an eyebrow when she didn’t get an immediate answer. She prayed they didn’t ask to see her badge.

  “He just went down the hall, ma’am. Back to room 3102,” the younger guard responded, pointing to his left.

  Ana just nodded her thanks and tried not to walk suspiciously fast as she made her way towards the room.

  In her haste, she almost walked by the damn thing, stopping herself short and turning to face the door. The shades were open so she could see right into the room; she could see her brother and a policeman.

  And the empty bed.

  “Morgan!” she exclaimed, opening the door and walking inside.

  His eyes widened in momentary surprise. “Ana?”

  “Hi, I’m Agent Wells,” she introduced herself with a tight smile to the policeman. “What’s going on here?”

  “She’s gone,” Morgan informed her. Turning to the bobby, he said, “Officer Holmes, this is my sister. I can fill her in on my wife’s disappearance if you want to go check on those tapes.”

  Wife? Disappearance?

  She tried not to pass out in surprise.

  “Ma’am.” Officer Holmes addressed her before exiting the room.

  “Morgan, what is going on?” she turned and asked as soon as the door shut behind the policeman.

  “She’s gone. She went in for testing this afternoon like I told you and I was here when they brought her back. Rayne said everything was fine, but she just needed to rest. Once she fell asleep, I thought I could just run and grab a sandwich because I hadn’t eaten all day and when I came back, she was gone.”

  Ana put her hands up. “Woah, slow down,” she insisted. “Who’s Rayne? The thief?” He nodded. “She told you her name?” He nodded again. “And you didn’t think to mention that to me?”

  “I… Well… At that point, she hadn’t told me anything important about the painting, so I figured why bother. Plus, I got a voicemail from Tash earlier, about what happened, and I figured you would be busy helping her decide what to do.” he explained awkwardly, knowing that his reasoning sounded plausible, but weak. “Is she ok?”

  What was it with the men in her life trying to keep information from her that they didn’t think was relevant?

  “Not really, but Pierce was going to call Sloane just before I left and figure out what to do,” she replied quickly, determined to let the conversation be diverted by his question; she needed more answers from him – not the other way around. “Why did you say ‘your wife’ disappeared?”

  He huffed and ran his hand through his similar golden hair. Ana crossed her arms over her chest making it clear that she was, in fact, expecting an answer.

  “When I brought her here last night, I didn’t know her name, and I figured that if I didn’t tell them that I was some relation to her, they wouldn’t let me stay with her and I didn’t want to let her out of my sight until she came around.”

  Her eyes narrowed skeptically on him; there was more that her brother wasn’t saying, but then again, he’d said that he’d learned nothing crucial about the painting which meant that whatever he was hiding was only important to himself.

  And while that made her equally curious, her own predicament cautioned her to let her brother keep his secrets for the time being.

  “So she got up and left while you went for food? After being stabbed?”

  He swore, rubbing his temples. “She’s scared, Ana. If you think Tash is scared of Sanchez…” He trailed off, apparently unable to even complete the thought. “Honestly, I’m afraid that she didn’t just get up and leave; I’m afraid that they found her and took her as soon as I was gone.”

  Oh no. “They have no idea whether she was taken by force?”

  “Not yet. They’re pulling hospital surveillance now. That’s what Officer Holmes was going to check on.”

  “I see.” she retorted. “And if it wasn’t by force? If she just decided to up and leave after you saved her life?”

  “Ana,” he growled.

  She sighed. He was right, she shouldn’t be mad. She was just frustrated that they were so close.
/>   “Alright, so what do we do now? I’m assuming the police are looking for her, as well,” she surmised.

  “We wait for the tapes. And then we see if they can find the men who took her.”

  “You’re assuming that she was taken,” she said softly, noticing how her brother refused to believe that she could have just left him.

  “She’s running from Sanchez, not from me – at least, I hope not from me. I think she was afraid he’d find her here, that he had people here on his payroll. And now I’m afraid that he did, too,” he began and Ana listened intently. “I need to know if they took her, because if they did, we need to get the painting and use it as leverage to get her back.”

  And if the ‘wife’ comment hadn’t shocked her speechless, this one sure did. She stared agape at her brother, waiting for him to continue because she couldn’t find the words to respond.

  “She told me where it is,” he sighed. “That’s why I think she was taken. Because if she was running from me, why would she have told me?”

  “I see,” she replied softly. “Morgan, we’re after a stolen painting, not to save a woman that we don’t know who got herself into this mess; we should let the police find her – we should let them do their job.”

  “Ana.” His tone hardened. “They will never find her in time and you know it. I’m not going to just sit here and pretend that I can be content and able to live with myself just because we got some stupid fucking painting back.”

  He had a point.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just overwhelmed. There’s… a lot… going on. At this point, I don’t know what other options we have than to wait and see what the tapes show and go from there.”

  “Mr. Wells.” A small knock on the door barely announced his entrance before the younger guard opened the door and addressed them. “We have the footage up down the hall in the security room if you want to come with us.”

  Her brother’s gaze met hers for a moment before he walked out of the room and she followed right behind him.

  Just a few doors down, they walked into the small security room that was lined with computer screens. The one in the center was paused on an image of the room that they’d just been in. Her eyes narrowed to see what else the image revealed: her brother, sitting right next to the bed, clasping the woman – Rayne’s – hand close to him.

  She looked over to him and even though he knew she was looking at him, his gaze stayed focused on the screen.

  “Play it,” he said.

  She watched as the Morgan on the screen began to move, standing and leaning over the bed, whispering something in Rayne’s ear… Or was she whispering something in his? Ana couldn’t tell.

  Then Morgan left and the woman looked like she was about to fall asleep. A few minutes later, two men entered the room dressed as hospital techs. They appeared to check the monitors for a second before grabbing Rayne’s arms and hauling her up in bed. Even though it wasn’t HD quality, Ana could see that the abrupt movement had been very painful – and Morgan saw it, too; his body tensed next to hers. Even though there was fear written all over her face, whatever they were saying to her incentivized her enough not to scream. Instead, she gingerly stood from the bed and appeared to do whatever they instructed, culminating with her sitting in the wheelchair as they escorted her from the room like any other hospital techs taking a patient for testing or a procedure.

  “Where do they go?”

  “We can follow them to the parking garage exit on that side of the building, Mr. Wells, but from there, they disappear,” the guard informed him. “The hospital cameras are on a different network than the garage so, it would be easy for them to disable those cameras, whereas the ones in the hospital would throw off alarms if they were tampered with.”

  “Can you see their faces?” Ana asked.

  “Unfortunately not, ma’am. They put hospital masks on over their faces and hers as soon as they leave her room.”

  “Shit,” Morgan swore underneath his breath.

  “We’re going to continue to comb over the footage to see if we can find anything. In the meantime, sir, if you get any ransom calls or can think of any reason why they would want to take your wife, please call me,” Officer Holmes said.

  “Thank you,” Morgan said curtly before he stormed out of the room.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” the officer said to her, the sympathy for her brother and his ‘wife’ written all over his face.

  “Thank you,” she replied and then followed after Morgan.

  Part of her attributed his reaction to this woman, Rayne, to her twin’s hero-complex. The other part of her whispered that it seemed to go far beyond that. She wanted to know if there was something else going on between the two of them; the thought was remarkably familiar to her.

  Hello, Pot? This is Kettle. You’re black.

  Chapter 32

  It was a little after nine o’clock when he knocked on Tash’s door, running his hand through his hair. He’d just gotten the text from Sloane: Tash’s flight was booked and all that was left was to actually tell her that she was being whisked away yet again.

  This was turning into a fucking disaster.

  The door cracked open, revealing Tash in a sweatshirt and pajama shorts. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a week, even though the sleeplessness could have only come from last night.

  “Hey,” she said. She looked in bad shape – eyes slightly swollen and red, her skin pale, and her voice worn and weak. Even though she just finally physically healed from what had happened, the emotional and mental injuries were still fresh and had now been ripped back open.

  What were the fucking chances that all of this was tied together?

  After everything that she’d been through – and at whose hands – Pierce felt for her; she was his friend. The thought took him aback. It was rare that he would admit that about anyone – even to himself. This is what Ana was doing to him; she had shown him that it was ok to let people in and in turn let himself care about them.

  “I talked to Sloane,” he began tightly, irritated that he asked to be the one to tell her; Cyn had offered, but it hadn’t seemed right to have the news come over a phone call, no matter how good of friends that they were. “They want you back in the States. He’s booked your flight for tomorrow night; they think that they’ll be better able to protect you back in the U.S.”

  She stared blankly at him as though she was having trouble processing the news. Her eyes fell and then she gave a small nod.

  “Tash, it’s going to be ok. Sloane said that they’ve been making headway with Sanchez; that they’ve got a plan and they are going to protect you.”

  “Who?” she whispered. “I’m not safe, Pierce. Anywhere.”

  His jaw clenched as he heard the desolation and resignation in her voice; she was scared – and rightfully so. She’d fled thousands of miles away and, after a little over a month to recover, had still somehow ended up in just as much danger as when she had left.

  “Sloane and Cyn will make sure nothing happens to you. Plus, Gino thinks they are close to getting a confession from one of the men.” A white lie to lighten her blues.

  “Sebastian?” she asked hoarsely. There was a brief flicker in her eyes before they faded into a fog again.

  He nodded. Even though he’d promised the man to keep his name out of it, he was the one here, in front of her, and able to see the despair that wracked her entire body.

  “Are you ok?” he asked. Before Ana, he would have let this question be handled by someone better able to show compassion, but now he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “You look like you haven’t gotten much sleep.”

  Tash shook her head. “Tony was so nice,” she began with a slight smile, “but, the nightmares are back. After seeing those men, all I dream about is their faces… and Julian… being tied up and hit and kicked.” She choked on the last words, her hand coming up to cover her mouth and then using the sleeve of her sweatshirt she wiped her eyes.


  “Even coming back over here,” she whispered in a daze. “It seemed like every car was black with tinted windows, that every car was following us, that every car on the street had someone in it, watching and waiting for me… Yesterday, all I did was sit by the window, watching… waiting for them to come for me.”

  Fuck.

  “I’m sorry, Tash. I wish there was something I could do. I wish I would have known…” His jaw tightened again.

  Fucking Loury.

  He should have pushed that fucker into telling him just who he was trying to appease. Had he known it was the Sanchez Cartel, he never would have let Tash participate – none of them would have.

  “I’m scared, Pierce. I’m so scared.” Her lower lip quivered with the admission.

  “Shit,” he swore. His brain tried frantically to think of something to put her at ease. At least once she was back in the States, she would have Cyn and Terri to keep her company and keep the nightmares away.

  But here, it looked like she was stuck with him.

  And he felt like it was his fucking fault for her current state. If only he have known…

  Pierce felt the wave of self-loathing come over him. He hadn’t done enough, just like for his mother; if he had done more, maybe she would have loved him enough to stay; if he had done more, maybe Tash wouldn’t be in the situation that she was in.

  It was all his fucking fault.

  Suffocating under the weight of guilt and genuine concern, he suggested gruffly, “Tash, why don’t you sleep in my room tonight?” It was all that he could think to offer. He certainly wasn’t getting any sleep – at least not until Ana was home and safe in his arms.

  Her eyes flew to his, narrowed in confusion and concern.

  “I don’t mean—” He sighed. “What I meant is that I don’t sleep in my bed. I usually sleep on the couch in my sitting room. So, why don’t you sleep in my bed tonight? There is a door separating the rooms, but at least you won’t be alone… in case you need anything.”

  Tash took a moment to think over his offer. “What about Ana?” He shouldn’t have been surprised that she knew, but for some reason he was.