by Alice Sharpe
He’d told her about the south fence at the Cheyenne airport and how she was just supposed to sit there until Korenev called on her cell. It would be dark by then, but there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Korenev would know she’d come alone before he made that call and he would suspect a trick, or worse, just shoot her and Katy and go after John again.
John had always come through when it counted, so how could he have left now? His betrayal scorched her heart way worse than Brian’s had. It reached deeper and tapped into things darker. More than once, she flipped tears from her cheeks as the traffic around her blurred.
She’d started to believe in him— No, wait, she’d believed in him from the very start. Even with the quirks and nightmares and mounting evidence of corruption, she’d known on an internal level who and what he was.
Or had she?
She couldn’t bear to think of him, but that opened her mind to images of Katy, bound with duct tape and stuck in the trunk of some old car. Paige knew firsthand how frightening Korenev could be with his icy eyes and cold steel blade, with his cavalier brutality. And Katy was way more delicate than Paige, more protected. She must be terrified.
The phone rang as it began to rain. John, please, please, be John calling to say you’ve changed your mind. No matter how tenuous their future was at this point, Katy needed him. She needed him.
She knew she shouldn’t answer the phone while driving, especially in an unfamiliar car, but she did it anyway. “Yes?”
“Paige,” a man said.
“Yes? Who is this?”
“Paige, darling, don’t you recognize my voice?”
And suddenly she did. “Brian? What do you want? Why are you calling? Is something wrong?”
“I guess it depends on how you look at it,” he said.
What did that mean? “Is Jasmine okay?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “She left.”
Paige stared at the bus traveling in front of her and tried to make sense of Brian’s words. “Where’d she go?”
“She got a lot of media attention after the attack. There were interviews and some went national. Well, you probably saw them. She was everywhere for a day or so. She just loved the attention and the camera loved her. She got an offer to audition for a reality show so she flew off to L.A. She’s not coming back no matter what. She’s gone.”
Almost speechless, Paige managed a subdued, “I’m sorry.”
“Maybe it’s for the best,” he said. “Things haven’t been so good between us lately. Damn it, Paige, the truth is I knew the day after I went back to her that I’d made a terrible mistake.”
Paige literally did not know how to respond.
“Seeing you the other day with another guy was like a pail of cold water in my face. I’ve screwed up big-time, Paige, I know that, but what we had was good. I’m asking you to give me another chance.”
After several seconds of silence, Paige finally managed to speak. “This isn’t a good time for me.”
“No, don’t say that,” he begged. “Please don’t say that, darling. Listen to me. When Jasmine showed up at our wedding and wanted me back it was like the planet fell back into orbit. But in the end, I just hurt you and myself, too, and now I want to fix it. Just tell me you’ll give us a chance. Think about what we had. We can have it again.”
Hadn’t Paige felt that exact way when she saw him? Everything had seemed perfect for a moment and she’d been ready to sell her soul just to have back what had been taken away from her. How big a hypocrite would she be not to understand how Brian could have felt the same way?
But his timing really was terrible.
* * *
JOHN STRUGGLED TO PUT Paige out of his mind, but the way she hadn’t been able even to look him in the eyes when they parted seemed to have lodged somewhere in his chest. If he was wrong about Korenev, Paige might very well pay for it with her life. That thought alone was enough to consider turning around. Perhaps they should just face whatever happened next together. Together—that was the key word.
But that word no longer described them and he seriously doubted it ever would again. Besides, he didn’t think he was wrong, and if he was right, not only would Paige be safe and sound hundreds of miles away from the inevitable carnage, but he would save her sister. That was what mattered: saving Katy. Otherwise Paige would carry the unwarranted guilt of her sister’s fate for the rest of her life.
So he kept driving Paige’s car, her presence so real he could almost see her sitting beside him, her absence even more real.
As sunlight faded into evening shadows, he drove into Green Acre, a picturesque town with a distinct Western flair. He passed a metal sculpture of a moose and another of a bear as Paige’s GPS directed him to the hospital.
As he drove through the ever-darkening parking lot, he kept his eyes peeled for a battered van but didn’t see one. That didn’t mean much, as Korenev had undoubtedly traded in that vehicle for another. The man treated the world like a giant used-car lot.
Which raised the question: Where was Katy? She was obviously with Korenev, or had been when he called them at Katy’s apartment. If Korenev was already here, that probably meant Katy was close by, but where? Korenev wouldn’t have taken her into the hospital with him, but he could have dumped her anywhere along the way or stuck her in a trunk and parked almost anywhere in this town. John looked over the sea of cars and knew he didn’t have time to investigate each of them.
First things first. He’d start by checking out the hospital.
The building was undergoing major renovation and John passed signs apologizing for the inconvenience almost every place he turned. Patient rooms were on the second floor so he took the elevator, sharing the ride with a couple of orderlies and a cart of covered meal trays. Apparently it was dinner hour.
The small alcove with a centralized nursing station was unmanned when John got there and he stood around for a few minutes, anxious beyond endurance but unsure how to proceed. Monitors behind the counter obviously reflected the vital signs of various patients, but they were labeled with room numbers, not names and so, were of no help.
A team of workers plied their trade nearby, making a heck of a racket as they wielded drills and hammers. John was about one second away from jumping over the counter and trying his hand with the computer to find Miner when a plump woman carrying a stack of folders finally appeared from behind a sheet of thick plastic that hung across the hallway. She sidestepped the workmen and quickened her pace when she saw John.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long. Half the staff is out with the flu and this construction is driving the rest of us nuts. How can I help you?”
“Miner?” John asked.
“Charles Miner? Chuck?”
Charles? John narrowed his eyes, the name resonating in his head. He’d never made the leap from Chuck to Charles and it wasn’t an issue right now, but his aunt had called him Charles.
“Room 220,” she added. “I’m not sure he’s allowed visitors. Check with the guard outside his room. Down the hall on the left. Just be cautious of the uneven floor, please. Turn right and go straight past the stairway. Wait, I think Mr. Miner was having some tests. Oh, you’ll find out when you get there.”
“Has he had any other visitors today?” John asked.
“I don’t think so. Like I said, we’ve been in and out of his room.” The nurse turned back to what she was doing and John took off down the hall, his heart hammering inside his chest. He wouldn’t put anything past Korenev, and with all the chaos and inattention abounding in the hospital, who knew where he was or even what he currently looked like?
Halfway down the corridor, John came across an empty metal chair by the door of room 220. There were two women standing farther down the hall, but neither wore a police or security-officer uniform.
So where was the guard? Out of habit, John patted himself to check for his gun before recalling he’d forced Paige to take it.
“Hey, where’s the guard?” the woman rolling the cart said. The cart made an amazing amount of noise on the uneven floor as its contents rattled together.
A man with a deep voice responded. “Must have taken a coffee break.”
“I’ll be glad when this construction is over,” the third person said as they continued down the hall, their voices fading. John saw his big chance, but knew it probably wouldn’t last long. He retraced his steps in a hurry and let himself into the room, closing the door behind him.
He came face-to-face with a curtain and hesitated again. It shielded whoever was in the room from view when the door was open, so it would provide him cover once he was behind it. On the other hand, it would also obscure the identity of any newcomer. Better to have no surprises. He silently pushed the curtain aside.
Chuck Miner looked to be in his mid-thirties, though with all the cuts, bruises and bandages, it was hard to be certain. He also appeared to be asleep, which seemed amazing considering how many people had just left his room.
John’s nerves were raw with tension. Everything looked so normal. My God, what if he was wrong about Korenev? That would mean he’d sent Paige off into chaos. He reached for his cell as he quietly walked to the window. He’d been so sure he was right.
She didn’t answer. She always answered. She hadn’t had time to get all the way to Cheyenne, and he had the sickening feeling she wasn’t responding because she saw the call was from him....
He stared down at the well-lit lot for a second as the phone switched to her voice mail. Was it possible Korenev had seen John enter the hospital and was now waiting for him to come back out? Hell and damnation, anything was possible.
Chuck-Charles. The name came back again, as elusive as a web of invisible thread. That’s what his aunt had called him. She’d thought he was Charles.
His father.
For a second, John stopped breathing. His father was named Charles, he was sure of it although he wasn’t sure how.
Suddenly a flock of large, dark birds appeared out of nowhere and swooped over a nearby lamppost, veering toward the hospital window right at John. John gasped, threw his hands over his head and backed up, dropping the phone in the process. For a second, he cowered, and then he straightened up and braced his hands on the window frame, peering outside, scanning the darkening sky.
Nothing.
But he’d seen them, and now their sounds filled his head. In a parody of his nightmares, the hooting morphed into screams, and these pierced him like poison darts.
Owls swooping in the night, chasing him, children screaming.
Children screaming…
He was screaming.
But he wasn’t, it was all in his head. Everything was in his head. Without a single doubt, he knew that the same overwhelming guilt that currently churned his gut with agonizing worry about Paige and her sister was familiar—it had happened to him before. He’d been responsible before, responsible for something that had ended in disaster.
But what?
His fault…
He had to get out of this room. He had to find Korenev and Katy. He had to find Paige.
He swallowed hard and turned from the window.
Chuck Miner stared at him with confused pale eyes in which enlightenment dawned like the lighting of a match. He pointed at John. “I thought you were dead,” he said.
“Tell me how we met before,” John said. His voice sounded scratchy, as though bird talons had clawed their way up his throat.
Miner narrowed his eyes. “I know I set you up, but you gotta believe me, I didn’t know he was going to try to kill you.”
“You hired me, didn’t you?” John said. He was trying hard to hear Miner over the screams in his own brain.
“Sure. I gave you some song and dance about an old girlfriend blackmailing me and you fell for it. Listen, you gotta believe me, that guy Korenev said he just wanted to rough you up a little, and all I had to do was hire you for some made-up job and get you up to that park and then get lost for a while. But you know how it went down. You and I drove up together, then Korenev attacked both of us and you disappeared into the river. What did you ever do to that guy?”
“I’m not sure,” John said. “Where is he now, do you know? How did you get in contact with him before? I have to find him—”
Miner held up his hands. “I don’t know, man. I never called him, he called me. I never want to see that dude again.”
The phantom screams had actually grown louder. Damn, he didn’t have time for head games. “I have to go.”
“Say, why are you here?” Miner asked.
“I’m not sure,” John said, swallowing hard. He took a step, amazed at how the floor seemed to buckle under his feet. Stumbling, he grabbed the back of a chair to steady himself.
“What’s wrong with you?” Miner demanded.
Good question. John took a deep breath. “Korenev will try to get to you,” he said. “You need to…to get the guard back on your door.”
Miner’s gaze shifted that direction and back. “What? The nurses who were in here before said he was out there.”
“He wasn’t when I came into the room.”
And right on cue, there was a noise at the door and both Miner and John turned to look. If it was the guard checking in, he’d demand to know what John was doing here, and John wasn’t sure he could explain. He didn’t have time for this. He had to get to Cheyenne, and it was hours away.
Paige.
A gray-haired orderly wearing Coke-bottle glasses and green hospital scrubs juggled a dinner tray with his left hand as he closed the door behind him.
John took another deep breath. He couldn’t seem to get enough air.
The orderly’s nearsighted gaze darted between Miner and John as he slowly approached the bed and set the tray on the rolling table. His hand caught John’s attention as the light reflected on a gold-and-black ring.
Miner pushed the tray away. “Was the guard out there?” he asked the orderly.
The orderly shook his head.
“Call someone for me, get the guard back,” Miner pleaded. “And take the food away, I’m not hungry.”
Silently, the orderly picked up the tray and, in one sudden and violent sweep of his arm, swung it at Miner, hitting him in the head with it. Miner slumped unconscious. Lime Jell-O ran down his face.
But the signet ring was all that John could really see. A gold-embossed owl set on a jet oval. It was as though dynamite exploded in his brain. He gripped his head. His skin was on fire. He knew that ring.
The orderly removed the glasses from his face. In an instant, he turned into Anatola Korenev—or whoever he really was. A knife appeared next, held in his maimed right hand. With a backward stabbing motion, he speared Miner without his gaze straying from John’s face.
“Your turn next, Mr. Cinca,” he said with no emotion as he wiped the blade clean on the bedsheet.
Chapter Fifteen
“Where’s Katy?” John said, but it sounded like a squeak. He was only half-aware of the blood blossoming across Miner’s chest. He could not take his eyes off that ring. The room seemed to swirl like a whirlpool with the golden owl the center of the disturbance, the eye of the hurricane, sucking him in.
“Sister is dead,” Korenev said, advancing with a limp. “Paige Graham next, after you.”
He’d failed. He’d been right and wrong at the same time, and he’d failed. Paige would suffer because of him if she didn’t manage to avoid Korenev—or even if
she did. “Who are you?” John asked. “Why are you doing this?”
“Real name Aleksey Smirnov. Head of security in Traterg. Ring bells? No? You think we don’t know you come to Kanistan last month to ask questions of Ognevas? They call us.”
“And you killed them. Who were they?”
He shrugged. “Just people. They had job to do, that is all. What did they tell you?”
“I don’t know, I don’t remember,” John said.
“Doesn’t matter now. You get back memory of being boy, you have to die.”
Being boy. “The ring—”
“See, is true. I forget to take off ring.”
“There was an explosion.”
“Meant for ambassador.”
Ambassador! “I don’t understand.”
“Too much talk, I lose time in hallway closet with dead guard waiting for medic people to leave. Then here you are, too, like big gift. If I had my way, you would be dead years and years ago when you were nosy boy in wrong place at wrong time.”
John had kept retreating as they spoke. Images were bombarding his head, images at once vague and yet vivid, more vivid even than what was unfolding in this room, in front of his eyes. It was the same ring, but it was on the hand of a clown and it held a box.
And then an explosion. Tyler! Cole!
Brothers. They were his brothers....
“What did you do to them? To Tyler and Cole?”
“Dead,” Korenev said. “You see them soon.”
John finally backed into the wall. In a flash, Korenev was upon him, transferring the knife into his left hand so that now it was the owl that gripped the handle. Reality crashed back in a searing streak of pain as the glinting blade slid into John’s stomach.
John gasped and began to sag. He knew Korenev would hold on to the knife while gravity pulled John to the floor, gutting him like a fish.
He heard a shot.
Korenev, shock written on his face, gray wig askew, managed a halfway turn before collapsing.
With both hands, John gripped the knife handle that protruded from his gut. He looked across the room. An angel stood at the open door, holding a gun straight out in front of her.