“Oh, no. Which hospital? I’ll come get you.”
“You’ll have a long ride ahead of you—Phoenix General.”
The woman laughed. “I’m actually in Phoenix, too. Bill surprised me with a weekend getaway. We flew out here and rented an RV and I’m sitting in RV city right now.”
“Well, come on down. I’m in Room 425. I think it’s after visiting hours, so tell them you’re my sister or something so you can come up here.”
“Will do. See ya in a bit.”
Jessica put her phone down and glanced at the door as it swung open.
A new doctor staring at a chart in his hand strode toward her bed.
“Mrs. Murphy? I’m Doctor Banner.”
She scooted up in the bed. “Hi, Doc. How are things looking?”
He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “So far, so good. But I want to look a little closer at some things.”
Dr. Banner put the clipboard down and pulled out his stethoscope. He listened for Jessica’s heartbeat.
“Sounds good,” he said. “Deep breath for me.”
She took several deep breaths as he moved his stethoscope around her back.
He stepped back and scowled. “I’m not liking the sound of that.”
Jessica sat upright. “The sound of what?”
“I think there might be an issue with your lungs.”
“What kind of issue?”
“I can’t say for certain but we need to run some more tests.”
“Is that safe with me being pregnant?”
“Mrs. Tanner, this is no joke.”
Jessica froze. She’d heard that line before and it sounded eerily familiar.
“Excuse me?”
“I said this is no joke. Lung issues aren’t anything to play around with.”
“Where’s the consent form?”
Dr. Banner flipped through the chart. “It’s not here, apparently. Let me go get one and I’ll be right back with it so we can get started on your tests.”
The moment the door closed behind him, Jessica ripped the port out of her arm and detached several other nodes stuck to her body. The monitor started beeping and she yanked the plug out of the socket. She scrambled to get dressed and stuffed everything else into her bag.
She crept toward the door and opened it, peering down the hall in both directions. She noticed Dr. Banner at a central counter, talking to a nurse and passing papers back and forth.
She waited until his back was turned and dashed out the door and toward a stairwell.
Once she traveled down several flights, she stopped to catch her breath. She called Cassidy.
“Where are you?” Jessica asked.
“About ten minutes away. Why?”
“Don’t come in. I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”
“Is something the matter?”
“I’ll tell you all about it when you get here.”
“You’re scaring me, Jessica. Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine once I’m with you. But please hurry. I think someone here is trying to kill me.”
CHAPTER 42
OWEN BURNS AND ALEXA flashed their access credentials at the gate to the garage and pleaded with the guard to let them in.
“It’s after hours, you two,” the guard said. “Sorry. No exceptions.”
“Come on, man. I left my tickets to tonight’s Lady Antebellum concert in the hauler. You’ve gotta let us go back in and get them.”
The guard shook his head. “What part of ‘no exceptions’ do you not understand?”
Burns glared at him, but Alexa pushed him to the side as she infringed on the guard’s personal space.
“What time do you get off work?” she said as she glanced as his naked ring finger. “We might have a backstage pass for you, too.”
“I’m off in thirty minutes,” he said.
She patted his face. “Sounds like a date to me.”
He blushed. “Well, okay. Fine. But I need you two to be back here in fifteen minutes. I can’t have you scampering out so close to the shift change or else I might lose my job.”
“You got it, sugar,” Alexa said as she followed Burns through the gate.
They walked for several yards before she said, “Is that all you needed me for?”
“That was the warm-up. The real challenge is next.”
Burns looked over his shoulder at the guard, who waved at him. They headed toward their hauler and disappeared inside for a few moments.
“You ready to do this?” he asked.
“I’ve been doing this my whole life,” Alexa said.
They exited the hauler through a door out of the guard’s line of sight and crept around toward Todd Cashman’s rig. Only the drivers of the haulers stayed in the trucks at night. It was a lonely job—just what Burns was counting on to help him get inside.
Alexa rapped on the driver’s door at Cashman’s hauler.
After a few seconds, a scruffy face peered through the privacy curtains drawn around the interior windows of the truck.
“What do you want?” the man yelled through the glass.
Alexa raised her eyebrows and winked. Burns crouched around the front of the truck, out of sight.
The driver held up a finger and disappeared behind the curtain. When he returned, he was wearing a cap and a nicer shirt. The door flung open and he stumbled down the steps.
“Can I help you, Miss?”
Alexa wagged her finger at him and shook her head. “No need to call me, Miss. That would mean I’m polite and mind my manners.”
A toothy grin spread across the man’s face. “Well, what should I call you then?”
She edged closer and then threw her arms around his neck. “Why don’t you call me Hurricane?”
“Hurricane? Why that?”
“I’m about to blow you away.” She then kissed him, catching him off guard. However, he didn’t fight it and didn’t take long to return the full embrace.
Alexa didn’t stop until she’d managed to wrangle his keys off his belt and hand them to Burns, who stole next to her and slipped off to get the object.
Burns rolled under the truck to the other side and unlocked the side door. He flipped on a few lights and searched for the security video system.
Most of the haulers contained a similar layout, and there weren’t many places to hide such equipment. It didn’t take long for him to locate it and then find the library of tapes in a cabinet under it.
He scanned for the date from the previous weekend and fingered it before stashing it into his coat. In an effort not to arouse suspicion, he slid the tapes together to eliminate a gap between the chronologically ordered arrangement. He turned the lights off, rolled back beneath the truck and delivered the keys into Alexa’s waiting hand.
Alexa reattached the keys and then pulled back from the man.
“Wow!” she said. “If I didn’t have a date with Jason Aldean tonight—” She shook her head and stepped back.
Burns peeked around the corner and noticed the smile on the man’s face now appeared permanent.
She waved at the driver and walked backward until she disappeared around the front of the truck to join Burns.
“Let’s go,” he whispered.
They snuck back across the garage to the Davis Motor Sports team hauler. Burns fired up their security monitor and pushed the tape in. He started scanning the footage.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Alexa asked.
Burns hustled over to the fridge and pulled out a beer. “The snake.”
“You plan on being here for a while?”
He nodded.
“Then bring me one too.”
Burns returned with a beer for Alexa and they both started draining their drinks as they watched the footage.
“Wait, wait, wait. Go back,” she said.
He reversed the footage.
“Whoa! Right there. Do you see that?”
“Yep.”
Burns le
t the tape keep running. Several minutes later, the same person reemerged on the screen and looked around before he slid beneath Carson Tanner’s car. When he slid back out, his face was clear for just a second, but it was enough for Burns and Alexa to identify him.
“Why that low-life scum bag,” Burns muttered. “I’m gonna make him pay.”
CHAPTER 43
CAL DIDN’T BLINK as he stared at the man standing in front of his car. With his gun trained on Cal, the man didn’t move as he talked on his cell phone.
Cal assessed his predicament—and it didn’t appear favorable. Someone was watching Kelly. He had defied the instructions given to him by a nefarious group and all that was left to do was kill him. At least, that’s how he read the situation.
It’s now or never.
Cal waited for the most promising moment, one in which the gunman glanced away. All he needed was a glance. Cal revved the engine and glared at the man lit up by the car’s high beams.
Then the glance.
Cal stomped on the gas and ducked as his car roared toward the man. Before the assailant could escape the brunt of the car’s path, Cal hit him with the car and sent him sprawling to the cement. Cal glanced in his side mirror and continued driving. He watched the man scramble to his feet and fire two gunshots in his direction. Neither one of the shots hit the car.
The tires screeched as Cal jerked the car left toward the exit. Horns honking and people shouting created an eerie dissonance in the bowels of the parking garage. Cal kept his foot on the accelerator and tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
He roared out of the garage and toward the exit for the I-10.
Cal checked his mirror for signs of any cars following him. So far, nothing. But he distrusted his mirror and turned around several times over the course of the next minute to assuage his fears. Still nothing.
Another minute passed and then red and blue lights flickered in his rearview mirror. Sirens wailed. Cal saw a pair of headlights lurch forward a quarter of a mile behind him as the patrol car swerved from behind a car in the slow lane.
Cal noticed a pharmacy on the corner ahead off to the right. He turned at the cross street and then whipped into the pharmacy parking lot. With his hat pulled down low on his face, Cal slumped in his seat. And waited.
He wanted more than anything to go straight to the authorities and tell them what was going on. But there’d be too many questions, not to mention a likely detainment of some sort. At that point, he’d become part of the story as opposed to the one telling it. And he was never going to let that happen if he could help it.
The seconds dripped past until the sirens came and went.
Guess they were after someone else.
He dashed inside because he needed a new phone. Despite his best efforts to get ahead, the people following him always knew what his next step was going to be. Cal assumed that meant he was far too predictable or they had tapped his phone. He wanted to believe it was the latter.
Inside the store, he combed the aisles for a pay-as-you-go cell phone. Cal didn’t carry much cash on him, but he had enough to purchase the phone.
Back in the car, he dialed Kelly’s number.
“Answer the phone, Kelly,” he grumbled.
The call went to voicemail.
She probably doesn’t recognize this number.
He left her a message: “Kelly, I wanted to let you know that you’re being watched. Be careful. Use the safe room. Call me back when you get a chance.”
As he pulled back onto the road and veered onto the I-10 exit, Cal called Jessica.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Jessica, it’s me, Cal.”
“I almost didn’t pick up since I didn’t recognize this number.”
“Look, about earlier. I’m sorry I had to act like that, but I thought someone might be listening. I had to sell them on the fact that I wasn’t going to help you.”
“Thank God.”
“Yeah, so, where are you?”
“I’m almost at the track. One of my friends was kind enough to come rescue me from the hospital. I think someone there was trying to kill me.”
“Why would someone do that?”
She sighed. “You tell me. I can’t keep track of all the reasons why, but I know they were. I left in a hurry.”
“Okay, text me your location on a Google map when you get there and I’ll come find you. We have a lot to discuss, but we don’t have a lot of time.”
He hung up and continued to stare into his rearview mirror. No suspicious movements.
Twenty minutes later, he drove over a rise and the track lights served as a beacon for his final destination.
He checked his rearview mirror again.
What the—
Behind him, police car lights flashed in his mirror. He watched as the car swerved past one car and whipped into the lane behind.
This time there was no mistake about it.
They were after him.
CHAPTER 44
HUNCHED OVER NEAR THE FLOOR, Kelly dried her hands off on her pants. She picked up her weapon of choice and waited.
If she was going to escape this situation, she’d have to wait until the best possible moment to unleash her fury and land a knockout blow. Although she didn’t like to think about it, she’d gone over this situation in her mind hundreds of times before. She hoped it would never happen again, despite the fact that it’d occurred more than once in the past. But here she was, this time prepared for whatever the attacker creeping around her house tried to subdue her with.
The cast iron skillet in her hand seemed to be a better choice given the circumstances. Cal had also put a bat and a handgun in her arsenal. She didn’t want the bat used against her—and she didn’t want to kill anyone, even if her life was in danger. A knockout blow would suffice.
She watched the monitors, refusing to blink. The man groped his way through the house, knocking over one of her favorite ceramic knickknacks she’d bought while in Costa Rica on vacation the year before. A little green frog with the words “Pura Vida” painted on its lily pad.
Why that little punk!
She clutched the skillet handle tighter and tried to breathe normally.
You can do this, Kelly.
He continued to move toward the foot of the stairs, right into her wheelhouse. She slipped on her night vision goggles, turned off all the equipment and crept out.
On all fours, Kelly looked up to see the man a few feet away, still unaware that she was in the room with him. With both hands clasped around the butt of his revolver, he moved quietly toward her.
Without a sound, Kelly rose up on her knees and whacked his kneecap. He staggered to the ground and suffered another blow to the face before he had time to react defensively or otherwise. He slumped to the ground.
The gun had fallen from his hand, and Kelly kicked it aside. He groaned before she delivered another smashing blow to his face.
“That’s for shooting at me,” she said.
She drew back the skillet again and walloped his face with the side of it.
“And that’s for breaking my frog.”
She crawled back into the safe room and pulled out a parcel of rope and duct tape. She tied him up before taping his mouth shut.
When she opened her front door, Phil Pearson, her nosy next-door neighbor, stood on the sidewalk dressed in a robe with his mouth agape.
“Are you all right, Mrs. Murphy?” he asked.
“Never better.” She smiled.
“Oh, well, I thought I heard a ruckus going on at your house and something like a gun shot fired.”
“Yeah, that’d be from the punk who tried to shoot me. But he’s tied up right now.”
He stared at her and said nothing.
“Since you’re here, it’d be great if you called the cops for me and had this scumbag dragged away.” She started walking toward her car and unlocked it with her fob.
“Where are you going?”
; “I’ve gotta be somewhere. But take care of this for me, will ya? I’ll be back shortly to explain everything.”
She padded her left pocket to make sure she still had the thumb drive with all the images proving Cal’s innocence. After a head nod to Phil Pearson, she climbed into her car and headed toward The Observer offices.
She dialed Folsom’s number.
“I’m on my way,” she said after he answered.
“So soon? What happened?”
“It’s a long story, but just be ready. I’m not in a mood for any games from you.” She paused. “Oh, and make sure your publisher is there, too. He needs to see this.”
CHAPTER 45
CAL PULLED INTO THE Phoenix International Raceway parking lot between the track and RV city and skidded to a stop. He slung his bag over his shoulder, jumped out of the car, and took off running toward a throng of people gathered for the Lady Antebellum concert. He glanced over his shoulder to see two officers pursuing him on foot. With about a 50-yard lead, Cal figured that’s all he would need once he pressed his way into the mass of people.
He darted into one section that allowed for a makeshift aisle before he headed straight into the crowd. Several people expressed their displeasure at his interruption with an obscene gesture or two. The people who bothered to yell at him couldn’t be heard above the crooning of the country trio.
Cal wove between drunken revelers, teenage make-out sessions, and screaming fans.
Gotta love live concerts.
He kept his head down and sought for a discreet exit. Just as he spotted a way out, he also came across a man who seemed to be enjoying everything about the concert.
“Nice hat,” the man said.
Cal pulled his cap off his head and eyed the man’s cowboy hat. “I’ll trade ya.”
The man nodded and swapped hats with Cal.
“Thanks,” Cal said before he hustled toward an opening.
Once he broke out of the crowd, he didn’t stop. He noticed several more officers had arrived and were canvassing a perimeter around the crowd. Before the net closed in, Cal slipped behind a privacy gate and circled back toward the entrance.
Cal called Jessica.
“Where are you?” she asked.
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