by Karen Rose
‘Troy, are you on vacation this week?’ she asked.
He glanced at her in the rear-view mirror, his eyes narrowed. And guilty-looking. ‘Why would you ask that?’
‘Never mind,’ she said softly. ‘You just answered me. I just wanted to say thank you.’
His eyes crinkled in the mirror as he smiled. ‘You’re welcome.’
Dani leaned back and closed her eyes. She hadn’t slept well at all the night before, Diesel’s story continuing to break her heart even after he’d fallen asleep.
She’d dozed off when the buzzing of her cell phone woke her. Struggling to sit up, she stared at the message with a frown. ‘What the . . .’
Diesel turned in the front passenger seat to look at her. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘This text. It doesn’t make sense. It’s from Greg. It says, “On my way.”’
‘Maybe he sent it to you by mistake,’ Michael signed, but he looked worried.
‘Maybe.’ Dani typed in a reply. On your way where?
There was no reply. Dani glared at the screen, willing Greg to answer. Dammit, she typed. Text me!
Diesel was still watching her from the front seat, his dark brows furrowed in concern. ‘I’m calling Adam.’
‘I’ll call Deacon,’ Dani said. ‘This could be nothing, but let’s make sure,’ she added, because Joshua had the pinched look on his face that said he was scared. ‘I got Deacon’s voicemail,’ she muttered.
‘He’s way out in Miamitown,’ Troy said. ‘At a crime scene.’
The kid that was killed after buying baby formula and diapers. Miamitown was on the far west side, at least thirty minutes away this time of day. So she texted everyone in their circle in a group message, asking if anyone had seen Greg.
Faith replied first. He’s at home. Why?
Alone? Dani asked.
Her phone rang. ‘Yes, alone,’ Faith said. ‘Why?’
Dani told her about the single-line text she’d received.
‘Shit,’ Faith muttered. ‘Give me a second. I’m still at the office, but I can track his phone.’
‘You can?’ Dani was surprised. ‘Does he know you can?’
‘It was a condition of him driving alone,’ Faith said. ‘He wanted to drive my car, so he said yes. It looks like he’s driving, and he’s not allowed to touch his phone while he’s driving.’ A slight pause. ‘It looks like he’s headed to the clinic.’
Dani was suddenly very cold. ‘I didn’t tell him to meet me at the clinic.’
Troy swerved abruptly, crossing several lanes of traffic to take the next exit. Car horns blared at them, but he ignored them as he called for backup.
‘No,’ Diesel said firmly. ‘We’re not going to the clinic, Troy. Kaiser could be trying to lure Michael there.’
Michael tapped Dani’s shoulder frantically, because no one was signing. Dani reluctantly interpreted, not wanting to scare Michael but knowing that, had he been hearing, he’d already know what was happening.
Troy gave Diesel a look of reproof. ‘I know that. But doesn’t Dani want to try to catch him before he goes in? Deacon’s thirty minutes out and I don’t know where Adam is. Someone who signs needs to catch Greg before he enters the clinic.’
Troy was right, Dani thought, but Diesel was shaking his head.
‘No. I won’t let Dani put herself in danger. I’ll go.’
Dani ground her teeth. ‘Troy, can you stop the van and let Diesel and me get into the other van? You should continue to the condo with the boys and we’ll go to the clinic. I need to make sure that Greg is okay.’
Troy glanced at Diesel, then nodded warily. ‘I can do that.’
Diesel turned fully in his seat to glare at her, but he must have seen something in her expression because he muttered a particularly salty curse.
‘That’s a bad word!’ Joshua said loudly.
Diesel briefly closed his eyes. ‘Sorry, Joshua, you’re right. Michael, we need you to stay down, okay? Do whatever Agent Troy says.’
Michael was pale, but he nodded. ‘Okay. You’re coming back.’
He’d signed it as a statement, but Dani knew that it was really a question.
‘We are coming back,’ she assured him. ‘This could be nothing at all. Either way, we will be back.’
Troy was on the phone with the other van, and both vehicles pulled into a nearby parking lot. Diesel got out, but looked back at Troy.
‘With my life,’ Troy said mildly before Diesel could say anything at all.
Diesel nodded once, then helped Dani out of the van. ‘See you later, guys,’ he said. ‘Pick a movie for tonight. We’ll make popcorn.’
But neither boy smiled, and Joshua was crying.
Before Dani could question her choice, Troy was driving away, taking the kids to safety, and Agent Parrish Colby had opened the van’s sliding door for them to get in.
Dani buckled up and called Faith. ‘Where is Greg?’
‘Three minutes from the clinic,’ Faith said tightly. ‘I texted him, too, in case by some chance he is looking at his phone. I told him not to go to the clinic and to call either me or you, but he’s still not answering. Dammit. He fights the rules every day. Why does he pick now to obey? Where are you?’
Dani’s heart was beating in her throat. Let me be paranoid. Let this be nothing. Let Greg be on his way somewhere else. ‘We just got off at Taft.’
‘Five minutes,’ Parrish said. Putting the emergency lights on, he took off with a squeal of tires. ‘Hang on.’
Twenty-eight
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday, 19 March, 6.25 P.M.
Agent Parrish Colby got them to the clinic in four minutes, slowing down when Diesel spied Greg walking from where he’d parked on the street. Greg had his head down, texting on his phone.
Parrish leaned on the horn, but Greg didn’t stop.
Dani wanted to throttle her brother. ‘If he’s not wearing his hearing aids, he can’t hear anything.’ And even if he was, it wasn’t enough to hear a car horn. ‘We’re going to have to catch him, because he’s not watching for us. Stop the van. Stop the van!’ she shouted when they still hadn’t rolled to a stop.
Parrish stopped with a jerk, opening the doors for Dani to get out. But Diesel was first and he sprinted toward Greg, catching up to him just as Greg was pulling at the clinic’s front door.
Diesel grabbed Greg around the waist, spinning him around.
Greg shrank back, his face gone white. ‘What the fuck?’ he voiced.
Diesel didn’t answer, dragging Greg between two parked cars on the street and hunkering down. Dani caught up to them, breathing hard as she dropped into a crouch beside them. ‘It’s a trap, Greg,’ she signed, her hands shaking. ‘I didn’t ask you to meet me here.’
Greg’s face went even paler. ‘Oh my God. It’s him? Kaiser?’
Dani nodded, trying to catch her breath. ‘I think so.’
‘But . . . how?’ Greg was trembling head to toe. ‘How did he get my number? How did he know yours? The text came from you.’
‘He must have spoofed it,’ Diesel said, but he was looking up and down the street. ‘Let’s go. Parrish Colby’s going to get us out of here. Now.’
Dani didn’t move. ‘How did he get our numbers, Diesel? Did you get any other texts, Greg?’
Greg nodded. ‘One from Jenny, right as I got out of the car. That’s what I was looking at when Diesel grabbed me. She said to hurry.’
Dani sucked in a breath that hurt. One text had been sent from her own account and the next from the nurse at the clinic? This wasn’t good.
‘Jenny was on duty today,’ she explained to Diesel. ‘If Kaiser’s using her phone . . .’
Diesel pressed his lips together. ‘Okay, this is what’s going to happen. Greg, you’re going to get into Parrish’s van a
nd stay down. Dani . . .’ He trailed off and just shook his head. ‘You’re going to do what you’re going to do.’
Damn straight, she thought. ‘Just wait,’ she told him, then took Greg’s arm and ran with him to the FBI van. ‘Parrish, we need you. Greg, get in the van. Stay with Agent . . . I don’t know your name.’
‘Agent Rocha, ma’am,’ the other man said as he slid over the middle console and into the driver’s seat.
‘Thank you. Greg, stick to Agent Rocha like glue. And stay down.’ Without waiting for agreement, she ran back to Diesel.
If Cade Kaiser had her nurse’s phone, it meant that Jenny was hurt. ‘Where’s Adam?’ she asked Parrish.
‘I don’t know,’ Parrish said from behind her, and Dani was grateful that Diesel had reminded her to wear her processor. She wouldn’t have been able to hear him otherwise.
‘Can you try Meredith? She might know where he is.’
‘I did,’ he replied. ‘Neither of them is answering.’
‘What about your backup?’
‘On the way,’ Parrish said, then blew out a breath. ‘Shit. What the fuck’s he doing?’
Dani’s heart skittered as she realized that Diesel was no longer hiding between the parked cars.
He’d just entered the clinic.
She burst in behind him. And skidded to a stop, staring at the blood on the floor. ‘Oh my God. Miles.’ The other clinic doctor was on the floor, unmoving.
Diesel was checking for a pulse. ‘It’s so faint, I can barely feel it.’
Dani started toward them, but Parrish Colby grabbed her arm. ‘Wait. Let me clear the area,’ he said.
Dani waited impatiently while he searched, clearing each room. She heard him call out from one of the exam rooms and rushed in after him. ‘Jenny!’
Her nurse was down, a wide swath of blood behind her, like she’d dragged herself across the floor. Dani grabbed a pair of gloves from the box on the counter and dropped to her knees to take her pulse.
‘She’s alive,’ Dani said, relieved.
‘I called for an ambulance already,’ Parrish said. ‘The interior is clear. I’m going to check outside and direct our backup.’
‘Thanks,’ Dani murmured, already focused on Jenny. The nurse wore only a bra, which had once been white but was now crimson except for a few inches of the straps. She’d been shot in the upper abdomen. Her arm was outstretched, reaching for her scrubs top, which lay on the floor.
Still on her knees, Dani crawled to the cabinet and threw open the lower doors, grabbing all the gauze she could find. If she couldn’t stem the bleeding, Jenny wasn’t going to make it.
She was packing the wound when Jenny’s eyes opened and her mouth moved. Dani lowered her ear so that she could hear whatever Jenny was trying to say.
‘Pocket,’ Jenny barely breathed. ‘Please.’
Dani reached for Jenny’s top and felt something heavy in the pocket. It was the switchblade that the woman always carried because she feared the neighborhood, especially at night. It wasn’t going to help her now.
Dani had dropped the scrubs and was returning her attention to Jenny’s gunshot wound when she heard it.
A small pop. Like a champagne cork, but softer. Fear had her grabbing for Jenny’s blade, sliding it up the sleeve of her sweater seconds before she heard the footsteps behind her.
She pivoted on her knees, only to look up into the face of Cade Kaiser.
‘You look like shit,’ she said, because it was the first thing that came to mind.
His skin was an unhealthy gray, and he swayed unsteadily. Even from a few feet away, she could smell the putrid odor of infection.
His wounds were going septic. But that wasn’t what held her attention.
That would be the gun in his hand. With a silencer on the end of the barrel.
Oh no. Suddenly her mind processed the pop she’d heard. Oh God.
‘Diesel!’ she yelled, and tried to rush past Kaiser, aiming for the exam room door, but he grabbed her wrist, yanking her back. A moment later, the barrel of the gun was pressed to her head.
‘He’s dead,’ Kaiser said flatly, ‘and you will be, too, if you don’t open the damn supply closet and get me some medicine.’
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday, 19 March, 6.29 P.M.
Cade blinked hard, fighting to keep his body upright. He leaned into Dani Novak, pushing her toward the exam room door.
‘Go. And don’t try anything heroic. I’ve got literally nothing to lose.’
The doctor stumbled and he jerked her wrist behind her back to keep her from falling. Her hiss of pain was welcome and he latched onto it, using it to fuel each step forward. This woman was responsible for this. For all of this. Her and her goddamn bodyguards.
Her ‘platoon’. Her friends and family.
He wanted to gut them all, but he’d content himself with her. He’d already taken care of the behemoth who’d charged into the clinic like a rabid bull, shocking him. He’d been expecting the doctor’s younger brother, not a man who looked so much like himself. For a moment he’d stared, thinking the fever was making him delusional.
Then the man had dropped to the male doctor’s side and Cade had managed to clear the back door, evading notice.
He’d been forced back inside the clinic, though, when a man in a suit ran around the back, weapon drawn, shouting, ‘FBI!’ The Fed had dropped like a rock when Cade shot him in the leg, the same place the red-headed female Fed had shot Cade.
He’d pulled a stack of flattened boxes over the downed Fed and fled back into the clinic, desperately trying to figure his next step. And then he’d heard her. The doctor. Dr Dani Novak, aka his ticket to freedom.
Now he shoved Novak through the exam room door, jamming the barrel of his gun into her temple with more force than he needed to. Except that he did need to. He needed to hear her gasp, her whimper when she saw the carnage in the hall outside the exam room.
‘Supply closet,’ he snapped when she faltered at the sight of the behemoth’s body lying facedown beside the shirtless male doctor. A dark stain was spreading across the back of the brute’s sweatshirt.
Diesel. She’d called him Diesel. What the fuck kind of name was that? This was the man he’d heard with Dani Novak the night he’d shot Not-a-Detective Stone. According to the news article on the shooting, the property he’d thought was a safe house belonged to Elvis Kennedy, aka Diesel.
Well, Diesel was one problem Cade no longer had to worry about.
Cade gave the doctor another shove. ‘Move it, Dr Novak. I don’t have all day.’
She stopped abruptly, her breaths coming in jagged pants. ‘No.’
He tightened his hold on her arm. ‘No? Did you just tell me no?’
‘I did.’ She stood ramrod straight now, her body trembling. ‘I was agreeing with you. You don’t have all day. This place will be surrounded by cops and FBI if it’s not already.’
‘They’ll let me go,’ he said. But his hand shook, which made him angrier. ‘You’re my ticket out of here.’
‘No,’ she said again. ‘They won’t let you go.’
He stilled for a moment, then snarled. ‘Of course they will. Your brother and your cousin will let me go because they want you to live.’
‘No, they won’t. They will not let you go to save me.’ She drew a shuddering breath. ‘Not because they won’t want to save me, because they will. And when they catch you, they’re going to make you pay for forcing them to make that choice.’
He shook her, glad to hear a whimper, because she’d made him doubt what he knew to be true. Of course they’d choose her. Of course they’d let him go. They’d do anything to keep her alive. She’s messing with my mind. ‘Stop arguing and get to the supply closet. I want antibiotics.’
She bowed her head, her free hand clenching at he
r side. ‘No.’
It sounded like a sob.
He shoved her hard, and she went to her knees. He jerked her arm, twisting it higher behind her back. ‘Get up,’ he snarled, dragging her to her feet. Feeding on her cry of pain, letting it center him. ‘Get up, or you’ll be dead on the floor with your bodyguard.’
And then the bodyguard moved. In a flash, the big man was lurching from the floor, lunging toward them.
Huge hands closed around Cade’s throat, squeezing, lifting him off his feet, making him gasp for air. The doctor twisted from his hold and he dimly heard something clatter to the ground. His gun? No, he still had that.
I still have my gun. Shoot him. Now.
Cade worked the weapon between their bodies, shoving the barrel into the man’s chest, but his vision was going black, his fingers numb. Pull the trigger, dammit, he told himself. Pull it.
Then he froze as the tip of a knife jabbed into the back of his neck.
‘Drop the gun,’ Dani hissed. ‘Or I will kill you where you stand. Don’t you dare think I won’t, you sonofabitch.’
The behemoth wrenched the gun from Cade’s hand, then stepped back, his hand visibly shaking as he pointed the weapon at Cade. ‘On the floor,’ he commanded. ‘Hands out where I can see them.’
No. No, no, no. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. He’d come so far . . .
Too far to stop fighting.
He spun around, going for the doctor’s wrist, but a sharp pain ripped through his gut just as he was knocked to the floor by the bodyguard. He had only enough time to register Dr Novak’s bloody knife and her satisfied expression before a beefy fist connected with his jaw, then another fist. And another.
Through blurry eyes, Cade looked up to see the bodyguard looming over him, snarling like a beast. Then the fist smashed into his eye and he couldn’t see anything.
‘Diesel.’ The doctor’s voice cut through the fog. ‘Diesel!’
More hits, to his face, to his stomach, as the doctor continued to yell the bodyguard’s name. ‘Diesel, baby.’ She panted the words. ‘You need to stop.’