Ghost of a Chance

by Cynthia Eden

  He’d called an ambulance for Devin. Had gotten Barnes to stay with the guy until help could arrive. Devin’s words kept playing through his mind.

  Marilyn. Why would Marilyn be behind this mess?

  He’d had to go the long way over to Tess’s place. His GPS had rerouted him because of some damn car accident. It had cost him precious time. He jabbed the button for the elevator. The doors slid open and—

  “Fucking hell!” James lunged down. Cole was slumped in the corner. At first glance, he thought Cole was dead. Cole was not moving, and James didn’t think he saw the guy breathing. He put his hand to Cole’s throat as he searched for a pulse. Nothing. Oh, dammit, he was—

  A light beat. A thready pulse.

  Still alive.

  James yanked out his phone. Called nine-one-one and barked orders as fast as he could. He needed…

  “They t-took…her…” Cole whispered.

  At least, that was what he thought Cole whispered.

  “J-just left…h-hurry…”

  What? James threw out his hand and hit the emergency button on the elevator. The doors stayed open as he listened to the calm nine-one-one operator tell him to assess the situation and—

  “The situation is fucked to hell and back,” James snapped. “I need help for my partner, right now. Get an ambulance out here because I don’t know what’s wrong with him!” He couldn’t see any signs of injury. In fact, physically, Cole looked fine. But his speech was slurred and his eyes wouldn’t stay open. His pulse was barely there and it sure seemed like—

  Drugs.

  James felt his heart squeeze. Cole had been drugged. Devin had been drugged.

  And, years ago, Tess had been drugged and attacked.

  “G-go…after her…” Cole’s voice was weaker. “H-hurry…”

  “Who took her? Was it Marilyn?”

  Cole didn’t speak, but…had that been a nod?

  “And Marilyn…did she drug you?”

  Another…possible nod?

  “Fuck.”

  “Sir,” the nine-one-one operator said in her crisp voice. “I need to know more about the victim, will you tell me—”

  “He’s been drugged and he needs a hospital, right the hell now. Get an ambulance here and help him.” He squeezed Cole’s hand. “I need you to hold on, got it? Help is coming.”

  Cole’s face had bleached of color. “Go…Tess.”

  He’d said that they had just left with Tess. “Who was with Marilyn?”

  Cole’s lips moved. He didn’t speak. He…he started to spasm. His eyes flew wide and there was terror in his gaze.

  “Fucking hell!” James roared into the phone. “He’s dying!”

  ***

  The ER was absolute chaos. Latonya Wilson ignored the twisting pain in her back and the tension in her shoulders as she headed for the next patient—the man sprawled out on the exam table that waited for her.

  She’d been told he was a gunshot victim. That he was probably high on drugs.

  That he’d seized once in the ambulance on the way over.

  That the patient was shouting and saying things that didn’t make sense.

  She donned her gloves, she squared her shoulders, and she—

  The patient’s head turned toward her. His face was haggard, his eyes wild, and terror cloaked his expression. “Help…me.” He grabbed her hand. “Please.”

  Dr. Devin Goddard was on her table.

  Begging for help.

  Her breath caught. What in the hell?

  “Please…”

  “I help everyone who comes into my ER.” She nodded. “You’re going to be okay, Devin. Just breathe and relax.”

  “T-Tess…”

  Her heart squeezed. “What about Tess?”

  “I’m…sorry…”

  ***

  James watched the ambulance drive away. James had followed the nine-one-one operator’s desperate instructions. For a moment, he’d been sure that he was losing Cole. No, he had lost him. Because Cole’s heart had stopped. James had given him CPR until the EMTs arrived, and when they’d roared onto the scene, they’d gone to work on the Wilde agent immediately.

  They’d kept up the CPR. They’d injected Cole with something. Maybe Narcan?

  They’d worked like hell, and they’d gotten him back.

  Now Cole was being rushed to the hospital. Cole was—hopefully—going to make it. But what about Tess?

  James rubbed his chest. He felt as if someone had ripped out his heart. He’d stayed with Cole. Lost his chance to find Tess, and he was about to lose his mind. She was out there, somewhere. Hurting. Maybe dead. When the EMTs had taken over, he’d done a desperate search of her apartment.

  There had been no sign of Tess. He’d called the alarm company and been told that, yes, the alarm had sent out a distress signal. A signal that had been canceled. Tess had even spoken with an agent, confirming that she was safe. Though, after prompting from James, the agent had admitted that Tess had sounded…strained.

  Strained? Jesus. She’d probably been terrified. He had no doubt that Tess had been forced to cancel the alarm call. Now she was gone, and he was breaking apart.

  “Um, excuse me?”

  James glanced back. A woman with dark hair, deep brown eyes, and a pensive frown stood close by. A baby was cradled against her, and the woman rocked back and forth as she soothed the child.

  “Can you tell me what happened here?” she asked.

  Damn. Where to start? “A man was injured. He’s being taken to the hospital.”

  She bit her lower lip and kept moving her body, doing that thing that moms always did where they stayed in constant motion to calm their babies.

  He started to turn away.

  “Was this related to the woman with the nurse?”

  James jerked toward her. “What woman?”

  “The woman who was so sick. The nurse said they were taking care of her. She came out of this building.” The young mother tilted her head toward Tess’s building. “The man was carrying her.”

  Breathe. “Can you describe him for me? I need as much information as you can give me.”

  The baby began to cry.

  She murmured softly to him, stroked his back, but kept her eyes on James. “Something was wrong, wasn’t it? I could tell. I just—it all felt off. And I swear, she asked me for help.”

  Her words tore his heart to shreds. “Please tell you me what you remember about the man.”

  But the young mother winced. “I’m not so good with faces. He was good-looking. His clothes appeared expensive. His hair was dark. I think.”

  Hold on to your control. Let her talk. Give her time—

  “I’m not good with faces,” she said again as she rocked the baby, “but would the car’s license plate help?”

  He stopped breathing.

  “Because I’m really good with numbers. And I memorized it as they drove away.”

  ***

  “I need to know what’s happening with my partner.” Linc slammed his fists into the check-in counter at the ER. Blair’s blood had dried on his hands. Blair. He yanked his fists back as the administrative clerk frowned at him. “She was rushed to the back, and no one will tell me anything.” He was about to go insane. He’d ridden in the ambulance with her. Kept her hand tightly in his. He’d talked to her the whole way.

  Even when she’d stopped talking to him.

  “Sir,” the clerk began, his voice firm, “you need to take a seat in the waiting area. We will be back with you as soon as we know more.” A pause. “And you said this was your partner? As in…your wife? Your girlfriend? We need to know your legal relationship to her so that—”

  “Fuck my legal relationship to her.”

  The clerk’s eyes widened. “Sir, you need to calm down.”

  “I can’t calm down. That’s my partner in there. She was bleeding and she was unconscious, and I need to know that she’s all right.” He was losing his damn mind. “Look, she’s not my
wife. She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my—” Everything. No, no, he couldn’t say that. “I have to know how she is. Get me someone who knows—”

  The ER doors burst open. Those damn doors had been bursting like crazy in the short time he’d been there. All hell seemed to have broken loose in the city. But he wasn’t so worried about the city.

  He was worried about Blair.

  His Blair.

  EMTs shoved in a gurney, and Linc caught a fast glance at the man on there and…

  “Holy shit, Cole?” Linc bounded toward him. “What the hell happened?”

  A security guard pushed him back. “Sir, you need to move. The staff has to work on him.”

  Cole’s lashes flickered up. He blinked. Seemed to focus on Linc for a moment. Then his eyes rolled back in his head.

  The security guard’s hand pressed hard to Linc’s chest.

  “Is he…a partner, too?” The question came from the same administrative assistant.

  Linc’s head swiveled toward him. Don’t freak out on the hospital staff. Do not—

  “I need to speak with the family of Blair Kincaid.” A female doctor had just appeared near the swinging ER doors.

  “That’s me!” He ran away from the security guard. “I’m her family.”

  “Ah…but you said you were her partner—” It was that damn administrative guy again.

  “I’m both.” He staggered to a stop in front of the doctor. Her dark hair was pulled into a long braid. She wore green scrubs, a stethoscope circled her neck, and her eyes were smudged with shadows. “How is Blair?”

  “She was in a car accident?”

  A hit and run. He nodded.

  “She’s fine. We contained the bleeding and assessed the additional damage.”

  He couldn’t swallow. “What additional damage?”

  “Her broken ribs. Her head wound. The lacerations on her arm and side.” Spoken crisply. “Don’t worry. She’s in recovery now. She should be fine.”

  He choked down the lump in his throat. Blair was okay. “Thank you.” His gaze darted to her name tag. “Dr. Wilson. Thank you very much.”

  Her smile was tired. “You’re welcome. But, now I have to go. We’re short staffed, and I have other patients who need me.”

  Patients like Cole.

  What in the hell happened to Cole?

  Even as the question registered, even as he watched the doctor turn and stride back through those swinging doors, he realized…

  If Cole is here, where’s Tess?

  His hands slapped over his body. His phone was gone. Had it been left in the wreckage? He’d…yeah, okay, he’d lost his control when Blair had been injured. His whole focus had been on getting her to safety.

  He’d thought that Cole was protecting Tess. Thought that James was clear back at the club.

  But things weren’t fine. Nothing was fine.

  He rushed back to the administrative desk. “I need to use your phone.”

  The clerk lifted a brow.

  “Please.”

  The guy slid him the phone. “Everything is always easier when you ask nicely. Manners go a long way in this world.”

  With his middle finger, Linc punched in the number he had memorized for James. It rang once, twice, and…

  “Who the hell is this?” James demanded.

  “Yeah, happy to hear your voice, too,” Linc threw back. “Where are you and what in the hell is happening?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tess opened her eyes. She jerked upright, realizing that she was in…a bed?

  Yes, some fancy bed. King-sized. The covers felt like soft down. The wooden, four-poster was huge, and the heavy furniture in the room reeked of money. “What?” She shook her head. Oh, bad move. The room spun. Nausea rolled in her stomach, and she thought that she might black out again. Her hands rose and they were—cuffed? She stared down at her cuffed wrists. She twisted her hands. Tried to yank them free of the cuffs. The metal bit into her skin.

  “You woke up faster than I thought.”

  The room was spinning and so was Marilyn.

  Marilyn smiled. Only it looked like an evil grin. “How do you feel?”

  “Like crap.” Her throat was bone dry. Her heart raced. Her cuffed hands shook.

  Marilyn hummed and came closer. “I didn’t give you nearly as much as I gave Cole. Didn’t want him waking up and bothering us. Actually…” She leaned toward Tess. “He probably won’t wake up at all.”

  The blonde was so close to her. Tess lifted up her cuffed hands and lunged—

  She fell off the side of the bed and crashed into the floor.

  “That was sad,” Marilyn told her. “Did you think it was going to work out differently? Like, in your head? Did you think you were going to hit me, knock me unconscious, and escape?” She crouched next to Tess. “Or maybe you thought you’d get this from me.” She pulled a capped syringe from her pocket. She was still wearing her scrubs. How many syringes did the woman have ready to go? Seemed like a limitless supply. “Maybe you thought you’d shoot me up the way you shot up my brother all those years ago. And you’d kill me, too.”

  Had she just heard that right? Marilyn’s brother?

  Tess stared into Marilyn’s bright blue eyes.

  OhmyGod.

  Marilyn smiled again. The evil grin. “At first, I was grateful to you.”

  What was happening? Was this all some hallucination?

  Where was James? She’d like to see James now. Right now.

  “He hurt me, too, you know. I think that’s why he picked girls my age. I did research on it later, cause, you know…” She waved the syringe vaguely in the air. “Trying to figure out why he wound up like he did. Trying to make sure I didn’t end up the same way.” She leaned closer. “In case it was genetic or something.”

  No. No.

  “He used to watch me. Then he’d touch me. Mom caught him once. Told him to never touch me that way again.” Marilyn glanced at the syringe. “But she kept letting him live in the house with me. That was when he started going out to hunt. I followed him once. I watched him. And he would whisper to me about them. Those girls that he hurt.”

  Okay, Tess was going to vomit.

  “But then you stopped him. I didn’t know it was you, of course, not right away. I knew someone had stopped him. He wrecked his car on the way home. Heard the cops telling mom that he was high. A mix of drugs. That was what he did. He gave all the girls drugs.” She bit her lip. “He gave me drugs. I remember that.”

  “Marilyn….please…”

  “Took me years to figure out it was you. I was all Nancy Drew like. Checked hospital records, tracked down leads. Then found you.” She smoothed back Tess’s hair with her left hand. “When I met you in that library, I liked you. I decided that maybe you had helped me. You got rid of him. My life got better. And, we even became friends. The more I was with you, I realized that you were good. So good.”

  Tess’s body was shaking. She didn’t know what Marilyn had given her, so she didn’t know what to expect her body to do. She couldn’t think of Cole, not then. Couldn’t think of what might have happened to him.

  She had to survive. Had to get past this moment. Once she was free, then she’d figure out everything else.

  Cole was trying to help me. Just to help me.

  No, she slammed the door on that thought.

  “Your new boyfriend wasn’t so good.” Marilyn stopped stroking Tess’s hair. “Barnes tipped me off, but I didn’t learn the real truth, not until Morgan came into the hospital.”

  Crap. So that memory had been real. Morgan was involved. But why?

  “He’s a killer.”

  Morgan was a killer? Tess pushed up onto her knees. Every movement made her head swim sickeningly.

  “He’s killed dozens of people, and you fell for him.”

  Wait, she was talking about James? Not Morgan?

  “You let a killer into your bed. You knew what he was, Morgan told me that you kne
w, and you didn’t care.” She nodded. “There’s something wrong with you. You were supposed to stay good. Supposed to stay better.”

  Better than what?

  “But you didn’t. You fell for him, and now, I have to make you pay.”

  This was insane. “We’ve…been friends…for years.”

  Another nod. “And we would have kept right on being friends.” A despondent sigh. “If you hadn’t fucked a killer and liked it.”

  “Are you…serious? You…after what you did to Cole…to me…”

  Marilyn’s face hardened. Her lips parted—

  “Yeah, I don’t think she quite gets how illogical she is,” a male voice announced.

  Morgan Waller had just sauntered into the bedroom. He stood a few feet behind Marilyn.

  Marilyn scrambled to her feet. “I’m not illogical! I’m doing what’s right! You told me that James Smith was evil! You told me she knew everything he’d done. She didn’t care, she was as tainted as my brother.”

  How had Morgan even known about Marilyn’s brother?

  Tess knew she needed to get off the floor. She needed a weapon. She needed a damn miracle.

  “Your brother was a sick fucking freak, dear. Just like my brother.” He peered around at Tess. “They were friends, you see. Her brother and mine. Isn’t that chummy?”

  That wasn’t the word she’d use to describe things. More like—horrific?

  “Want to know who gave Marilyn’s dear brother the drugs he used on his victims? My brother did. He was always getting his hands far too dirty.”

  No, this wasn’t happening.

  “I recognized Marilyn when I went into the hospital. I’d seen her a bit growing up. We ran in the same social circles, you see.”

  What circles would those be? The rich who sold drugs? Who hurt young girls?

  But Marilyn had been hurt, too. Hurt and damaged, and Tess hadn’t seen the truth. Marilyn had put up a mask, and Tess had believed it.

  Because I was wearing my own mask. Because I didn’t let her get close. And she didn’t let me get close. And I thought that was normal.

  “Marilyn, I…” Her throat was so dry. She cleared it. Tried again. “I want to help you.”

  Marilyn glanced down at her with huge eyes.

  Morgan wrapped his hand around Marilyn’s shoulder. “No, don’t listen to her. Tess is lying. She wants to hurt you. I told you that. Her new boyfriend kills. He assassinates people who do bad things. She was going to get him to turn on you. As soon as she learned the truth—and you knew, Marilyn, deep down, eventually, she would learn it—Tess was going to get him to kill you.”