by LENA DIAZ,
“That’s the piece of crap who screwed my girlfriend. I’ll get rid of him. Then you and I can finish business.”
He whirled and strode toward Adam, half expecting to feel the burn of a bullet between his shoulders. He funneled all of his frustration and anger into an expression of pure malice as he glared at the man who was endangering everything. Of all the people to recognize him and interrupt his mission, why did it have to be Adam? He was two inches taller than Ian, if not more muscular. And, naturally, he was standing beside a cool blacked-out SUV that he must have parked when he saw Ian.
He didn’t stop until he was right in Adam’s face. “Punch me.” His voice was pitched low so no one else would hear. “Hard.”
“Punch you? Why would I punch—”
Ian slugged him in the jaw, spinning him around. He followed up with a solid left hook to the middle, making him double over.
Adam coughed, his eyes watering as he glared up at Ian. He slowly straightened and wiped a thin trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. “You want to give me one good reason why I shouldn’t beat the crap out of you for that?”
“Nope.” Ian braced himself for what he knew was coming, and slowly drew back his fist again, giving Adam plenty of opportunity. The punch caught him in the shoulder like a battering ram, slamming him to the pavement. His head bounced against the concrete and his mouth filled with blood. Holy hell. He’d forgotten just how strong Adam was. The man was built like a bull.
Somewhere behind him laughter sounded. Some truckers watching the fun? Or Butch and his crew? An engine revved. The van. Ian’s stomach sank. He’d lost his opportunity to rescue the girls, at least tonight. He shook his head, desperately trying to clear his double vision as he pushed himself to his feet. Maybe Butch would give him another chance. Ian had to convince him this fight was for real, and that Adam wasn’t a cop. He had to keep this up until the van was gone. Even if it killed him.
He spit out a stream of blood and turned, then ducked just in time to avoid a fist to the face.
The white van pulled out of its spot, slowly passing them. Butch was definitely watching. Ian had to make this convincing.
He straightened, both fists in front of him as he tried to figure out which blurry image to hit. He made a half-hearted jab toward the middle one, then braced himself for the return punch. It was a one-two combo, making him double over from the first hit, then spin around with the second. He wobbled, the white of the van barely in his field of vision now. They were still watching. Was that a good thing? Or a bad thing? Were bullets about to fly or was Butch going to lie low and set up a new meeting later?
One more weak jab at Adam hit air as planned. Even knowing what was coming, he wasn’t prepared for the violence of the return punch. It slammed into his ribs, knocking the wind out of him and sending him flying backward.
He managed to cover his head with his arm this time before he hit the concrete.
Fiery lava shot up his left arm and zinged through his shoulder. The only thing that kept him from shouting was a mouthful of blood. He spit again, then coughed and rolled onto his stomach, trying to push himself up on all fours. His left arm hung useless at his side. He swore. How was he supposed to go up against thugs like the Hulk with a bum shooting arm? Maybe he should have slugged Adam for real. He might have lost more by throwing this fight than he’d gained.
“Ian, good grief. Stay down. I’ll call an ambulance.”
“No.” He coughed up more blood. “No ambulance.” At least, that was what he tried to say. He was pretty sure it came out something like “nolnce.”
The van sped off.
Thank God.
Adam crouched in front of him, a little unsteady himself, seeming to favor his left leg even though Ian didn’t think he’d hit it. “Be still. Quit trying to stand.” He pulled out his phone. “I’ll call—”
Tires screeched. An engine roared.
“What the—” Adam jumped back to avoid being hit by Ian’s black Dodge Charger.
Ah, hell.
“Hey, big bully. Back off. Now,” Shannon called through the open window. “Ian, get in.” The passenger door popped open beside him. “Stay back, jerk, or I’ll put a hole in you.”
Ian squinted toward the car. She was pointing his .357 Magnum at Adam. Things had just gone from bad to about ten levels worse than that. He wobbled to his feet just as Adam brought up his Glock.
“Drop it, lady,” Adam ordered.
Ian staggered between them, using his body as a shield, hoping they both didn’t start a shoot-out with him in the middle. He rarely wore a Kevlar vest while undercover, just in case a bad guy wanted to see proof that he wasn’t wearing a wire. Now he was reconsidering the sanity of that decision.
“Ergmrph.” He shook his head in defeat. Either his brain was scrambled or the cut in his mouth was garbling his words. Probably both.
“Ian, get out of the way.” Adam jerked his gun down.
Progress.
He forced his uncooperative legs to shuffle and fell back into the car.
Adam’s gun came up.
Ian threw himself against Shannon, once more acting as her human shield.
Adam swore and yanked his gun down.
“Go.” Ian’s order came out a pained grunt, but must have gotten the message across.
The car took off, the momentum slamming the passenger door shut. Ian couldn’t hold on and rolled back the other way, crunching his ruined arm between his body and the door before managing to twist around and fall back into the seat. His garbled curses were the last thing he heard before surrendering to the darkness.
Chapter Three
Shannon slammed the brakes, bringing the Charger to a bouncing stop in front of the emergency room doors. Muffled cursing had her wincing and looking at Ian. His normally handsome, chiseled features were almost unrecognizable beneath his blood-matted black-and-blond hair. He was slumped in the passenger seat, cradling his left arm against his abdomen, his deep blue eyes glazed with pain.
“We’re here.” She grabbed the massive revolver from the console and hid it in her purse just as a man in green scrubs ran out the sliding doors, motioning for her to move.
“Lady, you can’t park here. This is the ambulance entrance. We’ve got one on the way, five minutes out.”
“I need help!” she yelled through the open passenger window. “This man, he’s hurt. I...found him a couple of blocks away, lying in the street. I think he got mugged or something. His left arm may be broken.”
Ian grunted, the corner of his swollen mouth lifting in a half grin as he nodded. He approved of her lies. No surprise there. She was good at lying, had been doing it most of her life just to survive.
The man in scrubs leaned in, his eyes going wide when he saw Ian. He turned and motioned toward the doors to someone Shannon couldn’t see. A moment later another man in scrubs ran outside, pushing a wheelchair at a run.
“Sir, I’m Nurse Jack. I’m going to help you. Can you tell me what happened?” The first man eased open the door and crouched inside, checking Ian’s injuries.
For some reason, the nurse’s name seemed to amuse Ian. He chuckled and mumbled something that sounded oddly like “Sparrow.”
“What’s his name?” Jack asked.
“I’m not sure. He mumbled Ian, I think.”
Ian gave her a thumbs-up, acting loopy. He never acted loopy. Just what had that jerk at the truck stop done to him?
The two men struggled to lift Ian out of the car. But they managed to get him into the wheelchair without dumping him onto the concrete. The second one took off, pushing Ian toward the emergency room doors. Jack shut the car door and crouched by the window, motioning toward the parking lot to Shannon’s left.
“Park over there and come inside. We’ve got policemen here 24/7. One of them will want to take your statement.
”
“Of course. Be right in. Thank you so much for your help.”
He gave her a tight, suspicious smile. “We don’t see enough Good Samaritans these days. That guy owes you. Thanks.” He backed up to the curb.
Feeling like the fraud she was, she smiled back, then pulled Ian’s car into the lot. With Nurse Jack watching, she parked in the first spot she came to, halfway down the row. She stalled for time by rolling up the windows one at a time. Then she grabbed her purse and cut the engine before slowly getting out of the car.
She could feel Jack watching her, so she kept up the charade. She smoothed her T-shirt over her jeans and strolled toward the emergency room.
Giving up his vigil, he jogged back to the hospital, convinced that his Good Samaritan was coming inside to talk to the police as instructed.
Like that would ever happen.
She ducked down the next row of cars, then took off running in the opposite direction. The next two hours were spent shuffling between fast-food restaurants and convenience stores, all within a few blocks of the hospital. Every time she stayed in one place long enough to start getting curious stares, she’d switch locations and start over.
Now, standing outside the ER once again, she debated the wisdom of going inside. Had she waited long enough to avoid the cops? Were they looking for her? What about Ian? Where was he? There was no way to know whether the doctors had already patched up his injuries. Emergency rooms were notorious for long waits. But he’d been in rough shape. Surely they would have taken care of him by now.
As she cautiously approached, she kept an eye out for Nurse Jack and the man who’d wheeled Ian into the emergency room. When she didn’t see either one, she straightened her shoulders and marched inside. One of the things that Ian had taught her since moving into the other side of the duplex that she rented was to hide in plain sight. Most people wouldn’t question a person’s right to be somewhere if they acted with confidence, pretending they belonged. Proving the point, no one stopped her or questioned her as she moved through the maze of rooms, gleaning bits of information left for anyone to take if they paid attention.
Like the sign-in sheet at the triage desk when the nurse turned away to talk to someone.
And the whiteboard with patient numbers instead of names, but with medical descriptions beside them: flu-like symptoms, fever, possible dislocated or fractured arm.
That dislocation or fracture could be Ian. Nothing else on the board fit. It still shocked her that he’d lost the fight so easily. She’d seen him take on four guys a few days ago outside their duplex because he was incensed that they were selling weed to the neighborhood kids. Those guys had left bleeding and bruised with their drugs confiscated. Ian had come away relatively unscathed. So how had he been beaten up by one lone man?
True, the guy was brawny and a few inches taller than Ian. But his shoulders weren’t as broad, his arms not as ripped. Normally Ian fought like a junkyard dog, scrappy and vicious, holding nothing back. Today he’d seemed sluggish. It didn’t make sense.
After a few more minutes of snooping and some unauthorized trips into areas off-limits to patients, she had a room number. He’d been taken to the fifth floor half an hour ago. From what she could understand from the medical jargon she’d sneaked and read, he’d been lucky. His arm was deeply bruised and sprained, dislocated and rotated back into place, but not broken. He did have a minor concussion. No surprise there. And he also had bruised ribs. Again, he was lucky they weren’t broken. The blood he’d been coughing up had come from a cut on the inside of his cheek. He’d be in a lot of pain for a few days. But at least he was going to be okay, or so she hoped. She wanted to see him for herself to be sure.
Ducking out of a restricted area into the main hallway, she swept her gaze back and forth, on the lookout for Nurse Jack or the cops he’d mentioned. The elevators were a little farther down. She just might make it. Then she’d find out if Ian was okay, and whether he’d been able to discover anything about Maria before that stupid bully had interfered.
She scanned the intersecting hallway just before the ladies’ room and the bank of elevators, then froze. Three impressively muscled, tall, dark-haired men in business suits were striding down the hall toward her. The one in the middle was half-turned, talking to the man on his right. He had the slightest limp, barely noticeable, as if his left leg bothered him. She’d seen that limp before. And she’d seen that profile, at the truck stop.
He was the man who’d beaten Ian.
She put on a burst of speed and ducked into the ladies’ room. The door had just swung shut when footsteps echoed outside. Had he seen her? Recognized her? She waited, pressing a hand to her chest as if she could force her pulse to stop racing so fast.
A toilet flushed in one of the stalls. She started primping in the mirror, finger-combing her black hair to make the blue tips lie flat against her shoulders.
An older lady in a yellow sunflower-print dress stepped to a sink two down from her, smiling politely even though her disapproving gaze shot to the tattoos on Shannon’s arms.
She’d probably faint if she saw the ones on her back.
Shannon hid a smile and grabbed a paper towel, pretending to dry her hands as she listened for sounds from the hallway. The footsteps had stopped. The elevator dinged. She tensed, her hand dropping to her purse, where the .357 rested inside. As soon as the elevator dinged again, she peeked out the door. The men were gone. She rushed into the hallway to the elevators. Only one was moving, the digital numbers above it marking its ascent.
Two. Three.
Keep going. Keep going.
Four.
Don’t stop, don’t stop.
Five. The elevator stopped.
Her stomach sank. The man who’d attacked Ian and possibly wrecked their plans to finally rescue Maria had somehow figured out where he was.
And he’d brought reinforcements.
Chapter Four
Ian awkwardly shifted against the pillows in his hospital bed as he clutched the phone to his right ear. While he listened to his boss, he watched the door at the other end of the room. He’d managed to keep his true identity a secret from the doctors and nurses so far. He aimed to keep it that way, at least until he discovered whether his cover had been blown with Butch.
“Did you get all that, Ian?”
“Yeah. Got it. Assistant District Attorney Cameron Ellison is a wuss. He wants me to drop my investigation. Doesn’t mean I will.”
A heavy sigh sounded in his ear. “We can’t run roughshod over the locals. We have to play nice in their sandbox. And he’s not asking us to drop it, just put it on hold for a few days, let things cool off. There were complaints at the truck stop. Several people saw the fight and called it in. That kind of exposure doesn’t help any of us.”
Ian’s hand tightened around the phone so hard his knuckles ached. “If those same people paid attention to the real trouble going on around them, maybe we wouldn’t have this human trafficking epidemic.”
“Ian—”
“Please tell me you don’t really expect me to back off. What do you think is going to happen to those girls if I do? I’m pretty sure I told you about ten of them were kids. We’re talking thirteen, fourteen, maybe. And two of them, my God, Nash. They were children. Little kids. We can’t sit on this. Don’t ask me to do that. I won’t. I can’t.”
Another sigh sounded through the phone. “What do you think you can do at this point? They saw you with Adam. They either suspect or know you’re in law enforcement.”
“Maybe, maybe not. They don’t know for sure what Adam does. Butch just got the cop vibe from him is all. And they wouldn’t expect a cop to pick a fight with another cop the way I did. There’s plenty of doubt there. I can build on that.”
“And how do you propose to do that?”
“I go back to work, back to the shop. Stick
to my routine. If they still want a deal, Wolverine will contact me again.”
“And if they think you tried to set them up, they may try to kill you.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to finish me off, and I’m still here. Nash, come on. Let me do this. Give me one more chance to set the trap and catch these slimeballs. For the love of all that’s holy, help me get those little kids back to their parents.” The phone went silent. “Boss, you still there?”
“I’m here.”
“What’s it gonna be? Let some local prosecutor call the shots and sacrifice dozens of young victims? Or do I get to wrap this thing up and make a difference for once?”
“You’ve rescued hundreds of victims since becoming an agent. You’re making a difference.”
“Doesn’t feel that way from where I’m sitting. I’ve spent months building my cover, getting that noxious Wolverine kid to trust me. We’re almost at the end. You pull me out now and bring someone else in, it’ll take them months, longer, to get back to this point. Maybe you end up with a prosecutable case. Maybe you don’t. Either way, it doesn’t help the victims we know are in or near Gatlinburg right this minute. Rescuing those in need comes before prosecution. That’s how we’ve always done things. A victim-centered approach. Or did our charter change while I was unconscious?”
“You know dang well it didn’t. Fine, fine. You win. Based on those photographs, we know there are approximately thirty victims in jeopardy—”
“Thirty-two. He mentioned two Latina women.”
“All right. Thirty-two. You and I both know how fast this scum likes to move their inventory, especially around a hub like you’ve discovered out here. If you’ve still got this Butch guy interested, maybe he’ll wait and give you one more chance. Forty-eight hours, Ian. That’s all I can give you. After that, we do it ADA Ellison’s way. Might as well try to put someone in prison after all these months even if we don’t end up rescuing the victims.”
