Director Dunn nodded. “I’ll arrange for your transportation as soon as you’re ready to leave.”
“You too,” Maria said, addressing Dunn, Carnevale, and Hanover. “Please stay with us. There’s plenty of room.”
“Thank you,” the agents said, accepting her offer.
Dr. Tremaine’s pager beeped. He looked at the display. “Sorry,” he said. “I have to go.”
“You’ll let us know if there’s any change in Jordan’s condition?” Marissa asked.
“Of course,” Tremaine answered.
“Thank you, doctor.”
Tremaine nodded, walked to the nurse’s station, picked up the phone, and answered the page.
Carnevale spoke to his colleagues. “I’ll bring the car around. Meet me at the main entrance.”
“I’ll be along in a minute,” Chris Hanover replied. He watched the nurse enter Jordan’s room. She was carrying the sedative Dr. Tremaine had requested.
Rigel glanced up from the monitor and watched as the nurse entered Jordan’s room. He too had heard the conversation.
Soon his target would be fast asleep, alone, and utterly defenseless.
His timing couldn’t have been better.
He wondered what she would smell like.
17
ZOE STEPPED OVER the body of the dead teenager, rushed across the hallway, and found Shannon laying in a puddle of soapy water in the corner of her stall. She was shivering, arms and legs drawn into the fetal position, rocking back and forth, talking to herself. “Want to go home… no more… leave now… promise to be good… promise… promise…”
Zoe had experienced this behavior twice in her lifetime. The first time was when she had been found by the police in her home, gun in hand. The second time was when she had collapsed in the courtroom after hearing the jury foreman read aloud her verdict, finding in her favor, acquitting her of all charges in the State’s case against her pursuant to the murder of her birth father. Following the trial, she was sent to a halfway house which became her post-exoneration home. Sheltered under its roof were children like her, so troubled, lost and without hope for the future that they sought peace in the only place they could trust: the confines of their mind. Zoe recognized the post-traumatic indicators of her sister’s impending mental breakdown. She had to pull Shannon back to reality to save her. If she failed, she would be gone forever.
Zoe entered the stall, approached her sister slowly, called her by her nickname. “Shay?”
Shannon continued to rock. She stopped talking.
“It’s me, Shay. It’s Zoe.” She kneeled, touched her lightly on her shoulder. “Can I sit with you?”
Shannon stopped talking. She pulled away, pressed herself tightly into the corner of the stable.
Zoe sat down. “It’s over, Shay. Time to go home. We’re getting out of here. You hear me?”
Shannon looked up. “Home?”
“Yes, sweetie.”
“No,” Shannon replied. She turned away. The rocking resumed. “Promise to be good… good…”
Zoe had to be firm with her sister. She was about to fall mind-first into a psychological abyss from which there would be no ascent. She had to snap her out of it. She took her by the hand. “Let’s go. On your feet.”
Shannon leaned into her arms.
“That’s my girl. Up we go.”
Shannon stood. Zoe wiped strands of soapy wet hair from her face and eyes. “Look at you,” she said. “Beautiful as ever. No worse for wear.”
Standing helped. Shannon began to regain the use of her faculties. Her speech became more coherent. “Zoe?” she said.
“Well, would you look at that,” Zoe replied. “Sleeping Beauty awakens.”
“Where are we?”
“I don’t know, Shay. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’re getting out of here, right now. Can you walk?”
Shannon took a tentative step. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Good,” Zoe teased, “because the thought of carrying you out of here wasn’t really working for me.”
Shannon looked across into Zoe’s stall and saw the body of the Clown laying on the ground. “Is he…”
“Dead?” Zoe answered. “He fucking-well better be.”
“How did you…”
“Don’t ask. I took care of it. That’s all that matters.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“He tried.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I couldn’t help you.” Tears welled in Shannon’s eyes.
Zoe cupped her sisters face in her hands. “Forget about it. Now come on. We need to get our asses in gear before someone comes to check on him.”
Horses whinnied at the far end of the stable.
“Wait here,” Zoe said.
“Where are you going?”
“To look around.”
“Not without me you’re not!”
“I’ll only be a second,” Zoe said. She handed Shannon the stun stick “Hang on to this. Don’t be afraid to use it. Not for a second.”
A strange sound came from the end of the stables. “You hear that?” Shannon said.
“You mean the horses? Yeah, Shay, I heard them. Horses… stable… one kind of goes with the other.”
“No, not horses. Something else.” Shannon stepped out of the stall and listened intently.
Zoe examined the stalls as Shannon ventured down the central corridor in search of the sound.
“Holy shit,” Zoe said.
“What?”
“Check this out.”
“What?”
“This.”
Zoe stared at the wall of the stall adjoining the one in which had been kept prisoner. The left side was papered with dozens of black and white photographs taken of them on the Harvard campus. The right side featured grainy surveillance photos of their father, Andrew Dunn. Interspersed between the pictures were photos depicting the hellish carnage delivered by terrorist attacks in Madrid, London, Boston and New York City.
“Jesus,” Zoe said. “You know what this means?”
Shannon nodded. “Whoever took us wants Dad, too.”
A whimpering sound came from the end of the stables, not equine. Human.
Shannon whispered to Zoe. “You heard it too?”
Zoe nodded. She took the stun stick from Shannon’s hand. “Stay with me,” she said. “Don’t leave my side.”
The women walked to the end of the stable. Disturbed by their presence, the horses neighed.
They inspected the stalls. All but one was empty.
A tattered horse blanket lay on the ground in the last stall. It moved.
Zoe gripped the stun stick tightly, then threw back the straw-covered blanket.
A young girl sat on the ground. She tried unsuccessfully to grab the blanket back from Zoe, then curled into a ball, covered her head, and began to sob. “Please don’t hurt me,” she cried. “I’ll be good. I promise I’ll be good.”
18
THE NURSE ADMINISTERED the sedative, lifted Jordan’s head, and adjusted her pillow. “There you go, dear,” she said. “Get some rest. Lord knows you need it.”
“Thank you,” Jordan said. She soon began to feel the effect of the drug. Her body became light, as though she were floating above the bed, not laying in it, her mind a tsunami of thoughts, each crashing into the last until finally, mentally and emotionally drained, the tumultuous dream-waters became calm and she fell fast asleep.
The nurse stood watching her patient, monitoring her vitals. Satisfied she was stable she dimmed the lights and left the room.
James Rigel watched the nurse close the door and return to the central station. With visiting hours now over, she returned to her paperwork. The floor was quiet. An elderly man in a nearby room talked in his sleep with such vigor that Rigel was sure he could be heard on the opposite side of the ward. Hospitals were supposed to be places of peace and tranquility, and this man’s unconscious inconsiderati
on for those suffering around him troubled him. Perhaps after he had taken care of his target, he would return the man’s room and put a permanent end to the incessant chatter. The nursing staff would applaud him for his effort. Their job was challenging enough without having to deal with such a discourteous patient.
A warning tone emanated from the central station. The nurse responded and entered a room located a few doors down the hall from Jordan.
Time to move.
Rigel walked down the corridor and glanced into each room, looking for any staff members he had not yet seen on the floor. All clear. He opened the door to Jordan’s room and slipped inside.
The target was sleeping peacefully. Rigel stood at the end of her bed. For a moment he felt a pang of regret for what he was about to do. It seemed like such a waste. Even in her incapacitated state she was unquestionably beautiful. She appeared less like a patient in need of medical attention than an actress, waiting for the director to say ‘Action’ and for the cameras to begin to roll.
Rigel moved closer. He wanted to pull down her blankets, explore her body, and discover the treasures that lay beneath. Instead he reeled in his emotions and harnessed his desire. Jordan lay on her back with one arm beneath the covers, the other atop. Rigel leaned over and smelled her, traveling from her wrist to her shoulder, inhaling her perfume: Indian jasmine, Rosa centifolia, cardamom, carnation and benzoin, with a light balance of citrus fruits; a custom blend, exquisite. He considered searching the room for a sharp object, something with the capacity to cut. He wanted a piece of her. Hers was the finest scent he had ever encountered on a woman by far. Although he had never considered adding a body part to his souvenir collection, the temptation to do so in this woman’s case was hard to ignore.
Jordan stirred in her sleep. The act reminded Rigel of the true purpose of his mission and the matter at hand: the completion of his contract with New York. Had the circumstances been different, had he met Jordan in a bar and seduced her with his movie-star charm, he could have taken her somewhere private, a place of his choosing, and enjoyed her for as long as he liked. But the confines of a hospital room were not conducive to satisfying both his curiosity and animal needs, and not nearly suitable enough for the romantic and mutually satisfying seductive encounter he knew a woman so perfect would expect from him. Had it been another time, another place...
Zippy would not do here. This woman was the exception to his rule. Even in death her beauty must be preserved.
Rigel lifted Jordan’s pillow, slipped it out from beneath her head, and pressed it down over her face.
Prior to the administration of the sedative, Jordan experienced an unexplainable shift in the energy of the room. It felt as if the air had become charged and now teemed with electricity. In the psychic intervention which preceded the injection she had sensed a malevolent presence. The Gift thrust her back to her earlier discussion with Chief Ballantyne and her vision of Becky Landry, the young girl whom she had witnessed locked in a losing battle for her life with the man with the three-star tattoo. Somehow, he was here now, with her. She tried to fight the effect of the sedative and call out to her nurse, to her godfather, to Special Agents Hanover or Dunn, anyone, to warn them of the evil in their midst.
The pressure of the pillow on her face and the sudden elimination of her air supply shocked Jordan back to consciousness. She thrashed under the force of her attacker, punched and clawed at him, turned her head away, just enough to draw in a quick breath and replenish her aching lungs with a brief supply of life-giving oxygen, then grabbed his wrists.
Three stars…
Years of training under the expert tutelage of her late friend and bodyguard suddenly kicked in. In her mind, Jordan saw Rock standing over her, coaching her through the attack, how best to apply the martial arts defense techniques he had taught her, all the while fighting the effect of the sedative. With her free hand Jordan drove her thumb deep into the nerve collection at the base of her attacker’s wrist. She heard him scream, felt his grip weaken. As his hand fell from her neck, she repositioned her thumb behind his wrist, grabbed the man’s fingers and twisted them as hard as she could, folding them back, forcing him to straighten his arm. Jordan then thrust her knee hard into his bent elbow. The man cried out. The pillow fell away from her face. She pushed it aside, stared up at the man with the three-star tattoo cradling his injured arm, and watched him run for the door.
Still dazed from the drug and the temporary lack of oxygen to her brain, Jordan tried to give chase. She fell out of bed, held fast to a visitor’s chair, forced herself to her feet, slumped along the wall, threw open the door to the room as it fell shut behind her fleeing attacker, watched the man race past the nurse’s station, past the parting elevator doors, down the corridor and though the doors leading to the stairwell.
Special Agent Chris Hanover stepped out of the elevator. Puzzled, he saw Jordan leaning against the door to her room, out of breath. He ran to her aid. “Mrs. Quest?” he said. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
Jordan fell into his arms. “He tried… to kill me,” Jordan replied. She gasped, drew a breath, and pointed to the stairwell at the end of the hall.
“Will you be all right?” Hanover asked.
Jordan nodded.
Hanover drew his weapon and yelled for the nursing staff. Two nurses came running. “Mrs. Quest has been attacked. Call security. Tell them to lock down the hospital.”
Hanover ran to the stairwell, threw open the door, cleared the landing. Below, heavy footfalls descended the stairs. He looked over the railing and met the assailant’s stare.
“FBI!” he yelled.
Running again.
Faster now.
Pauses between the footfalls as the man took the stairs two at a time.
“Sonofabitch!” Hanover said.
He gave chase.
19
THE FRIGHTENED GIRL grabbed the blanket from the ground, pulled it around her, tried once more to hide beneath it.
Shannon knelt beside her. “It’s okay, honey,” she said. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
“What’s your name, sweetie?” Zoe asked as she lowered the blanket.
The girl hesitated. “Lily,” she answered, wiping her face. She wore a pink Pokemon T-shirt and matching shorts. Her clothes were wet and clung to her tiny frame. She shivered. The bastard had doused her with water too.
“What are you doing here?” Shannon asked.
Lily chewed her lip, said nothing.
Shannon pressed. “Where are your parents, hon?”
The child stared up at the two women. “Gone,” she replied.
“What do you mean?” Zoe asked.
Lily stared at the floor. “They’re dead.”
Shannon asked, “Then who is taking care of you?”
“Me.”
“You’re telling us you’re on your own?”
“Jesus,” Zoe said, dumbfounded to hear Lily had been left to fend for herself at such a young age. “What kind of place is this?”
Shannon gave her a watch your language kind of look.
“Sorry,” Zoe acknowledged. “Forgot about the kid.” She looked around the stall. A pair of jockey racing silks hung on a wooden hook. The clothing was clean and dry. “Here, Lily,” Zoe said. “Put these on.”
Lily held tight to the blanket, pulled it up to her eyes, refused to move.
“It’s okay,” Shannon said. She winked. “My sisters got quite a potty-mouth on her, doesn’t she?”
Lily half-smiled.
Zoe appreciated the girl’s apprehension. “Hey Lily,” she said, “check this out.” She held the silks up against her and posed like a high-fashion model. “Could you imagine trying to find a decent pair of shoes to match this?” She puckered her lips and made a funny face.
Lily snickered.
Shannon partnered with her sister to gain Lily’s trust. “It would be hard.”
Zoe nodded. “What do you think, Shay? Flats or pumps?” She
bounced up and down on the balls of her feet for full effect.
“Pumps all the way. The only way to rock an outfit as ugly as that is in a great pair of pumps.”
“Gucci?”
Shannon shook her head. “Christian Louboutin. Goes better with silk. Lily could totally pull off a pair of Loubou’s.”
“Then again,” Zoe said, “there’s always Prada.”
“Correction,” Shannon said. “There’s always Prada.”
Lily pointed to her muddy running shoes. “I wear Nike’s.”
“Excellent choice!” Shannon said. “What do you say we see how well your Nike’s go with this flashy little number?”
Lily hesitated, then agreed. “Okay.”
“Perfect,” Zoe said. “But if we’re gonna do this right, and by that, I mean fashion model right, we’ll need a change room.”
“Coming right up,” Shannon said. She lifted the blanket off the little girl, held it up. “Ta da! Instant change room.”
Zoe handed Lily the silks. “Garments fit for a supermodel.”
Lily smiled. “You two are ridiculous,” she said. “I’m no model.” She took the silks from Zoe, hid behind the raised blanket, removed her wet top and shorts, and slipped into the fresh, dry clothes. The girl stepped out from behind the blanket. The outfit, tailored for a small person, fit her well.
“Well, look at you,” Zoe said. “Positively gorgeous!”
“Can I have your autograph?” Shannon teased.
Feeling they had come a little closer to gaining the girl’s trust, wanting to know more about her, Shannon asked, “How long have you been here, sweetie?”
Lily shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.”
“Do you sleep here?”
“Most of the time.”
“So not all the time.”
Lily shook her head. “Sometimes Uncle Emmett lets me stay with him.”
Shannon and Zoe exchanged glances. “Where does Uncle Emmett live, Lily?” Zoe asked.
The Jordan Quest FBI Thriller Series: Books 1-3: The Jordan Quest FBI Thriller Series Boxset Book 1 Page 8
