Thorne stepped into the stall and pulled the door closed.
The old man was right about one thing, Lauren wasn’t safe here. He’d misjudged Blake and because of that, Kate was dead. If she wasn’t safe, nobody was. Blake didn’t just kill people in his way, he’d kill people to make a point. By being here, he was giving the Ashcrofts a false sense of security. They were relying on him to protect them again whether they knew it or not. He made them feel safe, and they should be afraid. The best thing he could do was leave. It would force them to wake up, he did nobody any favors by staying. He nodded his head to himself, his decision crystalizing.
But that was for a different day.
He couldn’t leave until he’d dealt with Porter.
Thorne tilted his head back and let the water pound against his face.
The heat was set to maximum and it was almost too hot to bear. His skin seemed to burn around each of his injuries. Porter! He swore out loud and the fast moving water seemed to snatch the word right out the air and down the drain. He realized he’d made a critical mistake. He’d heard the word coma and allowed himself to forget about him as if it were the same as dead. But of course it wasn’t, not even close. Soon, Porter would wake up and find himself looking directly into Cabot’s grinning face. He wanted to scream. There’d been plenty of time to deal with the situation but he’d pissed it all away and now it was too late.
He’d shot Porter twice, he probably couldn’t rely on his silence.
Thorne was dressed and in the Maserati on the way to the hospital before he thought too much about what he was going to do when he got there. In his mind, he still thought he could convince Porter not to mention his role in the gang to the police. There was no reason to after all. They’d been friends for years, would it be asking too much for a favor now? He shook his head. It was ridiculous to expect Porter to keep him out of it, and any promise he might make to that effect was likely worth nothing anyway.
Only one course of action would keep him out of prison.
TWENTY-NINE
The man lay stretched out before him on the asphalt between two cars. A doctor. His white coat fanned out underneath him like a cape. Down, but not out. He tried to crawl backward, away from him. His eyes wide and terrified. Blake walked forward so that he stood over the doctor, ready to hit him again. He saw the man glance at what he was holding: a rubber dog bone. It made a pretty good blackjack. It had a nice weight and an end that was easy to grip. You could pick one up just about anywhere, and without any problems with law enforcement. Blake swung it again, hard, and it bounced off the side of the doctor’s skull. The man’s body sagged as he passed out. Blake moved quickly to pull down the doctor’s scrub pants in case the man wet himself and he’d have to start over on someone else. The scrubs were baggy enough for him to pull straight off without undoing the man’s shoes. Underneath, the doctor wore only boxer shorts. Once they were off, Blake pulled them on directly over his jeans. They were a little on the small side, but they’d do.
“Help me get his coat off,” he said.
Sara bent down next to him and they began to strip the doctor. The man’s muscles were clenched, making it difficult to remove his arms from the sleeves of his coat. Blake wished he’d asked the doctor to do this before he knocked him out. Once it was off, he hung the coat over the passenger door mirror of the car next to him, then began the process again with the scrub top. This came off easier as it had larger openings around the arms. He pulled the top on over his t-shirt and felt the heat from the other man’s body transfer to him.
Sara studied him closely.
“That actually suits you,” she said.
Blake smiled as he pulled on the coat.
“Fuckin’ A.”
“You ready?” she asked.
“Just a second.”
He unbuttoned her shirt by two more buttons. The first fastened button now lay below the line of her bra. He adjusted the material of her shirt to provide the best view of its contents.
“I’m not sure this is the place, Aidan.”
He picked up on her sarcasm without seeing her face.
“Sorry, hon, but this was how we met in the first place so I know they work.”
“When we get back, I’m going to punch you right in the face.”
He looked at her face and smiled. “No doubt.”
The man at his feet groaned. Blake kicked him until he stopped making any sound, then threw in an extra kick free of charge. He didn’t know how long this was going to take, and he might need the man’s wake up alarm snoozed for an extra five minutes.
“What if someone sees him lying there?”
“I’m not too bothered about that,” he said. “Let’s go.”
They walked toward the hospital entrance. The doctor’s scrubs were tight, forcing him to walk slower than normal. The white coat helped hide an inch of jeans above the scrub pants, not to mention the Glock in the small of his back, but heat was already beginning to build with all the layers of clothing. Two cops stood smoking at the corner of the building where they’d abducted the doctor. They both hid cigarettes behind their backs as he approached but their eyes switched quickly from him to Sara’s chest. He couldn’t say he blamed them.
Inside, the hospital was chaos. He saw a dozen more cops, and double that number of journalists and cameramen. The media circus had arrived. At the front stood a red-faced Cabot who appeared to be getting reamed by a tall woman in dark-framed glasses and a business suit. Some kind of administrator or lawyer he thought. The lieutenant faced away from him but Blake pushed on past anyway, his arm around Sara’s shoulders. He couldn’t discount the possibility of being recognized from the coffee store incident, or even the security footage. As they planned, she was now dragging her leg as though injured.
A man in his early twenties approached. He looked tired and his scrubs were wrinkled, but his face was open and friendly.
“Can I help?”
“Yes,” Blake said. “Get me a wheelchair.”
The man sank back into the crowd without a word. Moments later the man was back, pushing a wheelchair in front of him. Sara lowered herself into it slowly, and with shaking arms. Blake felt she was overdoing it, but the shaking made her breasts jiggle in just the right way and the man stared at them, mesmerized.
“What happened?”
He was asking Sara, but Blake answered.
“She was hit by a motorcycle.”
They’d worked out a whole backstory for her fake accident but he decided to ditch it and keep it simple. He wasn’t certain Sara would be able to stay on point.
The man glanced up at him and frowned.
“Are you new here? I don’t recognize you.”
“Started today,” Blake said, looking back at the media scrum.
“You chose a good day for it.”
Blake nodded. The man took his cues well.
“I see that. What’s going on?”
“You don’t know?”
“Just got here. Found this one out front as I arrived.”
Even this casual reference to Sara caused the man’s face to get sucked into the gravity well of her chest. He couldn’t take his eyes off it.
“They got a guy up on the fourth floor under armed guard. He was one of the gunmen at the mall shooting the other week, with the senator and his wife.”
Blake nodded to Sara. They knew where to look for Porter.
“I heard about that,” Blake said. “Saw it too actually.”
The man turned to him, a smile on his face.
“Oh my god, I can’t stop watching that video, it’s amazing. Must have seen it about 30 times. That other guy was here too, the good guy, but he’s gone now. He’s walking around like nothing happened.”
The nurse was looking straight at him, at one of the men in the video. All he saw was a doctor. It gave Blake the confidence he needed; this would be easier than he imagined. He just needed to get on with it, before Cabot made his move. Blake move
d around the wheelchair so that he was standing behind it, his hands lined up with the handles. It wasn’t a subtle move, and the man understood their conversation was over.
“What’s your name,” Blake said, his tone friendly.
“Mikey.”
“I’m Charles. I’ll catch you around once I’m settled in. I’d like to talk with you some more about that video, it fascinates me.”
Mikey’s expression lifted.
“You bet.”
The man noticed something to the side and shot off to deal with it. Blake smiled. He couldn’t have asked for anything better. The man would be too busy working to ask anyone about the new doctor. He began to push Sara deeper into the hospital.
“I never had you down as a Charles,” Sara said, dryly.
“First name that came to mind.”
“Charles was the first name that came to mind?”
“The wheelchair, made me think of the X-Men.”
She sighed.
“I’m learning new things about you, Aidan. Terrible things.”
Blake resisted the urge to laugh, as they were coming up on two cops at the elevator. A man and a woman. They held coffee in tall paper cups, and stood against the wall. Neither of them were waiting for the elevator, they were just talking. Cabot had brought a lot of foot soldiers with him for his big interview. The Sheriff’s Office lay only a couple of minutes’ drive from the hospital and many had obviously thought the trip worthwhile. Blake ignored the two deputies and pressed the button for the elevator. Behind them, conversation stopped. He knew the cops were looking at him. Fooling civilians was one thing, police was another. Cops were like bloodhounds, they could sniff you out. He had fastened the doctor’s coat up the front to hide the ill-fitting scrubs, but this prevented him from quickly accessing his Glock. If things kicked off, the automatic might as well be on another planet.
He put a friendly look on his face and glanced back at the cops and gave them a small nod. In his experience, it was all most of them needed to let them know you were on the side of the angels. His gaze lingered briefly on the female officer, like he was checking her out. She smiled and bowed her head in embarrassment. He turned back to the elevator as the doors opened. He pushed Sara on and hit 4 using the knuckle of his index finger. The cops they were talking again. The female officer laughed and put her hand over her mouth, her eyes glancing at Blake as she did so. He didn’t care if they were laughing at him, as long as they were laughing. He had no animosity toward the police as long as they left him alone. The doors closed and he caught a glimpse of himself reflected on a strip of chrome. He had to admit, he looked pretty damn convincing as a doctor. His wide neck didn’t really work, but if you needed a doctor that could bench 380 pounds, he was your man.
“I hate being in this chair by the way.”
He looked at the top of her head like he was looking at her face.
“I figured. It’s only for a while longer.”
“If we pull shit like this again then next time you’re playing the part of the dumb-ass princess that needs to be rescued.”
“I feel ya babe.”
The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Blake expected more cops to be standing there, but there were none. He pushed Sara out and began to wheel her along. He supposed that moving patients like this was not something a doctor would normally do themselves, but he couldn’t worry about that now. At least as a doctor he’d be less likely to be challenged, or told to do another task. His plan was to walk along looking for the police guard that would mark the room he was after, but after several minutes of fruitless search, Blake decided he’d have to change his tactics, or risk Cabot getting there first.
“This is taking too long, I’m going to have to ask someone.”
“No shit,” she said.
Up ahead was a nurses’ station. A single nurse sat there, almost hidden behind a vase of flowers and a computer screen. She hadn’t seen them yet, which was perfect. The problem with Sara on a wheelchair, was that it didn’t fit with the narrative of him needing to see a patient that had been in a coma. The accident victim ruse was now working against them. He pushed Sara over to the wall and stopped.
“All right, Princess,” he said quietly. “Ride’s over.”
Sara sprang out of the seat, like she’d been fired from a cannon. She wasn’t waiting for him to change his mind. He glanced around to check no one had witnessed this miracle, but judging by the calm way people were walking about, no one had. He used the cuffs of the white coat to wipe down the chair’s handles.
“Okay, hang back while I ask about Porter.”
He approached the nurses’ station and let his hands hang over the top of the counter so that he was invading the space of the woman who sat there. She looked like the type that would sit there blanking him, pretending he didn’t exist, and he didn’t have time for that.
“Help you?”
“I’m trying to locate a patient,” Blake said.
The woman’s head turned to a computer screen.
“Name?”
“Sam Porter.”
She looked back up at him without typing anything in.
“Samuel Porter is in 446.”
“Thanks.”
He turned to leave when she spoke again.
“Did they add your name to the list?”
“What list?”
“You know he’s a criminal under armed guard?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Only people on a list are allowed in. It’s updated every day.”
Cabot was smarter than he looked.
“I wasn’t told about a list. Can you check I’ve been added?”
She turned to her computer again and began to type. While she did this, he came around to her side of the desk, so that he could see the screen. She glanced up at him, her eyes narrowed and her cheeks sucked in like she’d bitten on a lemon. He ignored her and glanced at the screen. The list of names was in front of him.
“Excuse me,” she said.
“Shit, they haven’t added me. All right, thanks anyway.”
The woman was looking him up and down now. She stared at his running shoes. There was dried mud along the tops from when he was up in the forest watching Thorne. Her eyes moved to the quarter inch of jeans that above the scrub pants. He’d been made. Asking about Porter, walking around the desk, the clothes; it didn’t take much to put it together. He unbuttoned the top two buttons of the white coat, reached inside, and pulled out the dog bone. She looked at it, her eyebrows raised in confusion.
He’d been willing to play nice with her, even thank her for her help and move on. But that wasn’t enough, she had to get all up in his business, stick her nose where it wasn’t welcome. He couldn’t have that. She watched him lift his hand up with the bone, still not understanding what it meant for her. He brought it down fast on her head and she folded up onto the floor without a sound. He put the rubber bone back in his pocket. Best $3 he’d ever spent. He used his foot to push the woman’s legs under the desk where they wouldn’t be seen. She’d twisted as she’d fallen and her head had shot right underneath, out of sight. As long as no one sat at the desk, they were golden. Even then, he figured most people would assume she’d simply passed out and hit her head. He looked up and saw Sara shaking her head.
“Couldn’t you have tied her up?”
“With what? I didn’t bring any rope, did you? We’re on the clock here, I don’t have time to be nice to people who would happily throw both of us under the bus the first chance they got. Besides, I don’t remember you saying shit when I did the same to that doctor. You knew what you were getting into, we’re not here to sell Girl Scout cookies.”
“I’m tired of watching you hit women.”
“I’ve not noticed you holding back violence against anyone, male or female. Shit, you burned a woman alive a couple of days ago.”
Sara’s face turned scarlet.
“That was a mistake and you know it!”<
br />
He nodded. “How about we call this quits, eh?”
“No,” she said, “let’s not. You’re way stronger than I am, stronger than any of these women. That’s the difference. It’s wrong. This isn’t equality, it’s abuse.”
“Fine. But for the record, I didn’t hit her as hard as the guy outside.”
Blake came out from behind the desk and they set off for Porter’s room. He considered pointing out to her that he was stronger than the men he fought too, but he knew it would’ve gained him nothing. The truth was, equality meant treating everybody the same, not treating some better. He’d protect himself, protect both of them, from threats in whatever form they took. When they were on the other side of this and the $12 million was safe, then he could afford to be a more rounded human being. Until that point, all bets were off.
He looked across at Sara and saw her face was fixed, her mouth a thin, flat line. Probably too soon to make a joke about boning a nurse, he thought.
A man in his mid twenties rushed toward them at something between a jog and a run. He was wearing an expensive suit and looked vaguely familiar, but Blake couldn’t place him. When he passed them, Blake let out a sigh of relief. If the man had recognized him, he would’ve been able to identify him to the police later. Blake would’ve been forced to take him out right there in the corridor and things would’ve got messy very quickly.
He was a cop.
It came to him suddenly. The man in the suit was the guy who stood next to the lieutenant during press conferences. A deputy. He never spoke, just stood eyeballing the camera. He didn’t recognize him without the uniform. Blake glanced back and felt his heart lunge in his chest. The man had stopped running and was halfway down the hallway looking back at them with his hands on his hips. His stance caused his suit jacket to pull apart and expose the seven pointed star that hung in a leather wallet over his belt. There was a small movement of his head toward Blake and the man smiled, then turned away and continued down the hall.
Night Passenger Page 25
