by Karen Rose
Whatever.
This child was a means to an end. Nothing more.
The woman was almost to his van, so he went into action. Pulling the cap he wore low on his face, just in case there were cameras, he “stumbled” from the van into her path, making his expression panicked.
“Excuse me! Excuse me!” He kept his head low, which worked because she was short. Not even five feet tall, if that. “Are you a doctor? I need a doctor.”
Her spine straightened. “I’m a nurse. I can call you a doctor.”
“No! No, please,” he pleaded. “There’s no time. My baby isn’t breathing. Please. Can you please help me?”
She sprang into action. “Where is your baby?”
“Right here.” He led her to the van, where both the driver’s-side door and the sliding door behind it were still open. “Please, help me. She just started making choking sounds and—” He cut himself off, bringing the gun out of his pocket and pressing the barrel to her side. “Don’t scream and I won’t hurt you.”
She gasped and froze. “What are—”
He jabbed the gun into her side. “Get in the driver’s seat. No sudden moves. Do it.”
She was shaking. “Don’t shoot. Please, don’t shoot.”
“I won’t. Get in. But if you try to run, I will kill you.”
She slid behind the wheel and he climbed into the backseat next to the kid, crouching behind the driver’s seat.
“Excellent,” he said. “Now, pull the door closed.”
She obeyed. “I have money. I’ll give you all my credit cards.”
“I don’t need your money. I need your help. If you help me, I’ll bring you back,” he lied smoothly. “Don’t look at my face and I won’t have to kill you.” He pulled the sliding door closed. “Give me your purse.”
Hands shaking, she did. He dug through it, finding her phone under a ton of junk. Holding it in his gloved hand, he said, “Put your seat belt on. I don’t want any cops stopping us. Good girl. Now pull out slowly and turn left.”
“Wh-where are you taking me?”
“Just drive. Turn left on Auburn and follow it west. We’re not taking I-80.”
She drove, exiting the lot. Her face was deathly pale. “Is your baby really sick or was that a lie?”
“Just drive,” he snarled. When they were on Auburn Boulevard, he opened his window and tossed her cell phone out. Now no one could track her.
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 6:30 P.M.
Gideon glared at the fingers of his right hand, bleary-eyed. “Move,” he muttered. “Fucking move.” But his arm just lay at his side. Useless.
“Give it some time.”
His chin jerked up and he blinked hard at the doorway, where Daisy waited, her blond hair reflecting the blinding fluorescent lights. She looked a little like an angel, standing there.
A sharpshooting angel who’d defended him with her own life.
“Hi,” he said, then tried to roll his eyes at his own lack of smoothness. Except his head ached and eye rolling was not on the program for today.
She smiled at him as she crossed the room to stand next to his bed. “I get two minutes alone with you before Rafe comes in.” She brushed the hair off his forehead with gentle fingers and he closed his eyes, remembering how she’d done the same thing in the helicopter. And in bed the night before.
Then all he felt was warmth as she leaned over the rail and brushed a kiss over his lips. Very sweet. Very chaste.
And very much not enough. With his left hand he clasped the back of her head, ignoring the bite of the IV needle as he dragged her closer for a deeper kiss. She opened for him and he tasted her—chocolate and Daisy. She hummed against his mouth, cupping his cheek in her palm.
Until a loud beeping had her backing away with a guilty jerk.
The kiss had left him breathless. So much so that it had apparently set off the heart monitor. He struggled to look back at the monitors behind the bed, only to see Daisy grimacing as she pulled something from her hair.
“Your monitor.” She showed him the finger-clip device. “It came off your finger and got stuck in my hair. Let me put it back on you before the nurse comes to throw me out.”
She slipped it back on his finger, quelling the alarm. Then she brushed another kiss across his mouth. “Hi.” She pulled back far enough to see his eyes. And he hers. He’d locked on the bright blue sky of her eyes in the helicopter as she’d clasped his hand under the blanket the EMS guys had tucked around him. “We’ve been so worried about you.”
“I’m okay,” he said quietly, and it sounded like a promise.
“I know. I knew you would be, but it’s still . . .” She lowered her forehead to his. “God, I’m so glad that’s over.”
He glanced down at his hand. “It’s not over yet.”
She jerked back again, her wide eyes filled with horrified guilt. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me. I just meant . . .” She sighed and sank into the chair next to his bed, wrapping her hands around the rail. “What did the doctor say about your hand?”
“I’m not really sure, to be honest.” He reached for her hand, careful not to dislodge the finger monitor again. “I was a little out of it when he came to speak to me.”
“I’ll have Rafe find out,” she told him. “He’s the only one they’ll talk to, because he’s listed as your next of kin.”
He nodded, a wave of exhausted sadness washing over him. “Because I didn’t think Mercy would come if they called her.” Daisy winced at that, dropping her gaze to their joined hands. “You called her? My sister?”
She nodded, seeming to brace herself before she met his eyes again. “I did. She sent her . . . best personal wishes.”
He sighed heavily. He was way too tired for this. “I think they put some pain meds in that IV and I’m starting to drift. Just tell me what she really said.”
“She said to tell you that she hopes you don’t die.”
His lips quirked up at that, grim amusement mixing in with the sad exhaustion. “She told me that the last time I saw her in the foster home. She was thirteen and . . .” He shook his head, grimacing when it hurt. “Shit.”
“And what?” Daisy asked softly.
“And angry. Bitter. Mostly grieving and still in shock.”
“Because of your mother.”
He started to nod and thought better of it, holding his head still on the pillow so that he could look up into Daisy’s sweet face. “Yeah. I visited her in the foster home where she’d been placed. She didn’t talk at first, but I kept visiting. She’d give me one-word answers. But this time I was there to tell her it might be a while before I came back. I was starting college and I didn’t know when I’d have time to make the drive out to where she was living. I tried to hug her and she didn’t want to be touched. She didn’t want to talk to me. She didn’t want any part of me.”
She brushed the hair off his forehead. “That must have hurt.”
It had nearly killed him. “Yes,” he answered simply. “I was only seventeen. I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know if I would have known what to do if it’d happened today.”
“What did you do?”
“I told her that I was sorry. That I loved her. That I’d missed her, so damn much. That I’d tried to find her. And our mother. All the things I’d told her before.” He swallowed. “I told her that I’d always be there for her if she changed her mind. And then I wished her a really good life and started to leave. She stopped me at the door. Called my name.” His eyes stung at the memory of Mercy’s face, at the pain in her haunted eyes. “She said she’d thought I’d been dead all that time. She just stared at me, then told me to please not die. Then she turned her back on me and walked away.”
“And then?”
He shrugged his uninjured shoulder
. “For the last thirteen years I’ve called her on her birthday, Christmas, Easter, and our mother’s birthday. I’ve seen her in person only once, when I tracked her to New Orleans.”
“Does she talk to you on the phone when you call?”
“Not really.” And now the pain in his chest was almost as bad as the pain in his arm. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. “New topic. Have they found him?”
“No. I talked to your boss and she said no one’s found the child yet, either.”
He closed his eyes. “Dammit.”
“Hey. Okay if I come in?”
Gideon blinked his eyes open to see Rafe in the doorway. “Please. What did the doctor say about my arm?”
Rafe pulled up another chair. “A lot of words I don’t remember, but the gist of it is, it’s not abnormal for you to have lost movement in your fingers and that it appears to be temporary, because your nerves are ‘squashed.’” He used air quotes.
Gideon frowned. “Squashed? How?”
“He said that the energy wave from the bullet ‘disrupted’ the tissue in your hand, which basically means the tissue got compressed and squashed your nerves. When the tissue settles down, movement and control should return. They won’t know for a few days whether you’ll regain all or only partial use, but he was optimistic that you’ll get back most of it.”
Gideon felt light-headed again, this time from relief. Daisy squeezed the hand she held lightly and he kissed her fingers again. “Thanks,” he said gruffly.
“Don’t mention it.” Leaning forward, Rafe rested his forearms on the rail and sighed. “I’m going to tell you what I know, okay? Then you need to get some rest.”
“When can I leave?”
“Tomorrow probably,” Rafe said. “They’ll keep you overnight for observation.”
“I need to go to Portland tomorrow.”
“Um, no,” Daisy said firmly. “That is not happening.”
Gideon opened his mouth to argue, but Rafe cut him off.
“She’s right,” Rafe said. “I’m going.”
“You are?” Daisy asked while Gideon just stared up at him.
“I am.” Rafe’s eyes went hard. “Rhee and I are going up with Agent Schumacher.”
“Schumacher is good,” Gideon said grudgingly. “Where are you going to look?”
“I told your boss about Mr. Danton and Sammie,” Daisy said. “Gave her their contact information. Sammie said she’d cooperate with whoever I endorsed. I’m glad I can endorse you, Rafe.”
Rafe’s smile flashed across his face. “Me too.” Then he sobered. “Listen, Gid, before you hear it from someone else, there’ve been a few other casualties. The child in the car? She was with her grandparents, who’d stopped at a rest area a few miles west of where you were shot.”
Gideon frowned. “Why the hell did they leave a baby in the car?”
Rafe sighed. “Grandma got out to pee and Grandpa waited with the kid. But Grandma was taking a while and Gramps figured she’d be back in seconds and he really had to go, too. He didn’t think the baby would be alone that long.”
Daisy made a choked sound. “He’s got to be blaming himself for this, too.”
Too? Gideon’s gaze flicked to her face. She looked too pained for simple compassion. “You’re not blaming yourself, are you, Daisy?”
Daisy shook her head, but without much conviction. “No. Not really. It’s like this nightmare of cause and effect. I shot up his car, so he was forced to steal another.” She lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. “I should have tried harder to kill him.”
“No,” Rafe growled. “This is not your fault. You did everything right. It was his choice to shoot Gideon and to shoot at you. It was his choice to steal that woman’s car. And to hit the woman on the head with a rock.”
Daisy flinched. “Did he kill her?” she asked, still in a whisper.
Rafe shook his head. “No. But she lost consciousness for a little while. Her husband came out of the bathroom to see her on the ground and immediately called 911.”
“The sheriff left our scene to rush to the rest area,” Daisy said.
“They must have put out a BOLO right away,” Gideon added. “Did they find her car?”
“Yes.” Rafe hesitated. “He’d used it to run over the owner of a truck. He died of his injuries.”
Daisy covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh God.”
Rafe nodded. “I know. It took them a while to ID him. His name is Ryder Young. He was on his way north and took a detour for some Shasta photos. Luckily, he’d told someone where he’d be, and when he didn’t show up at his next stop, they called the state police, looking for him. He had no ID.”
“The shooter took it to give himself some time,” Gideon murmured. “And the child wasn’t in the stolen car?”
“No. We can only assume that the shooter took the child with him. Ryder Young’s truck hasn’t been found yet. It’s too old to have GPS, so no way to physically track it. State police are out looking. Everyone’s looking. Photos of the little girl are being posted everywhere, all over the Internet. Amber Alerts. You name it. Right now our best lead is tracing the shooter’s steps through Eileen.”
“I gave your phone to your boss,” Daisy said to Gideon. “She said that your e-mail was on there, so it was classified. I didn’t think to check first to see if you’d heard from your colleague in San Diego.”
Gideon frowned for a moment, trying to place the detail. It was in his brain somewhere.
“The college swimmer with the almost-Eden tattoo,” she said softly, reminding him.
“Oh, right.” He shot her a grateful glance. “Maybe he knows where the community is.”
She kept stroking his hair and it felt so nice. “Or knows someone who does.”
Rafe must have looked confused because Daisy was telling him about the tattoos she’d found online.
Rafe made a frustrated sound. “Given what they did to Eileen, Mercy, and Gideon, it’s fair to assume they were too scared to report the cult,” he said. “Hope they talk to us.”
Rafe’s words flooded Gideon’s mind with images of Eileen’s battered face and the other injuries Sammie Danton had repaired.
And, of course, Mercy. I should have been searching harder. I should have found them by now. Mercy would get justice and Eileen might still be alive.
“Whatever you’re thinking,” Rafe warned, “don’t. You just went somewhere bad.”
Gideon exhaled. It was true. “I’ll try.”
Rafe pushed to his feet. “I’m going now. I have work to do to prep for tomorrow. Gid, please do what the docs say to do. Don’t be yourself.”
Gideon found he could still laugh. “Okay. Is your mom here?”
Rafe rolled his eyes. “Of course. But let her do her thing. She needs to.”
“Rafe,” Gideon called as his friend turned to leave. “Tell me what you find? Even if it’s bad.”
Rafe nodded once. “Okay.”
When he was gone, Gideon looked up at Daisy. “You’re going to the Sokolovs’ house, right? Please don’t argue. I need to know you’re safe and getting some rest yourself.”
“I’ll leave when the nurses throw me out,” she promised. “And I probably will end up at Karl and Irina’s. My dad, too.”
“Oh, right. He’s here.” Gideon wasn’t sure if this was a good or bad thing until she smiled.
“Yes. He and Karl are patching things up. If I stay with them, it’ll give Dad and Karl more time together, because Dad won’t leave my side for a while.”
“I can’t blame him.”
She stroked his cheek. “Me either. Today was intense.”
He lifted one side of his mouth, the pain meds dragging him under. “You saved my life. Went all Rambo on the guy’s ass.”
She caressed hi
s lip with her thumb. “Not Rambo. Try Lara Croft. I always wanted to be her.”
He grinned, but sleepily. “Rather try you.”
She snorted. “Go to sleep, Gideon.”
“Will you stay?” he murmured.
She pressed a soft kiss to his temple. “I’ll be here when you wake up in the morning.”
TWENTY-ONE
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 7:25 P.M.
“Over there.” He pointed to their office, adjacent to the hangar that held all the old man’s planes. The airfield was deserted, as he’d known it would be. The only flight they had today was the charter to New York City, and Hank and whoever they’d gotten to fill in would be spending the night there and flying back in the morning. “Park in the first space. Don’t touch those wires.” He’d hot-wired the van when he’d stolen it up in Chico. The procedure had been an enormous pain in the ass given his thumb and first two fingers on his left hand were basically useless. He did not want to have to do that again.
The nurse, Amber Shelton, obeyed. He’d been pleased with her obedience. If she stitched him up quickly, he’d give her the same consideration.
He slid the side door open and climbed out, opening the driver’s door. “Get out.”
“What are you going to do to me?” the nurse asked, her voice shaking.
“Like I said, if you do as I ask, I won’t hurt you.” He closed the driver’s door and the slider, hiding the kid from view. It was twenty-five degrees warmer here than up in the mountains. Plus he’d leave the engine running. There was still a quarter of a tank of gas, enough for where he needed to go to dispose of the nurse and drop off the kid.
Pressing the barrel of his gun to her back, he walked her into the office and shut the door. He swung his backpack to the counter. “Get the suture kit out.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“Get the suture kit out,” he repeated slowly. “You’ll need to clean, disinfect, and stitch up my hand. If you hurt me on purpose, I’ll kill you. If you try to escape, I’ll kill you. If you do as I ask, I’ll take you back to the hospital.”
