by Cindy Skaggs
Because he had access to computers beyond the crappy Government Issue crap the deputy used. Stills stared down at the deputy.
The deputy rested his hand above his holstered weapon. “What will I find when I run your name, Mr. Gault?”
“A heavily redacted service record.” That much was truth. For Gault and himself. The program and the company that ran it were classified to the highest levels. Very few knew Team Fear and teams like them existed. In fact, the numbers were diminishing daily as more people fell victim to the company’s campaign. None of which mattered to the deputy’s investigation into a car accident, but Stills couldn’t let the deputy run the name Daniel Gault through the system. He’d find the reports of Danny’s death. “Are things so boring in your neck of the woods that you need to invent work?”
A wheelchair squeaked on the tile in the hall. Stills shifted to the right to keep an eye on the door.
The deputy maintained focus on Stills. “Something about you pinged my radar.”
“Can’t say the same.” The local yokel was an annoyance.
“Excuse me.” An orderly wearing green scrubs bent over the wheelchair he pushed into the room. “I’m looking for...” He glanced at a clipboard. “Amanda Gault.”
“She’s in the bathroom,” the deputy responded without looking. His back was to the orderly.
The orderly leaned on the wheelchair. “If you gentlemen would step into the waiting room, we’ll get her ready for the tests and find you when they’re complete.”
The orderly had the look of an everyman. Average everything. Brown hair, brown eyes, and a cheesy mustache, but the face triggered a slippery memory. Stills had seen this guy before. “What kind of tests?”
The orderly shrugged and the security badge dangling from his neck bounced on his chest. “Whatever the doctor ordered. I’m transportation. Now...” He gestured to the door.
“I’m not leaving my sister.”
The other man’s nose flared, but otherwise he remained impassive. “Hospital policy.”
The deputy turned at that comment. The orderly’s stance shifted to face the deputy, and the movement drew attention to the vertical scratches on his neck. They weren’t deep, but the long red marks looked similar to the ones on Mandi. The ones caused by the airbags.
The deputy reached for the orderly’s security badge. The orderly acted with lethal speed.
Fuck, that’s why Stills knew the guy. The kill wall. This guy was one of the remaining members of Team Echo.
Chapter Three
Hot water soothed the aches and pains but did nothing to calm Mandi’s jitters. The nurse stood outside the shower curtain chatting like they were old friends. Mandi ignored the noise in favor of the nonsense in her head. The man pretending to be her brother had knocked her on her metaphorical ass. The words your brother echoed through her memories, reminding her of the loss that time could not fill.
Danny was more than a brother. He was her last living relative. Except Ellie, of course. Danny had been funny and irreverent and gentle when she needed it. Not so gentle when she needed a swift kick in the backside. He’d provided stability and financial security after their parents had died. He’d been her best friend. She didn’t fight the sadness, but let the tears drip into the steady stream from the shower.
The freaky twin-sense they were cursed with had let her know whenever he was in trouble. Often when he was in battle. A piece of her had gone dark the second Danny stopped breathing. She had no choice but to follow his trail to Tucson.
No way was his death a desperate bid for release. Danny had too much to live for, and besides, he wouldn’t have deserted her and Ellie no matter how hopeless he’d gotten in those last months. He wasn’t that lost.
A thump against the wall yanked Mandi from her morose thoughts. A metal tray crashed, close enough it sounded like a muted cymbal. Another thump shook the outer wall. Mandi jumped and stepped away from the tiled wall.
“What the—” The nurse left Mandi standing naked in the shower. The open door let in grunts and thuds from the outer room before it whooshed shut and muted the commotion.
Mandi flipped off the water and dried with an anemic towel the size of a washcloth. The rapid beat of her heart pounded through each bruise. An alarm sounded. A fire would be just her luck. She yanked on the scrubs.
As the shirt dropped into place, Stills yanked the door open. “Good, you’re dressed. We’re leaving.”
“What happened?”
“Found the guy who caused the accident. Actually, he found you.”
“What does that mean?”
He gripped her arm and pulled her into the room. Lights flashed and the alarm turned the ache in her head into a nightmare. The nurse was supposed to bring her painkillers, but the woman was slumped against the door.
“What happened?”
“Not now.”
“Who did this?” Mandi slid to her knees next to the nurse and checked for a pulse.
“Accidental. She walked into a fight in progress.”
The nurse’s pulse was steady, but she was out for the count. “Did you do this?” she demanded.
“No. While the deputy tried to subdue the guy—”
“What guy?” She had to raise her voice over the shrieking alarm.
“An orderly. He went on the offensive with the deputy. I cut off the exit and checked for backup. We had him trapped between us when the nurse walked in the middle of things. The guy tossed her at me, knocked us both down before jumping over me to get out.” He glanced out the door. “We don’t have time for this. Let’s roll.”
“I can’t just leave. The doctor’s supposed to—”
“Slight concussion. I checked your records. You’ll be fine if we get you away from the guy who caused the accident.”
The guy again. Much like her phantom brother. Mandi tried to stay focused, but the noise and the pain made it difficult. “Why? The guy ran didn’t he?”
“Because he came here to kill you and he won’t stop coming.”
“What?” The revelation flooded her body with adrenaline. Her body trembled. “What happened to the deputy?”
“He went after Echo.”
This was all happening too fast. Her head hurt, her mind was spinning, and the world had upended in her hospital room. “What is Echo?”
“Who not what. Echo is the guy who wants to kill you. Let’s go.”
“That kind of circular logic—”
“Stop arguing. Standing in the open is putting you in the middle of a very big target.” He slowed his speech to enunciate every word. “Do you believe your brother sent me to protect you?”
“I don’t know,” she stammered. If Danny thought he was going to die, he would find someone to watch over her and Ellie, but it hurt that her brother had been that convinced of his own mortality. “Yes.”
“Then trust me to keep you safe, which means leaving before Echo comes back.”
“Deputy Chee will catch him.”
Stills snorted. “The more realistic outcome is the deputy ends up dead and you with him.”
“I can’t accept that.” She didn’t live in a world where this kind of thing happened. Mandi yanked her arm from his grasp. The nurse groaned but kept her eyes closed. “We can’t just leave her.”
“She was in the way. When we leave, we’ll take the danger with us.”
A warning shivered up her spine. The blaring noise and lights made it hard to think, but time seemed to stop at his words. She didn’t have to leave. Nothing about Stills seemed intent to kidnap her, and if he left, she’d be no worse off than she’d been five minutes before he walked through the door, but he knew something about her brother’s death. And she needed a ride.
“Would your brother want you to stick around?”
Danny would want her to run fast and far from any danger, real or imagined. And in his last months, there had been plenty of imagined dangers. She had trusted Danny to do the right thing, which included providing
for her safety. But if she walked out that door with a man like Stills, it was irreversible. There would be no changing her mind. Stills had the same intensity as her brother. If she went, he was fully in charge. “I don’t have shoes.”
He brusquely removed the nurse’s white shoes and handed them to Mandi.
Wearing borrowed scrubs was one thing, but stealing a woman’s shoes was personal.
“Move out before Echo returns.”
The blaring alarm finally silenced, but the lights continued to flash. A security officer stepped in to find the nurse on the floor.
“The deputy chased the guy who did this,” Stills said. “He told me to move my sister away from the scene.”
The guard leaned out the door and called for a medical team to help the nurse. “The hospital is on lockdown. The guy won’t get far, but if you want to move, make sure the patient is in a wheelchair and I’ll help you find a new room.”
The guard leaned over to check Nancy’s pulse. Stills bumped him as they slipped out the door. He flipped up the hood from his pullover to cover his face before leading Mandi to a waiting wheelchair. When the guard was coordinating medical response for Nancy, Stills pushed Mandi down the hall and around a corner by a door marked as the stairs. “You strong enough to walk down?”
She stood on shaky legs. They were tired and sore, but her body flooded with adrenaline so that she shook with the need to run. Fight or flight? Heck, her body was tensed for both. She pushed open the door. “If the hospital is on lockdown, how are we getting out?”
Stills closed the door behind them and listened down the stairwell, but no sounds filtered up the gray concrete tube. “Put on the shoes.”
Mandi plopped her behind on the top step and slid the shoes on without socks. They were still warm from the other woman’s feet. When she was done, she grabbed the metal stair rail and pulled to her feet.
Stills stood right there, one step below yet still towering over her. The scent of the wild outdoors surrounded him, as in-your-face as the man. A moment ago, his focus had been the chaos behind them and the potential for conflict in front of them, but for a brief moment, he turned his intense gaze on her. “Are you okay?”
Chills racked her body and she instinctively leaned toward the warm and confident man standing between her and danger. This moment felt more real, more alive, than any since Danny’s death. Her lungs burned and her eyes stung. A storm of conflicting emotions washed over her.
Stills rested a hand over hers on the railing. His large grip completely engulfed her. “Take a deep breath.”
Her body followed the order and the oxygen dispelled some of the fear. Or maybe it was the comfort of his touch. “I’m fine,” she finally answered.
With a final squeeze to her hand, he turned and jogged down the concrete steps. His moves were silent, but her shoes squeaked against the polished floor. He pulled a gun from behind his back.
“How did you get that into the hospital?” There were metal detectors at every entrance.
“Took it off the security guard when he was checking the nurse’s pulse.”
“The guard didn’t even react.”
“Probably doesn’t realize it’s gone yet.”
“You’re tricky.” Possibly trickier than Danny, and he’d been a world-class prankster.
“I have a gift for acquiring things.”
“What kind of things?”
“What do you need?”
“Answers.” They climbed down the stairs with flashing emergency lights at every turn, which aggravated the ever-present ache in her head. Mandi gripped the metal rail as they made the final turn to the bottom floor. “Industrial-strength Ibuprofen, answers, and world peace.”
“I can acquire two out of three.”
“Don’t tell me world peace is out of your area of expertise.”
“I wasn’t created for peace.” Stills peered through the small window before tucking the weapon into the back of his dark jeans. He pulled his shirt over it.
Created? The man was a warrior, no doubt. He had the bearing of a soldier, the fierce, dead eyes of a killer, and precise, quiet movements of a spy. So much about him reminded her of Danny. Strong, silent, and so very solitary.
“Here, put this on.”
Mandi grabbed the security badge with the nurse’s picture on it. “We look nothing alike.” The nurse was blond and chipper. Mandi had blah-brown hair and freckles. Pretty much the antithesis of cheerleader cute. “No one will buy this photo is me. Ever.”
“Move fast and they won’t get a good look. There’s a staff lounge three doors down on this side of the hall. Once we step into the open, go right. Use the security badge to get us into the staff area. I can get us out the employee entrance from there.”
“What, did you memorize the hospital layout?”
“I don’t like going into a building unless I know all the possible entry and exit points.”
He even talked like Danny. Of course, her brother had been paranoid at the end.
Pausing with his hand on the doorknob Stills shifted to face her. “Ready?”
Not really. She’d been forced off the road by a crazy person. She’d woken in a hospital bed hours later, and from the moment she’d heard that “her brother” was waiting for her, life had not given her time to assimilate all the information battering her, but she’d come too far to back down now. She nodded.
“You’ll be fine,” he said, only it sounded like a promise.
He held the door open and Mandi breezed through, trying to look like a harried nurse, not an escaped mental patient. The too-big shoes slipped up and down, rubbing her heels. She was so nervous even her feet were sweating, but Stills remained close, his heat a comforting presence at her back.
An involuntary shiver shook her shoulders. It was nerves and adrenaline and a buzz of attraction to the man standing so close. She nearly tripped at the realization. What was wrong with her?
A security guard hustled toward them in the wide hallway. A chill went up her spine and across her shoulders. As the guard bore down on them, Stills placed a hand at the small of her back. Just a simple brush steadied her nerves. The guard rubbed against her scrubs as he walked past, but kept moving down the hall at a steady clip.
She released the breath she didn’t know she was holding and swiped Nancy’s security badge over the keypad. The door clicked open. They moved through and Stills pulled the door shut behind them.
“This way.” He grabbed her hand and propelled her down a narrow hall practically attached to his side. They did a series of turns that left her disoriented; not knowing which way was up or out. He opened a door into a room with tables, a few comfortable chairs, and a sofa by a TV droning in the corner. “Staff lounge. Wait here.” The words were little more than a grunt.
Without waiting for a response, he unclipped the security badge and disappeared the way they’d come. Maybe he was a little too much like her brother. Lots of action, but not much discussion.
Danny’s silence in the end had been painful.
Mandi couldn’t settle comfortably in a chair; instead, she paced in front of the TV. Pictures of a man and woman flashed across the screen with WANTED printed in big letters. The details scrawled across the bottom, but her vision was still hazy from the meds and she couldn’t make out the words.
The news ought to put up a picture of the man who had caused her accident. She’d love to know why he knocked her off the road. Why had he followed her to the hospital? Chilled by the thought, she rubbed hands over her arms. A couple walked into the room talking about the alarm. Their presence gave her a sense of security. A sense that she wasn’t alone in the chaos.
“I heard it’s a false alarm. Testing security.” The man nodded at Mandi before grabbing a plastic container from the fridge.
“You’ve got it all wrong. I went to school with a few of the nurses on that floor. Some weirdo attacked a deputy and knocked out a nurse before turning tail.”
The guy toss
ed his container into the microwave and punched a few chirping buttons. “A patient?”
The woman dropped a lunch sack on the far table and plopped into a seat. “A patient’s brother. Remember last year when...”
A patient’s brother? Didn’t everyone think Stills was her brother?
Mandi stumbled into the nearest seat. She hadn’t actually seen the fight that shook the wall outside the bathroom. Hadn’t seen anyone named Echo. In fact, Echo sounded like a figment of someone’s imagination. Stills was so like her brother it should have occurred to her that he had many of the same problems, including the paranoia and anger.
For long moments she stared with unseeing eyes at the television. The scent of garlic and tomatoes wafted from the other side of the staff lounge where the nurses continued to talk. Mandi’s stomach growled, but she ignored it as she replayed their words.
A patient’s brother attacked a deputy and knocked out a nurse.
Ice washed over her skin. She was cold, tired, sore, and hungry, possibly in danger, in a city hours from home. Without a car. Or a friend. Maybe she should call Glen. Not maybe. She definitely needed to call Glen. Now, before Stills came back.
Crud. Where was her phone? “Do either of you have a phone I can borrow?”
The couple glanced up from their empty plates. They’d finished eating while her mind had wandered down a dangerous path.
“Staff phone is right there,” the man answered. For the first time, they took a close look at her. She resisted the urge to smooth the unfamiliar scrubs that felt wrinkled and unprofessional under their scrutiny. Her hair was dripping wet, but surely nurses had to shower off during a bad shift.
She twisted away to avoid the suspicion that was dawning in their eyes. The rotary dial phone attached to the landline looked fifty years old. She picked it up and dialed Glen. “Hey,” she said when he answered. “Where are you?”
