Fatal Deception

by April Hunt

  And he couldn’t force her.

  Just like he’d risk his right leg if given the option, Isabel would risk everything, too. “Then you need to rest. No more calls that can be put off until tomorrow. No more unnecessary packing. You need to close your eyes and turn off your mind.”

  “I don’t think I can without seeing the faces of everyone in that hospital,” Isa admitted in a soft whisper. “Of seeing little Abby…”

  “What can I do to help make it happen, Doc?”

  Her gaze dropped to his mouth, making him swallow a groan. She deserved a little peace. Hell, they both did.

  Giving her ample time to pull away, he trailed his hand from her ear, down the curve of her neck. “Tell me how I can help you. Tell me what you need.”

  She shivered against him as she peered up through her thick, dark lashes. “Right now all I need is you.”

  Roman’s heart thundered in his ears as he cupped the back of her head and guided her mouth to his. He’d wanted to take his time…be gentle…savor. But Isabel had other ideas. As her tongue plundered his mouth, her hands sought out every inch of skin that they could. His shirt was the first to go, then hers. In a matter of seconds, his pants hung around his knees and the only thing left between them was her thin, lacy red panties.

  He hoisted her legs around his hips and deposited her on the dresser. “How much do you like these?”

  “Enough to buy another pair if I need to.” Isa murmured against his lips. “Condom?”

  “Left pocket. Wallet.”

  “Hoping for something, Mr. Steele?” She dove her hand into his pants, grinning.

  “With you around, I always seem to be hoping.” Roman sucked down a groan as she cupped his balls with one hand and slid the condom on with the other. By the time the rim hit the base of his cock, he was ready to explode. “Hope these weren’t your favorite.”

  He tugged on her panties and they snapped, instantly giving way. “Let’s see how wet and ready you are, Doc.”

  “More than.” Isabel tilted her hips, accepting the fingers he slid through her wetness with a roll of her hips. “No foreplay needed, Roman. Please. You. Now.”

  He wasn’t arguing.

  The second he removed his fingers, he tugged her to the edge of the dresser and sunk into her body in one hard thrust. They groaned in unison, Isabel’s fingers digging into his shoulders.

  “Roman.” She panted, tilting her body up so he dove in that much deeper. Sweat dripped off their bodies as they worked into a frenzied rhythm. “Roman, please. More.”

  “Come for me.” Gripping her upper thighs, he pounded into her harder. Faster. “Come for me, baby. I want to feel you wrap tight around me, Isabel.”

  He wanted to watch her come apart at the seams and know he was the one responsible. He wanted to sink into her and never come out. By the time her body squeezed his throbbing cock in a vise grip, bringing along his own release moments after hers, Roman realized that he just wanted her…over and over…for as long as she’d have him.

  As he dropped his forehead to Isabel’s, Roman realized that Isabel Santiago could very well be the one and only person who could bring him back to the land of the living.

  And that scared the shit out of him.

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  Great sex didn’t cure all, but it sure as hell didn’t hurt. Ever since waking up wrapped around Roman after a night of intense marathon sex and sporadic cat naps, Isa had felt energized.

  The effects of the magical peen.

  But after ten hours in a hazmat suit, twenty intravenous line restarts, and more than thirty medication administrations, Roman’s penis magic was fading fast. She jotted down a reminder note to herself to make sure more IV kits were on the next supply shipment when Marie, the college student volunteer, hustled over, the inside of her mask foggy.

  “Isa! It’s Abby! Quick!”

  Isa’s heart stumbled as she dropped the clipboard and ran as fast as her bulky suit would let her to the other side of the gym. She tripped once, thanks to the too-big rubber boots, and then forced herself into a brisk pace that would put any professional power-walker to shame.

  “Excuse me. Pardon me.” Isa gently inserted herself into the crowd that had gathered around Abby’s cot, preventing her from seeing the young toddler or her mother. “Let me through. Come on, guys. I can’t do anything if you don’t…”

  A childish giggle sounded just as Isa fought her way through the mob.

  Abby, bright-eyed and grinning, sitting on her mother’s lap, tossed another glove-balloon into the air before snatching it away moments before her mother pretended to make a grab for it. The balloon squeaked as the little girl clutched it tight to her chest, and then did it again.

  Beth looked up, tears streaming down her cheeks as she smiled. “She woke up like this…playful for the first time in days. Is she…is she better?”

  “Marie?”

  The young student was already handing Isabel the audible stethoscope and thermometer, and this time, Abby curiously listened to her heart and lungs without needing any kind of bribery.

  Despite the number of people in the gymnasium, a dropped pin could’ve been heard as everyone waited for Isa to say something…say anything. Satisfied with the little one’s heart and lung sounds, she swiped the thermometer across the little one’s forehead and held her breath while the numbers popped up on the display.

  99.1.

  Isa swiped Abby twice for good measure and got the same result.

  “She’s afebrile.” Isa couldn’t contain her relieved smile. “Her fever broke.”

  Beth bounced her daughter on her lap. “That’s good news, right?”

  “That’s great news, but I have to draw blood and verify and her viral loads and—”

  “Do it. Please.”

  By the time Isabel had two vials of Abby’s blood in her hands, news of the toddler’s improvement had spread throughout the room. Quarantined neighbors came by to add to the excitement, Tony one of them.

  “Did I hear correctly?” Her mentor peered through the growing crowd, on his face a look of shock and awe. “Her fever broke?”

  “For the first time in days she’s below one hundred degrees Fahrenheit.” Isa couldn’t contain a small bark of laughter. “Tony, her lungs sound clear. Her heart’s strong. What bruising she had looks aged, as if her body’s healing itself instead of deteriorating. I won’t know until I count the viral load myself, but I think that little angel just told us this isn’t as unbeatable as we feared.”

  “Go.” Tony took her stethoscope from her and flicked his hands. “Get to the lab and test it. I’ll hold down the fort here.”

  Isa couldn’t keep the smile off her face no matter how many times she mentally scolded herself for being prematurely hopeful. She went into decon, and then half-walked, half-ran with single-minded focus toward the school trailer they had turned into a lab.

  Isa rounded the corner and collided with a tall, auburn-haired woman. They both bounced back, Isa landing flat on her ass.

  “Oh, crap. I am so sorry. I was rushing to the hospital…uh, the school.” The woman stretched a hand out to help Isa back to her feet.

  “Hold that thought.” Isa carefully opened up the bio carrier she’d luckily tucked into her body like a football and breathed easier seeing Abby’s samples safely nestled into their foam slots. “That could’ve been very, very bad. And thank you.”

  Isa accepted her hand and brushed the rocks and dirt off her butt.

  The other woman shifted her gaze from the school back to her, her eyes widening. “You’re Dr. Santiago. I recognize you from the town hall meeting. I’m Connie, Mayor Rutledge’s niece.”

  “Did you say you were going to the hospital? Is everything okay?”

  “No, it’s not.” Tears pooled in Connie’s eyes. “My son Leo was feeling fine this morning, but all of a sudden he’s so hot to the touch and yet keeps begging for more blankets. I tried alternating acetaminop
hen and ibuprofen like our pediatrician always suggested, but his temperature just seems to keep rising. Can you come take a look at him?”

  “It sounds like he needs a complete work-up. It would be best if you brought him to the clinic.”

  “He won’t get up, and he’s too big for me to carry. Please. I can’t let anything happen to him. His father passed away two years ago, and he’s the only thing I have left.”

  Isa’s heart ached for the other woman. Vials in hand, she glanced toward the lab and back to the frightened woman, already knowing she couldn’t say no. “Show me.”

  “Thank you. This way.” Connie grabbed her hand and hustled her down Main Street. They bypassed a few evening walkers, who paused slightly before giving them polite nods. She turned left after two blocks and walked farther away from the center of town.

  Isa’s steps slowed as she realized how far away from the school they’d actually gone. “Maybe I can have one of the volunteers come out and bring your son into the clinic. If his temperature is as high as you say, I don’t want to waste time in all the back and forth.”

  “But we’re already here.” Connie gestured to a small cabin set apart from the others, its weathered siding and sagging windows screaming for some kind of aesthetic help. She unlocked the door and held it open. “He’s right there on the couch. I couldn’t even get him to his room, he was feeling so weak.”

  Isa glimpsed the blanketed figure lying on the threadbare couch, and stepped into the cabin. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the dim lighting, turning vague shapes into outlines. Connie’s son groaned and shifted, and just as Isa reached his side and prepped to pull back the blankets, the person beneath flipped them down.

  It wasn’t a child beneath the covers.

  “Having a good time in Beaver Ridge, Dr. Santiago?” Blue Eyes smirked, sitting upright, and sans mask. But it was definitely the man from the Legion…and from the van. If she’d seen him on the street, she probably wouldn’t have given him a second look, but there was no mistaking that cold look…or that voice. “I told you that we’d be seeing each other again. You should probably take me at my word.”

  Isa spun around toward the door and nearly came into contact with the muzzle of a gun.

  Connie’s tears were nowhere to be found now. Grinning ear to ear, the woman, who was definitely not related to Mayor Rutledge and probably wasn’t named Connie, looked at ease aiming a weapon in her face. “You’re harder to get alone than the pope himself, Izzy.”

  “What do you want?” Isa steeled her voice to prevent it from wavering.

  Blue Eyes got up from the couch, the old frame protesting with a groan. “Wrong question. What do you want? If it’s to make sure your boyfriend, his friends, and this entire town keeps breathing, then I suggest you come with me like a good little doctor and keep your fucking mouth shut.”

  Pain slammed into the back of Isa’s head, shooting through her skull and down her neck as her vision dimmed. Her world spun in a flurry of shadows until it—and her feet—finally gave way.

  * * *

  In his thirty-two years on earth, Roman had established two hard-core rules: Listen to his gut…and his mother. If he ignored either one, trouble almost always followed, which was why he’d taken two additional passes around Beaver Ridge’s perimeter in the last hour.

  Emptyhanded, with his internal warning system still blaring, he rounded the corner of the school to see Tony stepping out from the lab.

  The older man’s head snapped left and right until his gaze landed on Roman. “Have you seen Isa? She left the hospital to run some samples over to the lab, but she’s not there, and I haven’t seen her since.”

  Roman’s gut alarm went off. “How long ago was that?”

  Tony checked his watch. “An hour? Give or take a few minutes.”

  Fuck. Roman ripped the radio off his hip. “I need a location on Isabel. Now.”

  “Not here,” Jaz called in from the dock.

  Ryder chimed next via the clinic, “Not here, either.”

  One by one, both Roman’s team and their volunteers checked in, and no one had eyes on her. With a curse, Roman bolted toward the cabin, Tony huffing breathlessly behind him, and prayed exhaustion had just sent her to bed for a quick recharge.

  “Doc!” Roman burst through the door and immediately scanned the first level. Finding it empty, he immediately jogged up the stairs and into each of the bedrooms. “Doc! Are you here? Isabel?”

  There was no sign of her. Anywhere.

  He’d stepped onto the porch just as King appeared around the corner, breathless. “Anything?”

  “Not a damn thing.”

  “Ryder’s checking the hospital with one of the vols to see if she went back there after hitting up the lab.”

  As if saying his name aloud conjured him, Ryder’s voice crackled on the radio. “Need you guys down on Main Street. ASAP.”

  King and Roman took off, Roman’s leg—at first—protesting the burst of speed. Thanks to Isa’s suggestion to oil the gears, his prosthetic moved easily, and in a matter of a minutes they reached Main Street. Ryder stood with an older couple just outside the local barber shop.

  “You see her?” Roman asked his brother.

  Ryder shook his head. “But Edith and Henry said they saw her an hour ago walking away from the lab, and she wasn’t alone.”

  “Who the hell was she with?”

  Henry answered, “A woman. Maybe in her thirties. I thought I’ve seen her around town once or twice before, but I didn’t say anything earlier, because I thought she may be with you.”

  “She wasn’t.” Roman locked eyes with his brother and saw the same realization in Ryder’s eyes he knew was in his own. Those bastards had her.

  “Where were they headed?”

  Henry pointed left, away from the general town hub. “North. But there’s nothing up that way except for some empty cabins Rutledge keeps trying to tear down.”

  “King,” Roman growled.

  “On it.” Part human and part bloodhound, King led the way up the northern face of the hill, where, just like Henry said, there was nothing except a half-dozen log cabins. Jaz met them halfway, her gun clenched in her hand. Roman and the others spread out as they headed up the hill, working the wide field in a line-search format without having to give directions.

  One third of the way to the nearest cabin, King barked, “Got a trail!” He pointed at the disturbed grass. “Two sets of prints headed straight toward that middle building.”

  “They’re side by side,” Roman noted. Crouching with a grimace, he eyed the path left behind in the fresh mud. “That means at this point, Isabel wasn’t taken under duress, or one would be closely trailing the other.”

  “You think she went willingly?”

  “No, I think they played her until they got her where they wanted her.” Roman nodded toward the middle cabin. “Guns out and at the ready. Jaz and Ryder, take the rear. King and I are on the front…and be fucking careful.”

  “You, too, brother.” Ryder squeezed his shoulder as he passed. “Head on a swivel.”

  King led the way up the front of the cabin. The steps groaned in protest beneath his weight, but he didn’t pay it any mind, plastering his body against the front of the cabin. “After you, my friend. On three.”

  At zero, King kicked the door open and immediately took a knee while Roman breached the entryway. Ryder and Jaz did the same at the rear door. With one room and a small hall, it didn’t take long to clear—and to realize Isabel wasn’t there.

  “Fucking hell.” Roman punched the wall. Rotting wood cracked under the impact.

  “Check this out.” Jaz bent down in front of the couch, where a small cooler was half-hidden by a discarded blanket. She peeked inside. “Two vials of blood. Isa was definitely here.”

  “But she’s not now.” Roman’s fingers popped as he balled his hands into fists. “Get that cooler to Tony, and then collect the volunteers and anyone else who knows this area like the b
ack of their hand.”

  “Please tell me we’re going after the slimy fuckers,” Jaz asked eagerly.

  “Hell yeah we are. If any of them so much as touched a hair on Isabel’s head, they’re going to be the ones requiring medical attention when I’m through with them.”

  “Or a coroner,” Jaz muttered under her breath.

  Until he laid eyes on Isabel and saw for himself that she was unharmed, he wasn’t about to rule that out, either.

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  Isa’s head throbbed, the flow and ebb crashing into her like huge storm waves as she forced her eyes open. She squinted through the cobwebs distorting her memory, but slowly, they cleared up, one coming after another.

  Abby at the hospital. The excitement. The rush to the lab. The woman waiting around the corner…Connie.

  No, not Connie, a voice whispered in the recesses of Isa’s mind. A trap.

  Remembering the gun aimed at her face, Isa yanked her arms. Twin bolts of pain shot through her wrist and up her arm as plastic ties bit into her skin, anchoring her hands and legs to a hard wood chair. “What the hell?”

  Four bare log walls surrounded her, and one window, its panes boarded up, allowed the barest hint of moonlight through its slats. She was alone, that much was a given, but the low murmur of voices from somewhere else in the cabin told her it probably wouldn’t be for long.

  Behind her, a door opened, its hinges squeaking.

  “Look who’s finally awake.” Footsteps approached, and the woman who called herself Connie leaned over her shoulder, brushing her mouth against her ear. “It’s so nice of you to finally join us, Dr. Santiago. Guess the party can officially start now, huh?”

  “Why don’t you untie me so I can show you how festive I can be.”

  The woman’s low chuckle grated on Isa’s nerves, making her wish she had the power to make these ties disintegrate. “I like you, Isa. That’s what most people call you, right? You seem like a pretty stand-up woman, which is why I hope you can be a good girl and cooperate.”

  “Well I don’t like you, so you can go to hell.”