by Julie Miller
“And you think Rush is behind it?”
“I don’t know. I’m just trying to find out every possibility.”
“‘Jilly,’ hmm? You know I won’t be able to give you patient names.”
“I know. But maybe someone who works there? Or used to? Anything you can remember would be helpful.”
“I’ll think on it.” His concern eased back into a familiar smile and he drew Jillian in for a hug. “Be careful, Jilly.”
“You be careful, Doc,” she replied, pulling away and opening the door. “I can’t tell you how dangerous this guy is. I don’t want to see anyone else I care about get hurt.”
HE DIDN’T KNOW IF HE WANTED to love her or punish her for betraying him.
His eyes burned as he lifted his head from his work and stared at all the images watching over him. He reached up and touched the worn spot on the photograph of Jillian running laps around the hospital complex. The early morning sun shimmered in the dark mane of hair that flew out behind her. So beautiful.
He curled his gloved fingers into a fist and drew them back to his lips, breathing deeply to ease the acrid bile of frustration and disappointment that churned in his stomach. An image might be beautiful to look at. But it couldn’t compare to the warmth and softness he’d felt touching her real hair.
All of these captured faces couldn’t match the real thing smiling back at him. And he’d made her smile often. That had always been his gift to her—to offer her a glimpse of hope when she needed it, to make her laugh. He’d done so many things for her—made her smile, helped her with work, eased her stress, kept her safe. He’d killed for Jillian Masterson. He was ready to kill again.
And that was how she repaid him?
He swept his fist through the air, pure rage clearing a path off his desk. Papers flew. Glass shattered. Tools bounced across the floor.
That image was burned into his head more clearly than any of the others he’d collected. His sweet, innocent Jilly touching another man’s face. Pulling another man close for a kiss. Sticking her tongue down another man’s throat.
Smiling and kissing and holding tight to another man.
She’d probably done other things to him, too. He’d seen where she’d spent the last two nights.
He’d loved her first. He’d loved her even when Jilly hadn’t loved herself. He’d given her every opportunity to see that. His love was pure and everlasting, and she was destroying it with her foolish actions.
Her adolescent lust for that other man would pass. He would forgive her the transgression. His loyalty to her would always be true.
He deserved her love.
He deserved her.
No one else could have her.
She just needed his help one more time to understand that.
His resolve firmly in place, his outrage firmly in check, he picked through the debris on his desk and lifted the sealed envelope. He brushed off the bits of glass and slipped it inside the pocket of his coat. He slipped the freshly packed magazine of bullets into his gun and tucked it into its holster.
Then he stood and fastened the front of his coat over the bulk of the special gift he wore around his chest. His stint in the army had taught him several things. How to handle a gun. How to be silent and listen. How to do the tough job when necessity called for it.
And how to protect what was rightfully his.
“HE SHOOTS. HE SCORES!” Jillian cheered as Troy’s shot swished through the net. She rebounded the ball and dribbled down the free throw lane out beyond the three-point line as he spun his chair and gave chase.
A little two-on-one ball at the end of the day seemed to be the ticket for lightening everyone’s mood as they waited for Michael to come pick them up at the end of Troy and Mike’s PT session. Not that Mike and Troy had given her much to complain about. During a set of arm curls in the weight room, Mike had even opened up a bit about his late friend Steve. He’d been the one into lifting weights and bulking up for the football team. While both boys had enjoyed working out and working hard during football camps, Steve had been the health nut. Because of that, Steve hadn’t been drinking the night of the accident that had claimed his life. He’d volunteered to be the designated driver at the underage party where Mike had tried his first beers.
It had been an offhand comment between one weight machine and the next. But the confession gave Jillian a bit more insight into Mike’s emotional state during his recovery. He wasn’t just crushed over losing a friend and his ability to play football. He was probably feeling guilty about having survived the crash at all while his more responsible friend had died.
It was a discovery she’d mention to Michael. If he ever got there. Jillian’s watch read 5:15. She prayed that Michael’s unusual tardiness was the result of something as benign as rush-hour traffic, and not because his team had been called out to another dangerous situation. She wondered if Mike ever watched the clock that closely or worried this much about his father’s late arrival.
Not at the moment, judging by the way he pushed his chair back and forth, trying to keep her away from the basket.
“Oh, no, buddy,” she taunted, squaring off to shoot. “If you want to block my three-pointer, you’re going to have to be taller than that.”
“Masterson.”
Jillian pulled up short midjump and turned to the gym’s open doorway. Dylan stood there, his jacket zipped, his expression annoyed. She propped the basketball on her hip and jogged over to him. “Yeah, Smith?”
“Everyone’s gone home. Are you okay to lock up or do you want me to stay until your cop friend shows up?”
“I’m good.” She nodded over her shoulder, indicating the two teenagers behind her. “I won’t be alone. Are you heading over to the Shamrock?”
“Not tonight.” He patted his stomach, reminding her of the consequences of his last visit to the bar. “What do you want me to tell the cop sitting out front?”
“You noticed him, huh?”
“Kind of hard to miss the armed guards that have been hanging around the clinic the past few days. It makes some of my patients nervous. Hell, it makes me nervous.” He pointed to his own face to indicate the bandage on her chin. “Are you sure you’re ready to be back at work?”
“I’m fine.” She summoned a smile. “I hope they haven’t cramped your style too much.” The tightness around his mouth never left his expression. “Dylan, is something wrong?”
“Nah.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his khakis and shrugged. “I guess I’ve got to stop hitting on you now. You and that cop are the real thing, hmm?”
“I hope so,” she answered honestly. She had to shrug, too. “I know you tried. And I’m flattered. But, um, it just never clicked with me. And besides, there’s the whole romance between coworkers thing that can get—”
“Pretty awkward. Yeah, I know.”
Jillian extended her hand and an apology. “I hope we can still be friends.”
After a momentary hesitation, Dylan took her hand and held on a little longer than what felt comfortable. “I’ll get over it.” When he finally let go, Jillian quickly returned her hands to the ball and retreated a half step. “I’ll tell the officer outside you’re still in here with the boys and lock the front door on my way out. The hospital corridor entrance and patio exit off the lounge are already locked. You should be safe. Good night, Jilly.”
“Good…night.”
Jilly? Everything inside her tensed and she hugged the ball to her stomach. No. Not Dylan. She couldn’t have worked side by side with the man for this long and not have known, not have suspected.
She didn’t take another full breath until he was out the door. She pressed the back of her hand to each cheek, feeling feverish and unsettled. Idiot.
A lot of people called her Jilly. Didn’t make them all stalkers and killers. Dylan’s mood could be chalked up to spicy peppers and a bruised ego. If he had wanted to hurt her, he’d have had more opportunity than most, given all the hours they w
orked together. His was one more name she could scratch off her list.
“Hey, Jillian,” Troy called. “Are we playin’ or what?”
Concentrate on the task at hand and let Edward run his investigation to track down Loverboy. Michael would be here soon enough and then her world would right itself again.
She pulled her ponytail away from the perspiration at the back of her neck and spun around to face her opponents. “Definitely playing.”
She ran the ball past Troy, then dribbled a circle around Mike’s chair. When she turned to the basket to shoot, she had a wall of Mike Cutler, Jr., in her face.
He was on his feet, his leg braces locked, his hand in the air, positioned to block her shot. Jillian rocked back on her heels, beaming with a double dose of pride and awe. “Wow. Look at you. Standing on your own. Balancing yourself.”
Despite the obvious clench of his jaw as he struggled to maintain his upright posture, Mike wore a bit of a devilish grin himself. “You said I needed to be taller.”
“I thought basketball was lame.” She quoted him from an earlier session.
“It is.” He pulled the ball from her hands and sat back in his chair with a wicked grin. “But losing’s worse.”
With a round of cheers from Troy, he wheeled to the basket and banked a shot off the backboard. Jillian couldn’t help it. She absolutely couldn’t help herself. As soon as Mike and Troy were done butting fists and trading celebratory gibes, she reached around Mike’s shoulders and hugged him. “I am so proud of you, big guy.”
He patted her arm where it crossed his chest and tilted his ear against hers in a cool teenage guy version of a hug. “Thanks.”
Pulling away before she embarrassed Mike, Jillian traded high fives with both boys. “Great workout today, guys. I think this rates a call to your dad to tell him the good news.”
Mike’s cheeks were pink. “All I did was stand up.”
She leaned over and pressed a kiss to one of those pink cheeks and watched it redden. “Mike, what you did today is as big as the first day I left rehab and faced the world on my own.
“My phone’s in my office. I’m calling your dad.” She pulled her keys from the pocket of her slacks. She’d truly feel like celebrating if she knew Michael was on his way. Maybe surrounded by father and son and friend, she could actually push aside her fears about Loverboy for a little while. “Hey, guys?” As long as they were feeling good, she’d keep Mike and Troy moving. Hurrying over to the corner of the gym, she unlocked the storage closet and rolled out the ball bin. “Will you two gather up the basketballs and put them in the storage closet for me?”
“Will do.”
“Thanks, guys.”
With a buoyancy to her stride that belied her beat-up knees, Jillian headed out of the gym and down the corridor to her office. She tried to focus on the joy she felt at Mike’s small victory instead of noticing the stillness of the clinic without patients and staff to create the normal buzz of noise that filled the rooms. She tried to imagine how thrilled Michael would be when she told him that Mike had made significant progress in his attitude toward rehabilitation today instead of imagining the curious eyes watching her from darkened offices and shadowed corners.
But when she rounded the corner to her office, Jillian quickly pulled back and flattened herself against the wall. She pressed her fingers against her lips to stifle the urge to call out or gasp with surprise.
Ever so slowly, she held her breath and peeked around the corner again. Oh, no. Please no.
She pulled back against the wall again and clutched at the wallpaper behind her, willing her knees not to buckle.
There was a man at her door with a ring of keys, jerking on the knob and cursing beneath his breath. “Changed the damn lock here, too. Ah, Jilly, Jilly. What am I going to do with you?”
It could be coincidence—it could be lousy timing that he was here at this moment trying to break in. But Jillian knew. After all this time. After all the letters, the professions of love—after fear and murder had changed her life—she knew.
It was him. He was here.
With feet and heart like lead, she crept back along the corridor, barely daring to breathe as the man she’d known for so many years damned her and praised her with every other sentence.
Jillian’s first intention was to get outside to the cop assigned to watch her until Michael showed up to relieve him. But he’d hear the door opening. A phone call from the front desk would make even more noise.
And then she remembered the boys.
She remembered LaKeytah Anthony’s battered body and Blake Rivers’s frozen dead face.
Training her ear to any sign that Loverboy was following her, she dashed into the gym. Her expression alone must have told the boys that something was wrong.
Mike pulled the ball he’d been about to shoot into the storage bin back into his lap. “What is it?”
Jillian grabbed Troy’s chair and pushed him inside the closet. “Not a word. Either of you,” she warned.
“What’s wrong?” Troy asked.
“Shh.”
Mike was already following them in. She plucked the basketball from his grasp and turned him so that both wheelchairs would fit. “If either of you has your cell phone, set it to silent and text 9-1-1.”
Troy pulled out his phone.
“Jillian?” Mike caught her wrist as she climbed over his legs.
She had every intention of pulling the door shut and hiding in the closet with them. But then she heard the footsteps and knew she couldn’t risk discovery and anyone else being hurt. She twisted free and squeezed his hand. “Text your father. Tell him Loverboy is here. He’ll know what to do. And please, not one sound.”
Without another backward look, she shut the door behind her. At the first tiny clank of chair wheels tangling with each other, Jillian started dribbling the ball. She made as much noise as she could, charging the basket and making a perfect layup, drawing attention away from the closet.
She never got the chance to make a second shot.
“Hello, Jilly. I suppose this meeting was inevitable. I’m glad I can finally tell you the truth.”
Jillian turned around and looked straight into the barrel of Wayne Randolph’s gun.
Chapter Twelve
“I need eyes on this guy. Somebody tell me they’ve got a way into the gym.”
Michael Cutler had been a cop for too many years to see this day. An emergency text message from his own son at the same time he got a 9-1-1 call from Dispatch? Both telling him Mike and Troy were trapped inside the medical center’s physical therapy clinic with a guy who claimed to have a bomb, and that said bastard was holding the woman he loved at gunpoint.
Edward Kincaid had finally gotten the break they needed, following up on fifty-one green cars in the Kansas City area until he tracked down the only owner with a connection to Jillian.
Dr. Wayne Randolph.
Mild-mannered miracle worker from the Boatman Rehabilitation Clinic. Jillian’s mentor. Father figure.
Loverboy.
Eli Masterson had gone through Randolph’s office with a fine-tooth comb and found a wadded-up ball of torn paper with the word Jilly scribbled on it over and over. With Kincaid obtaining a search warrant, Michael’s own team had been in the process of conducting a raid on Randolph’s home when Mike’s text message had come.
Dad
Trub at PTC
J taken
Gun/Bomb/Help
In Randolph’s basement office, they’d found .45-caliber bullets, materials to make a pipe bomb, a set of copied keys and the sickest display of obsession Michael had ever seen. Pictures of Jillian tacked to a bulletin board. A newspaper photo from her high school basketball championship game. A handwritten thank-you card that credited Randolph with saving her life in rehab. Candid shots of Jillian—from the clinic, at her apartment building, hurrying down 10th Street near Troy’s apartment building in No-Man’s Land.
Maybe Randolph had sensed th
ey were closing in. Maybe something Jillian had shared in their session this morning had set him off. Whatever his motives, whatever his reasoning, Randolph had Jillian locked inside a windowless half-court gymnasium, carrying a pistol and a bomb.
Night was here. Rain was falling.
Mike and Troy were missing, presumably also in harm’s way.
It was the worst-case scenario of Michael’s life.
And SWAT Team 1 had gotten the call.
He rubbed at his chest through the Kevlar vest he wore. The protective armor was supposed to protect the vital organs inside his body. Yet he was already suffering from the emotional bullet that had pierced his heart.
It was impossible to shut down the fear and anger he felt. He’d promised to keep Jillian safe. And now he might lose her before he ever had the chance to make things right between them.
The emotional barrage might have incapacitated a different man. But Michael Cutler had twenty-two years of experience and the best training KCPD could provide running through his veins. He spoke into the radio at the command center they’d set up in the clinic parking lot and asked for a situation report. “I need a sit rep now.”
One by one, his men reported in.
Holden Kincaid was on the roof. “Negative, sir.”
Trip Jones had secured the clinic’s main entrance. “Negative.”
Alex Taylor was on his belly outside the gym’s locked doors. “I’ve got two thermal signatures in the center of the gym, but I’m blind here.”
Michael waited a few seconds more for his sergeant to report in. “Delgado?”
“I’m checking out some mice in the wall.”
“Come again?”
