Finding the Edge

by Debra Webb

  Disentangling herself from him, she scooted a few feet away. His eyes blinked, once, twice...he mumbled something she couldn’t comprehend.

  Eva scrambled to her feet and backed toward the door. She should reach for his weapon...she should grab it and run...

  The door burst inward, almost knocking her on top of the man on the floor.

  Another of the gunmen stared first at her and then at the man on the floor whose fly was flared open with his erect penis poked out.

  Before Eva could speak the man grabbed her by the hair with his left hand and the gun in his right shoved into her face. “What did you do to him?”

  Shaking so hard now she could hardly speak, she somehow managed to say, “He tried to rape me, so I pushed him away and he fell...he hit his head.”

  The man shoved her to the floor. She landed on her knees. “Help him,” he snarled.

  Eva moved closer to her attacker. His eyes were open but he didn’t look at her. When she touched his neck to measure his pulse he mumbled but his words were unintelligible. Pulse was rapid. His body abruptly tensed. Seizure. Damn.

  “We need to get him into the ER now.” She pushed to her feet. “He may have a serious head injury.”

  The man grabbed her by the hair once more and jerked her face to his. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

  A new stab of terror sank deep into her chest. “He attacked me. I was trying—”

  “If he dies,” he snarled, the muzzle boring into her cheek, “you die.”

  Suddenly the gun went upward. His arm twisted violently. A pop echoed in the room. Not a gunshot...a bone...

  The man howled in agony. His body was hurled toward the floor. He landed on the unforgiving tile next to his friend.

  Eva wheeled around, readied to scream but swallowed back the sound as she recognized Dr. Devon Pierce, the Edge creator and administrator.

  “Check the corridor,” he ordered. “If it’s clear, go to my office and hide. I’ve got this.” The man on the floor scrambled to get up and Pierce kicked him hard in the gut.

  When Eva hesitated, he snarled, “Go!”

  She eased the bathroom door open and checked the corridor. Clear. She slipped out of the room, the door closed behind her, cutting of the grunts and awful keening inside. Her first instinct was to return to the ER to see if her help was needed there, but Dr. Pierce had told her to hide in his office. She didn’t know what he was doing here but she assumed he was aware somehow of all that had happened. Perhaps the emergency protocol automatically notified him or maybe he had been in his office working late. Bottom line, he was the boss.

  She hurried along the corridor, took a right into another side hall past the storeroom and the file rooms. Fear pounded in her veins as she moved into the atrium. Pierce’s office was beyond the main lobby. She held her breath as she hurried through an open area. When she reached his secretary’s office and the small, private lobby she dared to breathe, then she closed herself in his office. The desk lamp was on. Apparently Pierce had been in his office working. She reached for her cell.

  Before she could put through a call to her sister, she heard rustling outside the door. The roar of her own blood deafening in her ears, Eva glanced quickly around the room. She had to hide. Fast!

  With no other option she ducked under his desk, squeezed as far beneath it as she could, folding her knees up to her chin and holding herself tight and small.

  A soft swoosh of air warned the door of the administrator’s office had opened.

  She held her breath.

  The intruder—maybe Pierce, maybe a cop—moved around the room. She had no intention of coming out of hiding until she knew for certain. The sound of books sliding across shelves and frames banging against the wall clarified that the intruder was neither Pierce nor a cop. Footfalls moved closer to her position. She needed to breathe. She pressed her face to her knees and dared to draw in a small breath. Black leather shoes and gray trousers appeared behind the desk. Her eyes widened with the dread spreading inside her.

  Definitely male.

  The man dropped into the leather executive chair and reached for the middle drawer of the desk. His rifling through the drawer contents gave her the opportunity to breathe again. He moved on to the next drawer, the one on his right. More of that rummaging. Then he reached lower, for the final drawer on that side. She prayed he wouldn’t bend down any lower because he would certainly see her.

  She held her breath again. He shifted to access the drawers on the other side, and his foot came within mere centimeters of her hip. He searched through the three remaining drawers. Then he stood. Sharp movement across the blotter pad told her he was writing something. Finally, he moved away from the desk.

  The door opened and then closed.

  Eva counted to thirty before she dared to move. She scooted from under the desk and scanned the room. She was alone. Thank God. The books and framed awards and photos on the once neatly arranged shelves lay scattered about. Her gaze instinctively dropped to the desk.

  I know what you did.

  The words were scrawled on the clean expanse of white blotter paper. For ten or more seconds she couldn’t move. She should go...get out of this office. Whatever that—she stared at the note—was about, she didn’t want to get dragged into it. The men who had stormed the ER had all been wearing jeans or cargo pants, not dress trousers and certainly not leather loafers. Just go!

  At the door, she eased it open and checked the administrator’s private lobby. Clear. She’d almost made it out of the secretary’s office when she heard hurried footfalls in the corridor. Renewed panic roared through her veins.

  With nowhere else to go, she ducked under the secretary’s desk.

  The footfalls moved across the carpeted floor. She heard the sound of Pierce’s office door opening. The man was popular tonight. Had the guy who’d written the note forgotten something?

  A soft curse came from the general direction of Pierce’s office.

  Eva hoped SWAT was ready to storm the place. She would hate to survive a bunch of crazed thugs or gangbangers or whatever they were and be murdered by a man wearing dress trousers and black leather shoes.

  “Eva!”

  For a moment she couldn’t breathe.

  “Eva!”

  Dr. Pierce. She scrambled out from under the desk. “Yes, sir. I’m here.”

  Fury or outrage—something on that order—colored his face. “The police are here. They’ll need your statement.”

  Thank God. “Is everyone okay? The gunmen have been contained?”

  He nodded, then frowned. “I thought you were going to hide in my office.”

  She shrugged and in that instant something about the expression on his face made her decide to keep what happened in his office to herself. “I heard someone coming. I freaked and hid under the secretary’s desk.”

  “Someone came in here?”

  He had to know someone had. He couldn’t have missed the disarray in his office or the note on his desk.

  She nodded. “I couldn’t see what was happening, but I definitely heard footsteps and the door to your office opening and closing.”

  “You didn’t get a look at who it was?”

  She shook her head. Was that suspicion she heard in his voice?

  When he continued to stare at her without saying more, she offered, “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes.” He smiled, rearranging his face into the amiable expression he usually wore. “It is now. Come with me. We should get this police business squared away so we can return to the business of healing the sick.”

  The walk back to the emergency department was the longest of her life. She could feel his tension in every step he took. She wanted to ask him again if everything was okay but she didn’t dare stir his suspicions.

  Right now all she wanted was for th
is night to be over.

  Chapter Two

  Magnificent Mile

  Tuesday, May 8, 2:15 p.m.

  Eva hurried up the sidewalk. She glanced over her shoulder repeatedly, checked the street over and over. She hated that her behavior no doubt looked entirely paranoid, but the truth was paranoia had been her constant companion for better than forty-eight hours. Since she received the first message.

  Two men had swerved to the curb on her street as she walked home from the market on Saturday afternoon. She might have kept walking except the one hanging out the passenger window called her name.

  Eva! Eva Bowman! He’s coming for you, la perra. You killed his hermano menor.

  The man who’d tried to rape her—the one who’d fractured his skull in that damned bathroom and then died—was the younger brother of one of Chicago’s most notorious gang leaders.

  Just her luck.

  Eva walked faster. She hadn’t meant to kill anyone. She’d been fighting for her life. He’d fallen...his death was an accident. An accident that wouldn’t have happened had he not been trying to rape her.

  The detectives on the scene had tried to make her feel better by telling her that Diego Robles—that was the dead man’s name, Diego Robles—and his gang of nearly a dozen thugs had murdered six men and two women on Friday before overtaking the ER where she worked.

  Except it hadn’t made her feel better. Robles had been nineteen years old. Nineteen. He had an older brother, Miguel, who was thirty-five and the leader of the True Disciples, an extremely violent offshoot of the Latin Disciples. The brother had passed along his message to Eva on three occasions without ever leaving a single shred of evidence she could take to the police.

  The first warning had come on Saturday afternoon via the two thugs in the car. Another had come when she walked out of the corner coffee shop near her apartment building on Sunday morning. Then, last night, another man had showed up at the ER asking for her. When she’d appeared at the registration desk, he’d waited until no one was looking and leaned forward to whisper for her ears only.

  You will die this week.

  With that he’d given her a nod and told her to enjoy her night.

  She’d reported all three incidents to the police and all they could do was tell her to be careful. No one had touched her or damaged her property. She had no proof of the threats other than her word. But last night when she’d been too afraid to go to her car alone and then too terrified to go to her own apartment, she’d understood she had to do something. She worried the only evidence to back up her fears would come in the form of someone finding her body after it was too late.

  Lena had demanded, to no avail, protection from the police for Eva. Kim Levy, her friend and another nurse at the Edge, had urged her to speak to Dr. Pierce. Kim had been in the ER on Friday night. She understood how terrified Eva had every right to be. But Eva couldn’t stop thinking about the way Dr. Pierce had looked at her after the strange happenings in his office. She’d decided not to discuss that odd moment with Kim or anyone else. And she had no desire to discuss her personal dilemma with her boss. Still, Kim being Kim, she had gone to Dr. Pierce and told him what was going on. He had insisted on sending Eva to the Colby Agency. Eva had heard of the Colby Agency. Who hadn’t? She’d certainly never expected to need a private investigations firm. Yet, here she was. She had an appointment at two thirty. Five minutes from now.

  Almost there. The Magnificent Mile was always busy, even on a Tuesday afternoon with hours to go before the evening rush of commuters headed home. She looked at each face she met...wondering when one of them would appear.

  She walked faster, pushing against the wind that seemed to want to blow her right back to where she’d parked her car.

  No turning back now.

  A shiver chilled her skin. It didn’t feel very much like spring today. Barely sixty degrees and overcast. Just in case it started to rain again, she’d tucked her umbrella into the beige leather bag she carried. Her pepper spray was in there, too. She carried her life around in one of two bags: a well-used brown one for fall and winter and this tawny beige one her mother had given her for spring and summer. Life was complicated enough without changing the purse she carried more than twice a year. Eva went out of her way to keep life simple. She’d had enough complications her freshman year in college. She’d made a decision all those years ago never to allow those sorts of complications ever again.

  Life was better when she stuck to enjoying the simpler pleasures. Like all the gorgeous tulips still in bloom and the trees that had gone from their stark winter limbs to lush and green already.

  That was the ticket. Focus on the mundane...the normal.

  The deep timbre of male voices was suddenly behind her. Fear crept up her spine like a cluster of spiders and her heart swelled into her throat. Her gait wavered, causing her to nearly stumble. A group of four men moved around and ahead of her. Despite the glaring facts that they paid her absolutely no notice, were dressed in business suits and kept moving at a brisk pace, her heart refused to slide back down into her chest where it belonged. The pepper spray in her bag felt wholly inadequate.

  Damn, she was a mess.

  It wasn’t until she spotted the wide glass front bearing the address of her destination that she was able to breathe easy again. Her hands settled on the door and, despite her best efforts, she hesitated. Calm was the necessary watchword. If she went into this meeting shaken and panicky, she might very well meet with the same reception she’d received from the two Chicago PD detectives working the investigation.

  Investigation. There were several aspects of the ongoing investigation. The clash between the True Disciples and another well-known gang with the resulting multiple homicides. The taking of an entire ER hostage. And the deemed justified homicide of Diego Robles. Both detectives, their captain and the DA had told her the events that happened in that bathroom were self-defense, completely justified. She had not intended to kill anyone. She’d only been trying to get away from him. The man’s death was an accidental consequence of his actions.

  But dead was dead.

  Calm. Collected. Not your fault.

  Eva squared her shoulders and pushed through the door. A wide, gleaming metal security desk curved around the center of the enormous lobby. Enough greenery to rival a small jungle softened all the glass and glossy metal.

  “Afternoon, ma’am,” the security guard said as she approached the counter. “You have an appointment?”

  “The Colby Agency.” She drew her wallet from her bag and produced her driver’s license. “Eva Bowman.”

  The guard checked the computer screen, scanned her license into his system, then handed the license as well as a visitor’s badge to her. “The elevators are to your right. Fourteenth floor is where you’re headed. Your code for the elevator is on the back of the badge. Just drop the badge off here as you leave, Ms. Bowman.”

  “Thank you.” As she moved toward the bank of elevators, she checked the back of the badge. Eight-two-six-seven. She clipped the badge onto the lapel of her sweater and tapped the call button.

  The doors opened to a vacant car. Deep breath. She stepped inside and selected floor fourteen. The keypad warned that a code was required so she entered the necessary digits. When the doors closed she stared at her reflection in the mirrored walls of the elevator interior. She’d taken care to dress professionally. The soft blush color of her pants and sweater set complemented her too-pale skin. Matching leather ballet flats were easy on the feet. Her first month as an ER nurse had taught her to appreciate good shoes made for comfort. She’d swept her blond hair into a loose bun at the nape of her neck and she’d gone easy on the makeup. Just a touch of lip gloss and a swipe of mascara.

  Calm. Collected.

  The car bumped to a stop and the doors slid open to another lobby. A receptionist looked up from behind an opaque gl
ass desk and smiled. “Good morning. Welcome to the Colby Agency, Ms. Bowman.”

  The next five or so minutes passed in a blur. After the offer of refreshments, which she declined, another receptionist appeared and escorted her to Victoria Colby-Camp’s office, a large, elegant space with a wall of windows that overlooked the city from a prestigious Michigan Avenue address.

  Eva had done an internet search on Victoria and her agency, but she hadn’t been adequately prepared for the sophisticated woman standing behind the beautiful mahogany desk, the wall of windows a stunning backdrop. She wore her salt-and-pepper hair in a French twist. The turquoise suit fit as if it had been tailored just for her. Probably had been. Though she was no taller than Eva, her presence was commanding. The most surprising part was how incredibly youthful and fit she looked. According to Google, Victoria Colby-Camp was nearing seventy. Eva could only hope she would look that good in another forty years.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Eva.” Victoria smiled. “Please sit. Let’s take a moment to get acquainted.”

  “Thank you.” Eva settled into one of the two champagne-colored upholstered chairs in front of Victoria’s desk.

  “My intern, Jamie, will be joining us shortly,” Victoria said. “I’ve reviewed your file. You’re a nurse at the Edge. Dr. Pierce and I serve on Chicago’s civic committee together. The Edge is an incredible step toward elevating emergency care to the highest level. We’re all very proud and duly impressed by his advances in the field.”

  Eva nodded. “Dr. Pierce is an amazing man. His methods are changing the landscape of emergency medicine.” The Edge was his brainchild. Whether it was a heart attack, a stroke or some sort of physical injury, the Edge was where everyone wanted to end up when an emergency occurred.