Race Against Time

by Sharon Sala

  “Las Vegas Police!” he shouted and held his hands up with the gun in one hand and his badge in the other.

  The first guard to reach him immediately took him by the arm.

  “Detective, what happened?”

  “You have a woman in room 424 who was shot earlier this evening out on Highway 93. Unknowingly, she rode up on a murder in progress and got shot for her troubles. That man followed her and just tried to finish the job.”

  The guard nodded. “We need to get you to ER, Detective. Wilson, escort him down, and the rest of you start a room-by-room check to make sure there aren’t any gunmen on site. I’ll wait here with this one’s body until the police arrive.”

  “I need a guard on room 424 or I’m not going anywhere,” Nick stated.

  “Go. We’re on it.”

  Nick was reluctant to leave, but he also knew he needed some first aid. He called in to his lieutenant again as they were going down in the elevator to tell him what happened.

  “Lieutenant Summers.”

  “Lieutenant, this is Detective Saldano. Someone tried to take out the O’Meara woman as they were bringing her up from surgery. I shot him.”

  “Is she all right?” Summers asked.

  “Yes, sir. The shooter is dead, and I’m on my way to ER to get some first aid.”

  “You’re wounded?”

  “Head wound, sir, but nothing serious. It’s going to be a big headache and nothing more.”

  “Write up your report and consider yourself off duty.”

  “Sir, seriously, I’ll be—”

  “That’s an order,” Summers said, leaving no room for argument.

  Nick sighed.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The security guard glanced at Nick.

  “Pulled you, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” Nick said and leaned back against the wall as the elevator took them down to ER.

  * * *

  Anton was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, watching as the EMTs were preparing Star for transport. He didn’t like what was happening, but he’d made the decision to keep her alive, and this was the consequence.

  His phone rang, and he frowned when he saw the name on his caller ID.

  It was his snitch in the Las Vegas PD. This was a call he never ignored. He backed out into the hall and lowered his voice.

  “This is Baba.”

  “Mr. Baba, this is Alicia Alvarez. We just got word that a man named Dev Bosky was killed in a shoot-out with a homicide cop in the Centennial Hill Hospital.”

  Anton stifled a curse. So much for getting his son back the easy way.

  “Thank you.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said and disconnected.

  Anton shoved a hand through his hair in abject frustration. What the hell was going on? All the people he normally depended on were failing him miserably. He was just superstitious enough to wonder if he’d brought it upon himself by betraying the mother of his son.

  At any rate, he couldn’t go after the witness from the desert at the moment. Dev was already dead, and if he did anything more it would surely tie him to that crime. He was going to have to step back for the time being and see how this played out. The Feds would come, that he was certain of, and he would be questioned. His best bet now was to remain patient and, as always, deny, deny, deny. After all, Dev hadn’t worked for him in months...

  * * *

  Star cried out as the EMTs loaded her faceup onto a stretcher, bouncing her repeatedly on her injured back as they took her downstairs to the ambulance. She could hear Dr. Fuentes talking to Anton as they followed her down, but she wouldn’t open her eyes.

  Her back was miserable, but she didn’t think she had any broken ribs or internal bleeding. Still, she was going to stay quiet and allow the paramedics to take her to the hospital. The only way she was going to survive any of this was to get away again, and right now the best chance she had to get away was on this stretcher. Her mind was focused on one thought: Sammy. The only hope she had of getting him back was to testify against Anton Baba—and to do that, she had to escape and stay alive.

  When they transferred her to a gurney and loaded her into the ambulance, she moaned. She heard the back doors closing and then waited until it was moving before she dared a quick look.

  There were two EMTs with her and then the driver up front. These two were strangers to her, but she knew enough about Anton’s world to understand that didn’t mean they weren’t in his pocket.

  One of them was swabbing the inside of her arm.

  “Just a small stick,” he said, as he slipped a needle into a vein to establish an IV.

  Star felt nothing but the constant throb and burn of the wounds on her back. The ride was rough, and by the time they reached the hospital, tears were running down her face.

  The EMTs were running when they wheeled her into ER. She knew because she could hear the rapid slap of their shoes against the tile. She heard one of the men giving out her stats and heard a woman ask her name.

  “Her name is Star Davis,” the EMT said. “She’s Dr. Fuentes’s patient. He’s on the way to the hospital, too.”

  “Star, my name is Dr. King. Can you tell me where you hurt?”

  Star moaned softly.

  “My back, my back. Please turn me over,” she begged.

  The doctor frowned as she pointed to two of the nurses.

  “Help me roll her... Not much. I just need to get a quick look at—”

  The doctor froze. It was only for a second, and then she began issuing orders quickly and loudly.

  Star sighed. The relief of lying on her side, if briefly, was huge. Her tears turned into soft, choking sobs.

  “What happened to you?” Dr. King asked.

  “I was in a wreck,” Star said.

  X-ray techs wheeled the portable X-ray into the room.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Davis. I’m going to need you to lie flat for these X-rays,” the doctor said.

  “No, no. Not again,” Star moaned.

  She felt hands on her shoulders, at her waist and at the backs of her legs trying to ease her back down, but when they rolled her down onto her back, the pain was so intense she passed out.

  Dr. Fuentes came into the exam bay, recognized Dr. King and nodded.

  “Dr. King.”

  “Dr. Fuentes,” she replied, giving him a hard look. “What can you tell me about your patient?”

  “That she lives with Anton Baba and she was in a wreck.”

  Dr. King guessed the rest of what he wasn’t telling, which meant not asking too many detailed questions.

  Seconds later, Anton and his two bodyguards entered the room.

  “Wait outside,” Anton told the men and then aimed his questions at the doctor he didn’t know. “What is her condition?”

  “Mr. Baba, I’m Dr. King. We’re just about to x-ray her, but she’s unconscious at the moment—the pain is quite intense. As soon as we’re finished, we’ll focus on the wounds on her back,” Dr. King said.

  “Did she say anything?” Anton asked.

  The doctor frowned.

  “That she was in pain. If you will step outside long enough for us to get the X-rays we need, you will be allowed to return until we take her to surgery.”

  Anton glanced at her, startled by this news.

  “She needs surgery?”

  The doctor folded her arms across her chest.

  “I assume you saw her back?”

  Anton nodded.

  “Then you understand the severity of her injuries. She’ll need to be under anesthetic and in a perfectly sterile environment when we begin removing the debris embedded in her back and closing the wounds.”

  “Yes, of course,” Anton said. Wit
h one last look at Star’s unconscious body, he stepped out of the room.

  He was pissed all over again. Now she was damaged goods, which would definitely bring down her worth in a sale. She was still the best woman he’d ever had in bed. Maybe this accident was the nudge he needed to keep her with him. All he had to do was get their son back, and he knew she would stay.

  Still, what a fuckup.

  He would kill Ian all over again if he wasn’t already dead. It was just as well that the cops took Dev out, too. Saved him the trouble of doing it.

  * * *

  Nick was sitting on an exam table in the next bay waiting for a doctor to come back with the results of his X-rays. They had already cleaned and dressed his head wound, and his head was throbbing to the point of making him nauseous when he noticed the chaotic sounds of an emergency in the room next to his.

  He heard the soft cries of a woman in pain and couldn’t help but hear what the EMTs were saying as they discussed her injuries. He heard the word “wreck” and then “in the desert” and frowned. But when he heard she was one of Dr. Fuentes’s patients and the name Anton Baba, Nick’s heart skipped a beat.

  Could this possibly be the mother of the little boy Quinn O’Meara had found?

  There was more shuffling in the room next door, and then he overheard Anton Baba introduce himself. He held his breath as he leaned close to the wall separating him from one of the most wanted criminals he’d ever known, not wanting to miss a word of what was being said. He didn’t dare make a phone call and take the chance of being overheard. He inhaled slowly but grabbed his phone and sent Lieutenant Summers a quick text.

  Get word to the Feds. Anton Baba is in ER. I’m not certain, but I think the woman getting treated in the room next to mine might be the Feds’ missing witness. She said her name was Star.

  Then he hit Send.

  An answer came quickly.

  Do nothing. They’ve been informed. Go home.

  Nick sent back a final text, Will do, then slid off the table, slipped his handgun back into the shoulder holster and put on his jacket.

  The moment he stood up, the room began to spin. Damn it. Most likely he had a concussion to go with that bullet wound, but after knowing Baba was so close, he didn’t care about orders or his injury. He wasn’t leaving the O’Meara woman alone when the man who wanted her dead was in the same hospital.

  He tentatively fingered the bandage on his head and then slipped out of the exam room, stopping at the nurses’ desk long enough to tell them he would be on the fourth floor if anyone needed him, then walked out despite their protests that he had not been released.

  The ER staff didn’t want him to leave, but his boss told him to go home. Since he couldn’t do two things at once, he decided to do his own thing. He’d stay with Quinn O’Meara until real backup arrived. Just in case.

  * * *

  Nick got back to the fourth floor, but was stopped at the elevator by a Las Vegas cop. After showing his badge, they let him pass. He made his way down the hall in his bloody clothes, fielding comments about his welfare until he got to Quinn’s room. Another cop was outside her door. He recognized Nick, eyed the bandage on his head and the blood all over his shirt and jacket, but stepped aside to let him in.

  The room was quiet but for the machines hooked up to the woman’s body. The nurse stood up as Nick walked in.

  “How’s she doing?” Nick asked.

  “She’s doing well. Resting comfortably. Are you all right, sir?” the nurse asked.

  “I will be,” Nick said. “I’ll be staying here with her.”

  The nurse frowned, then scooted an overstuffed chair close to the bed for him to use.

  “It reclines. If either of you need anything, press this red button,” she said, pointing to the call button fastened to the side of Quinn’s bed.

  “I hate to ask, but if there is a clean scrub shirt in an extra-large anywhere around, I sure could use it. And...could someone bring me a cup of coffee? My head is killing me. Oh, and if any ER doctor comes looking for me, tell him where I am.”

  “I’ll see what I can find,” she said and left.

  Nick moved to Quinn’s bedside, still trying to figure out why she looked so familiar. She was pretty in a wild, unharnessed kind of way. Long red hair, with slightly darker eyebrows that framed her deep-set eyes, which he remembered as being a vivid shade of green. He turned her hand palm up, felt some calluses and wondered if it was from riding the Harley or something else that she did.

  He brushed a flyaway strand of her hair from her forehead and then eased himself down into the recliner. From where he was sitting he had a clear view of her and the door. He patted the shoulder holster, making sure his phone and gun were in place, and then leaned back.

  A few minutes later the nurse returned with a clean blue scrub shirt, his doctor-ordered meds, a cup of coffee and a sweet roll.

  “From the break room,” she said and handed them over with a sympathetic smile.

  “Thank you so much,” he said softly.

  She nodded, then checked Quinn’s IV and heart monitor again before she left.

  Nick changed into the clean shirt, and by the time he had finished the food and coffee, the sick feeling was gone from his stomach. His head wasn’t throbbing as much as it had been. He got up to throw his garbage into the trash can, and as he was washing up, he heard Quinn’s voice.

  He hurried back to the bed, but she wasn’t awake, just talking in her sleep—and crying.

  “Where is he? Where’s my Nicks?” she mumbled, then turned her head and slipped into a deeper sleep.

  His heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t heard that name in nearly twenty years.

  He backed up and sat down in the recliner again, and sent a text to one of the other detectives in Homicide.

  Run a background check on Quinn O’Meara. Get license tag info off her Harley. It’s in police impound. Send it to my phone.

  Then he put the shoulder holster back on over the scrub shirt and leaned back in the chair to wait. Thirty minutes turned into an hour as he drifted in and out of sleep, awakened occasionally by the sound of Quinn’s mumbling and crying.

  When his phone finally signaled a text, he scrolled through the information quickly. He couldn’t believe what he was reading. He leaped to his feet, looking down at Quinn in disbelief.

  “Oh, my God! Queenie!”

  She was crying in her sleep again.

  He stroked her cheek, then wiped the tears.

  “Queenie?”

  She sobbed, still caught in whatever nightmare she was having.

  “Nicks is gone,” she murmured.

  “Oh, my God, my little Queenie. What happened to you after they took me away?”

  Four

  Induced by pain and drugs, Quinn was caught up in a very vivid dream of her past. He was cursing her with every breath, beating her on the back with one fist while he pushed her head under water with the other.

  Quinn was kicking and thrashing, needing to breathe, trying desperately to get away, but the hand on the back of her head kept pushing her down, farther and farther into the water.

  Help me, God. If you’re real, make this stop.

  She woke abruptly, trembling and gasping for air. She heard the heart monitor before she saw it, and when she opened her eyes, she was shocked that it was hooked to her.

  My things! Where are my things?

  Everything she owned was on her Harley. Then she noticed the man sleeping in the recliner beside her bed, recognizing him as the cop from Homicide. Why was there a bandage on his head and why was he—

  Her pulse jumped.

  The elevator. The shooting! Blood all over the side of his face as they rushed her past him. Shouldn’t he be in a bed somewhere, too? Why was he still he
re?

  She found the buzzer and rang for a nurse.

  Nick sat up with a jerk and then grabbed his head as the room began to spin.

  “Oh, crap,” he mumbled, then eased himself upright and moved to the side of her bed. “Are you okay?”

  She pointed at the bandage on his head.

  “Are you okay?”

  Before he could answer, a nurse’s voice came over the intercom.

  “Good morning, Quinn. What do you need?”

  “To go to the bathroom,” she said.

  “We’ll be right there,” the nurse said.

  “I’ll step out of the room,” Nick said.

  “No need,” Quinn said. “Sit back down before you fall down. Do you know what happened to my bike? Everything I own is on it.”

  “Your Harley is in police impound. It’s safe and so are your things,” he said and eased back down in the recliner just as a nurse walked in, saw Nick and pointed toward the door.

  “Detective, would you mind stepping out for—”

  “No!” Quinn interrupted. “Please! I’ve been shot at twice in the last twelve hours. He and his gun stay.”

  “Okay by me,” the nurse said with a smile, then lowered Quinn’s bed and let down the guardrail.

  Quinn glanced over her shoulder, giving Nick an awkward smile.

  “But, um...maybe you want to turn around so you don’t get flashed?”

  Nick nodded, then winced as his head rang with pain.

  “I’m closing my eyes,” he said.

  Quinn groaned as she eased up from the bed, then grabbed the nurse’s arm to steady herself and headed for the bathroom.

  “Call if you need help,” the nurse said, closing the bathroom door behind Quinn as she went inside.

  Quinn eased herself down on the commode and then had to talk herself out of crying. Twenty-four hours ago she had been in Alamo, Nevada, doing a favor for a friend by filling in at her restaurant after her regular hostess took time off to get married.

  If she had not just lived it, she wouldn’t believe all that had happened to her since leaving Alamo. Her shoulder was throbbing right along with her head. She was scared of what might happen next and still unsure of why any of this had happened to begin with. How had a simple trip to Vegas gone so wrong?