With as much caution as he could afford while still trying to hurry, he got her into the elevator and together they rode to the first floor. During the seconds between he focused on her breathing. It continued to be a beautiful sight.
The first floor of the hospital was in a frenzy. Cops, hospital security guards, and staff were bustling around forming one loud commotion. John the Ticketer ran up to them as soon as the elevator doors slid open. He yelled for help but instead of waiting for hospital staff to come to them, Braydon marched Sophia into one of the small ER rooms before depositing her on a bed. A doctor he recognized but whose name he couldn’t place ran up and started to check her vitals while Braydon filled him in.
“Tom took the stairs to the basement and we have two bodies going through the second floor. A nurse called the ME and told her to lock her doors, too,” John said as the doctor and a nurse worked. “The captain is outside and Cara just walked in.”
Braydon nodded but kept his attention on Sophia. Her face was slack, her lips downturned. He wanted to touch them, to kiss them, until the sleeping woman awoke. The doctor turned and, on seeing his gaze, seemed to soften.
“Her vitals are normal. She’s just asleep right now,” he said. “I’ll move her to a room to keep a better eye on her but, for now, she’s fine.”
A weight lifted from Braydon’s chest and for one moment he felt pure elation. However, it didn’t last long. He took a few steps out into the hall and called the woman officer over.
“Is she okay?” Cara asked, looking over his shoulder.
“For now. I need you to watch her,” he said. “You do not leave her side for any reason, do you understand?” She nodded. “Once she’s in that room only the captain or the doctor go in there.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Nathanial is too smart to stick around. I’m going to go look at the security tapes to see if that can’t help us somehow.” Braydon cast one more look in Sophia’s direction. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”
Finding a security guard wasn’t hard since all of the hospital staff had been alerted. Braydon followed him to the room that held all the security feeds for the entire hospital and ordered him to play the ones from the bottom floor. The guard didn’t seem to be offended at the lack of kindness in him and started to pull up the right tapes. Under Braydon’s direction he rewound the footage to where Sophia exited the stairwell and then pressed Play. The two of them watched as she walked down the hallway while Nathanial walked behind her before stopping.
All Braydon saw was white-hot rage. It was as if he was eighteen again, the difference being instead of wanting to kill Terrance Williams, he was focused on his older, more sadistic brother. He looked at the computer monitor and willed the man he saw on its screen a horrific, slow death.
“Turn it up,” Braydon barked out to the security guard. Sophia’s lips were moving but he couldn’t hear anything.
“I can’t. The audio hasn’t worked on these recordings in years.” It took everything he had not to slug the guard.
“Then why haven’t you had it fixed?”
“Look, man, we don’t have that kind of money right now,” the guard defended. “Just be thankful this camera is working. Two more on the same floor have been down for weeks.”
Braydon didn’t say any more. Instead he watched the scene unfold on the security tape with rage boiling in his veins. There she was, caught in the killer’s sights. Nathanial slid her a box and must have said something interesting enough to entice her to open it. Braydon knew now what was inside.
Even though they couldn’t hear the exchange, Braydon continued to watch with heightened concentration, focusing on Sophia’s facial expressions. When Nathanial had first stopped her, he could make out the stubborn anger that made her posture go straight. Then, the more Nathanial had talked, the more she had sagged at the weight of his words. Her apparent fear translated through the computer screen and right into his heart. Then, Nathanial pointed to his neck. There was more talk and, all of a sudden, she was injecting herself.
“She did it to herself,” said the guard, just as Sophia crumpled to the ground. Braydon was completely taken aback. When he found Sophia he had assumed she had been given the injection against her own will.
Braydon swore as Nathanial walked over to Sophia’s prone body. He knelt next to her and brushed the hair off her face. Then he turned and looked straight into the camera. With a smile that almost mirrored his brother’s, he waved.
“Why did he do that?” the guard asked.
Braydon was so angry it felt as if his body was vibrating. “He wanted me to see him.” Nathanial left Sophia and went to the elevator where he rode to the main lobby and walked right out through the front doors of the hospital.
John the Ticketer came into the room then and was ordered to stay with the guard and find out when Nathanial had come in.
“I also want to know how he came in, if he talked to anyone, and if he made any detours,” he ordered. “You don’t leave this room until you figure all of that out, okay?”
John nodded and then Braydon turned to the security guard. “I want you to make sure that man does not come back into this hospital. You notify every staff member on shift. I don’t care if you have to go to every damn room to do it, either. If you see him, you call me immediately. Got it?”
“Yessir.”
“Good.” He gave the man his cell number and went back to Sophia’s new room. Officer Whitfield was standing guard at the door, currently being yelled at by Richard Vega.
“You know I’m not the killer, for heaven’s sakes!” he yelled, throwing his hands into the air in frustration.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Vega. I’m not supposed to let anyone in here unless authorized by Detective Thatcher or Captain Westin.”
“I’m only here because Sophia called me—” He stopped midrant when he saw Braydon arrive.
“You can’t talk to her now,” Braydon said, glazing over any greeting. He didn’t have time. Sophia was a few feet away, unconscious in a hospital bed. Just because the doctor said she would be fine didn’t mean she wasn’t still in danger.
“I’m guessing he’s no longer here,” Richard said after a moment.
Braydon didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. The two men glanced at the room next to them.
“What do we do now, then?” Richard wanted to know.
“We find the bastard.”
* * *
THERE WAS A TICKING AGAIN—a clock saying to the world it knew exactly what time it was and it wanted everyone to know. Sophia hated it. She wished it would shut up. Clocks in Culpepper were the bane of her existence as far as she was concerned. She opened her eyes to find the source of her annoyance and was surprised at how hard it was to do—each lid was heavy and, once up, wanted very badly to go back down.
“Sophia?” a man asked at her side. Even in the haze she was currently seeded in, she knew it wasn’t Braydon. This man was shorter and had blond hair. Her eyes slowly slid to Richard’s mouth. It held a small smile. “How do you feel?”
She looked around the hospital room and thought about that for a second. Like opening her eyes, this was also a difficult task.
“Awake” was all she could come up with as an answer. Richard laughed.
“Well, I suppose that’s good.”
She nodded and her head swam at the movement. She shut her eyes tight until the world settled. The clock continued to tick.
“Do you remember what happened?” Sophia opened her eyes at his abrupt change in tone. It softened to almost a whisper. His face was as open as she had ever seen it—kind and patient. He was dressed down in a plain T-shirt and jeans, looking nothing like he had the first time she’d met him. He looked like just a regular guy. “Sophia?”
She realized she was staring.
“Sorry, everything’s kind of fuzzy,” she admitted. He came to the side of her bed and patted her hand.
“I’d imagine so—you’ve been out for almost thirteen hours.” She didn’t have the speed to react with a worthy response. He seemed to realize this and patted her hand once more. “It’s okay. Don’t rush it. I’ll go get the doctor.”
Sophia watched him go. She wondered where Braydon was but wasn’t quick enough to answer. It was as though she was submerged underwater. Everything felt slow. What did happen? The last thing she clearly remembered was kissing Braydon in the kitchen—the thought made her cheeks heat despite whatever weird fog she was in—but she knew that wasn’t the last thing that happened. She scrunched up her face in concentration.
That’s when she remembered a grin that made her blood run cold.
Nathanial.
* * *
SOPHIA COULD HEAR Braydon running down the hall toward her room. Cara paused what she was doing.
“Want me to tell him to hold on until we’re done?” she asked.
“Please.” Sophia leaned back against the bed and waited while Cara slipped outside to hold off the detective. She could hear his annoyed tone as he agreed to stay put. Cara came back in, careful to shut the door quickly, and went back to Sophia’s side to finish the task they’d started.
“Thanks again for helping me with this. I don’t think the nurse likes me much.” Sophia held on to Cara as the officer steered them to the bathroom.
“No problem. When you gotta go, you gotta go.”
It had been almost a half hour since Sophia had woken from her drug-induced sleep. The doctor had come in twice to check her vitals and, with a lot of head scratching, he had declared her as healthy as a horse. The only way the doctor would allow her to leave was for her to give them a urine sample they could test. Sophia didn’t have any room to argue and two bottles of water later, she was about to burst.
The only problem was that her limbs didn’t seem to want to function together. Her legs quaked like jelly when she attempted to stand on her own. Whatever had made her mind fuzzy had made her body just as sluggish. It had been a blessing that Braydon had assigned Cara to watch the room. She suspected he had noticed the friendship that had formed between them. The bathroom trip just made it more official.
When the mission was complete and the sample collected, Sophia sat in one of the two armchairs next to the bed. She didn’t want to look so helpless when Braydon came in.
“Are you good now?” Cara asked. “Ready for Detective Thatcher?” There was a smile in her voice, though her face remained serious. Sophia had told Richard and Cara the same story about her run-in with Nathanial. She wanted them to understand how unbalanced, and therefore dangerous, the man was.
“Yes, thank you. Send in the bull,” Sophia teased. She wanted the mood to lighten if only for a second. Cara finally smiled, then slipped out as Braydon came in.
“Hi,” Sophia greeted. She meant it to sound strong but couldn’t deny its smallness. Braydon stopped next to her and openly looked up and down her body. She adjusted her hospital gown subconsciously. The detective, apparently approving of what he saw, grabbed the other chair and moved it so he was sitting right in front of her. They were so close their knees were touching.
“Tell me what happened,” he said. The time for playing was over. Braydon Thatcher was a man on a mission, except his had nothing to do with bathroom functions. His was much more dangerous.
“Cara said you watched the security footage,” she started.
“But there was no sound.”
“So...you want to know why I injected myself.”
He nodded, his jaw set hard. “Yes, I want to know why you injected yourself instead of running, yelling for help or even attacking him.”
“You’re mad at me.”
“You’re damn right I am!” he yelled, standing. “You could have died, Sophia! What could that man have said that would make you think what you were doing was a good idea?” There was no mere undercurrent of disapproval in his voice—it was a tidal wave rushing across the surface. He wasn’t going to like what she had to say. She sighed before recounting what had happened. She didn’t stop once, ignoring the fists he had balled on his knees.
“What if he’d been lying about what was in there? You could have died, Sophia,” he said, bringing his voice down and sitting back in his chair. “Then where would we be?” Sophia flinched at his words but her resolve stood firm. She didn’t know who the “we” was but she knew it wasn’t the time to ask.
“Remember when you told me you knew Nathanial was dangerous?” She waited for him to calm down enough to nod. “Well, I knew he wasn’t going to kill me. I did what he told me because I also knew that if I didn’t he would have killed Lisa.”
“Sophia—”
She put her hand against his cheek. “Please don’t be mad at me for what I did,” she said, voice low. “It was a gamble that I wasn’t ready to lose. You tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing.”
“I would have killed him,” he responded, though his tone was calm again.
“Well, all I had was a syringe. If I had messed it up, he probably would have killed me right then before going to do the same to Lisa.” She dropped her hand back into her lap—holding it up had been a feat all its own while Nathanial’s drug worked its way out of her system. “Plus, he’s right—only he knows where Lisa is. If he had died and we couldn’t find her, I would have blamed myself for the rest of my life.”
Braydon sat still as another internal battle waged within him. Sophia waited for the victor to show. She knew he understood why she had listened to Nathanial but the protective part of him was screaming that the risk had been too high. The conflicting viewpoints waged behind his pools of blue. Eventually, the more reasonable side won.
“Just don’t do it again, okay? That’s all I ask.” Sophia nodded but now she had to approach a more delicate topic.
“What Nathanial wants me to do...you know I have to do it.” Braydon’s eyes almost bugged out of their sockets while his lips stretched thin.
“You aren’t seriously wanting to go to the fund-raiser are you?”
“I wouldn’t use the word want but yes, I am going.” Her voice was calm—level in sincerity.
“Sophia, he’s asked you to hand yourself over.”
“I don’t have a choice,” she pointed out.
“Yes, you do,” he stressed. “Sophia, he isn’t asking you to go watch a movie or to take a stroll around the goddamn park. He wants you so he can torture you before he kills you. He wants to kill you as my punishment. My punishment.” He grabbed both of her hands. “There’s no question about if he’ll keep you alive or not. He won’t. He’ll only let you live long enough to torture you. That’s all.” There was fire in his eyes. Sophia hoped she had the same fierce gaze placed on him.
“Then don’t let him take me,” she said. “Let’s take Lisa instead.”
* * *
BRAYDON KNEW THAT the younger Hardwick woman wasn’t going to budge on her decision to attend the Culpepper Fund-raiser. If he was honest about it, he already knew what her choice would be before she said it out loud. She loved her sister with a passion that the threat of death couldn’t destroy and would stop short of nothing to prove it. He respected her immensely for it, though he tried a few more times to talk her out of Nathanial’s trap. She, of course, refused to reconsider. So instead of beating that dead horse, Braydon switched into planning mode.
He excused himself, or rather was shooed out of the room so Cara could help Sophia change, and found Richard down the hallway. He was staring at a vending machine with his hands in his pockets and mind somewhere else entirely. It took him a few seconds to realize Braydon was standing next to him.
“Sophia told you everything?”
he asked, eyes still on the rows of candy bars.
“Yes.”
“I’m assuming you’re not comfortable with her plan?” he asked, looking at the detective.
“It’s not her plan, it’s his.” Braydon was trying not to sound accusatory but he couldn’t stop what he said next. “Are you comfortable with her plan? Her life for Lisa’s?” He knew it wasn’t a fair question to ask but he didn’t know where the man stood. Richard had Lisa while Sophia was single. To the general public she didn’t have someone who had her back. “Because I can’t help but hate the plan.” He didn’t like the idea that he was the only person stepping forward in an attempt to fight the deadly idea of her sacrifice. He wanted her and everyone else to know that he was in fact defending her. Richard took a moment before he answered. For once, it didn’t sound full of his normal energy.
“Do you know I’d never met Sophia before the other day?” He didn’t wait for Braydon to answer. “I hadn’t even talked to her on the phone until after Lisa went missing. She didn’t like when we started seeing each other and she certainly didn’t approve that we kept on dating. That alone could give me reason to not like her, but...” His face became thoughtful as he searched for his next words. “I feel like I’ve always known her. They may have been at odds lately, but that never stopped Lisa from telling me all about her little sister. After a while I realized she didn’t even notice that she was telling me stories about Sophia. She would see or hear something that reminded her of this memory or that memory and then tell me all about it. For instance, every time we get into bed at night she throws all of the pillows on the floor and smiles. Do you know why?” Braydon shook his head. “When they were young, Lisa used to fill up their bedroom floor with all of her pillows and Sophia hated it, for a while at least. Then Lisa would pull her down on top of them and they’d laugh, Sophia would smile and everything would be fine again. However, one night Lisa told me a secret—she hated the piles of pillows. When she was little, Lisa had a bad habit of rolling off the bed in the middle of the night. She became so afraid that she would roll off and hurt herself that she stopped sleeping altogether. So, her dad bought her enough pillows to cover the floor while she slept to cushion the ground, just in case. She didn’t think it would work so he demonstrated, rolling off onto them. It became a nighttime ritual, she said, but then he died. She said she hated the sight of the pillows after that.”
Manhunt Page 14
