by Meg Ripley
By the time morning came, I was bleary eyed and sexually frustrated. Sometime after midnight, my thoughts had turned inside the house, wondering whether Sarah had gone to bed…and if she slipped beneath the covers naked…and if she’d been desperate for physical release and taken matters into her own hands.
Images of Sarah had plagued me for hours: her hands grazing over her own body, cupping her breasts and teasing her nipples; her skilled fingers slipping into her slick pussy, moving slowly at first, fighting the urge to rush headlong to the end, drawing it out until the need to come overwhelmed her resistance. Fuck. If she didn’t get her ass to work soon, my own self-control was going to crumble and she’d end up with more than her morning coffee to get her day started.
****
I met Sarah outside the hospital after work, since I’d been sitting out there keeping an eye on things the whole day anyway, and we met Hope and John just outside the restaurant lobby a few minutes later. Upon seeing them, Sarah’s steps faltered. I could see very well what had caused her a moment’s pause.
Hope no longer looked pleasantly pregnant; she looked big, uncomfortable and generally unwell. Was this a normal state of pregnancy? Apparently not, because Sarah had kicked into doctor mode. She was concerned, but she was also calm and confident, as if she’d encountered whatever was wrong with Hope a million times and had the cure to every ailment in her pocket.
“How long have you been feeling ill, Hope?” she asked, bypassing all greetings.
“Oh, it’s just a headache. It’ll pass.”
“Are you dizzy, too?”
“Maybe a bit. Why?”
“What else?” Sarah asked expectantly, though her voice was soothing enough that it was hard to feel distressed.
“Nothing much. It feels like the little munchkin’s been sitting on my liver for the past few hours…”
“How far along are you?”
“I just passed thirty-seven weeks. Why?”
“Well, I could be wrong, but I think you’re about to get to meet that little munchkin.” She said it in such a way that it sounded like a good thing, but what Hope was describing hardly sounded like labor—not that I was any kind of expert. But since this wasn’t Hope’s first child, I would have thought she’d notice if she was about to give birth.
“What do you mean, Sarah?” Hope’s hands had moved protectively to her belly, confirming my suspicion.
“I think what you’re experiencing is preeclampsia, Hope. Since you’re close to your due date, it would be best to get you to the hospital and get your labor underway.”
Hope looked up at John with panic in her eyes, but Sarah was quick to reassure her. “I know it sounds scary, but you’re far enough along that it’s perfectly safe to deliver now.”
Hope nodded, and as if she were absorbing Sarah’s courage, she squared her shoulders and nodded to John. “Are you ready to meet the newest member of the McLellan clan?”
“I’ll meet you at the hospital and we’ll get you checked in,” Sarah told her and then Hope and John were off.
Sarah turned to me expectantly like I had any idea what had just transpired. Espionage and weapons, sure, I knew plenty; pregnancy and childbirth, not so much. And obviously seeing I had no clue, she smiled indulgently. “As I said before, I think Hope has a condition called preeclampsia. It can be very dangerous, but since she’s safe to deliver, there should be nothing to worry about.” She patted me on the arm like she had done with Hope, and I realized she was trying to offer comfort and reassurance. What I wasn’t going to tell her was that her calm confidence had worked on me, too. With Hope in her care, I knew there was no reason to worry.
Eleven hours later, I had a brand new—and completely healthy—nephew. While the obstetrician on staff had taken over Hope’s care, Sarah had stayed with her the entire time, and I think that did far more to reassure my sister than anything her attending doctor had said or done. I had popped in and out of the room, not at all comfortable with the situation in general, but there was no way I was going to leave Sarah there on her own.
“I don’t know how my sister does it,” I’d told her one of the times she’d come out to grab a coffee from down the hall.
“It looks pretty rough, but most women make it through childbirth just fine,” she’d replied.
“Not that part. I mean the new human part. Hope’s going to have three now, and hell, I can’t picture myself taking care of one other living being,” I’d confessed, baffled by the pull some have toward childrearing. “I even have someone else take care of my houseplants,” I whispered in mock-horror, and she smiled, though the smile didn’t reach her eyes.
Sarah had been preoccupied with Hope after that, but she’d emerged from the delivery room about an hour ago with my nephew in her arms. I peeked at the waterlogged-looking little human with a hint of interest, but when she’d held out her arms for me to take him, I’d declined. I hadn’t been kidding—I knew absolutely nothing about babies and I was completely comfortable with that.
Once Hope and my nephew were able to rest, we decided to head back to Sarah’s place. As we climbed the steps to her front porch, she stopped and began to fidget with the keys in her hand.
“Look Declan, I’ve had a really great time the past few weeks, but we knew at the beginning this wasn’t supposed to last. I think it’s time you got back to your life in the big city…or wherever it is you’ve been all these years.”
She was giving me the brush-off? I should have been relieved, but I didn’t want to go just yet; I still had a job to do, of course. “I don’t think there’s any reason for it to end so soon. We’re good together, Sarah.”
“Yes, we have been. But we’ve practically been playing house the past few weeks, and that isn’t what either of us wants, is it? You made it perfectly clear it wasn’t what you wanted, so, I think it’s best if we cool it now.”
“That’s what you really want?” I couldn’t help but feel that something was off. Maybe it was just my ego talking, but something was telling me there wasn’t anything genuine in that speech, aside from the dull ache I could see in her eyes.
Nevertheless, there was nothing more I could say. She was the first woman I’d spent more than a few hours with, and she’d had enough. But regardless of who ended it—her or me—it had to end eventually. It would have been better if it could have lasted until I’d managed to eliminate Cane, but it was possible for me to keep watch from a distance.
And so, it was settled. I nodded and leaned in to kiss her one last time, feeling something very unlike ‘goodbye’ in her kiss, and then I turned and left. I ignored the way my chest suddenly felt like a band had been wrapped around me and the woman on the porch, and how the further I walked, the more it tried to pull me back.
Once on my bike, I drove around for a while with no particular destination in mind. I needed to put some distance between the two of us but I also knew the time for that was limited. I’d have to be back at her house before long, sitting at watch from thirty yards away. It wasn’t much of a distance, but I felt better when I was right there with her, knowing I’d let nothing get to her.
Like this, there were no absolute guarantees; there were windows I couldn’t see from my position, and the back door was impossible to watch from anywhere. And since she’d closed all the windows and curtains, there was no way for me to know what was going on inside the house with absolute certainty. While everything was always a gamble in my line of work, suddenly, with Sarah, any gamble was too big.
This wasn’t going to work. There was only one other solution: I was going to have to tell her the truth. She needed to understand why I had to be there; that it was the only way I could keep her safe. She would hate me, no doubt, when she discovered all I’d been keeping from her, but if that was the price I had to pay to keep her alive, then so be it.
Chapter Nine
Sarah
I’d paced back and forth across my room the entire day trying to make sense of the mess
I’d gotten myself into. It wasn’t until I’d come face to face with Hope, seeing her rounded belly, that it hit me. I wasn’t sick; I wasn’t coming down with the flu.
I was pregnant.
But I’d recognized Hope’s symptoms seconds later and the doctor in me had taken over, focusing on Hope to the exclusion of everything else.
I hadn’t had a spare moment to think about it again until I’d stopped in the waiting room on my way for coffee. And then, before I’d even had time to process my own feelings, Declan had made his clear.
He wasn’t cut out for parenting, and never intended to be.
After that, the decision had been simple, even if it wasn’t an easy one. Hell, it was the hardest thing I’d ever done. But I wouldn’t be the woman who trapped Declan in a life he’d never wanted, and since the only alternative was to send him packing long before he could find out, that’s what I did.
He hadn’t put up much of a fight, which confirmed it had been the right thing to do, but damn, I’d wished he had. And not just because I was suddenly facing motherhood all on my own, but because I’d fallen so much harder for him than I’d ever thought possible.
I’d darted out for a pregnancy test shortly after Declan had left—which only served to confirm my suspicions—so it was time to move on. I tried, thrusting Declan to the back of my mind as much as I could when I started my shift at the hospital the next morning, focusing on one patient after another and not letting my thoughts wander astray.
“Are you Dr. Sarah Wells?” a man asked, seemingly appearing out of nowhere to the left of me. I mentally ran through the list of patients I’d cared for that day, trying to place who he might be inquiring after. He looked vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t think of any familial resemblance to any of my patients. I knew I’d seen the man before, but where?
The well-dressed gentleman from the parking lot—that’s who he was. But then, what did he want with me, and why were the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end?
“I am,” I answered belatedly.
“Well, you see, I’m in a bit of a predicament, Dr. Wells.”
“Oh? How can I help?” I offered, trying to ignore the prickle of unease.
“I need an attractive, young doctor to follow me out of the hospital,” he said lightly, taking an unobtrusive step closer.
I laughed uncomfortably, brushing off the unnerving sensation. If I understood him right, the man—a complete stranger—was trying to pick me up right there in the middle of my shift. “I’m flattered, sir, but I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“That’s really too bad. I was hoping to avoid having to kill anyone in your emergency room, Dr. Wells,” he said in the same light tone. He spoke so casually that at first, I thought I must have heard him wrong, but when I met his gaze, the threat in his eyes was clear. Panic welled in my chest. Who was he? What did he want?
“Do you see that gentleman standing in the corner across the room?” he asked and my gaze darted in that direction.
There was a man there, dressed in an expensive suit and holding something that glinted like steel, half-concealed in his hand. He wasn’t looking at me, but I followed his line of sight and gasped. The man was staring at the seven-year-old boy laying on a gurney in the treatment area. I’d just set his broken leg not twenty minutes prior.
“Do you see him, Dr. Wells?” the man next to me asked coolly.
My throat was suddenly too dry to talk, so I nodded instead.
“Good. And the other gentleman standing near the triage desk—can you see him?”
I didn’t want to look, but I did, and I shivered in fear, seeing him standing there in the same kind of expensive suit with the same glint of steel in his hand. Jennifer was sitting at the triage desk with her back to him. She had no idea there was a man with a gun standing right behind her.
“Yes,” I croaked, forcing the single syllable past my parched throat.
“Good. I’m sure you understand then that I really must insist you come with me. Once you do, those gentlemen will have no further business here, I assure you.”
“I don’t understand,” I whispered, fighting back tears. I wasn’t going to cry. I had no idea what the man wanted, but I certainly wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of tears.
“Don’t worry. You will soon,” he said, and then extended his arm, offering it like some old-fashioned gentleman.
“How do I know those men will leave if I go with you?”
“You don’t. But I guarantee that if you refuse to do what you’re told, there will be far fewer people who will require your services today, Doctor.”
My hands shook, but I took his arm, recoiling at the warmth of him through his suit jacket and the feeling of his skin as he placed his hand on top of mine.
“We’ll go out the back way. Through here,” he motioned down the hall with his head and started leading me away.
I tugged on his hold and started to walk faster. It was foolish of me, but I wasn’t going to let this man drag me around. I didn’t know what was going on, but surely it had to be some sort of mistake. Once we got outside and he told his men to leave the hospital, there had to be something I could do. And a moment later, he pushed open the door to the side parking lot.
Two steps out the door, I put on the brakes. “Now tell those men to leave,” I demanded, pulling against the vicelike grip in which he held my arm.
“Certainly, Sarah,” he replied in the same disconcertingly calm tone. He reached into his jacket pocket with his free hand and put the phone he withdrew to his ear. “Come join us at the car,” he spoke into the phone before slipping it back into his pocket.
There. He’d called off his lackeys. All I had to do was get free of his hold on me and I’d scream bloody murder. I waited a second, and then another, trying to focus on what I had to do. And then I did it. I stomped down on the man’s foot with my heel as hard as I could and yanked my arm from him at the same time.
It worked. I was free. I turned to run as I opened my mouth to scream, but all the air whooshed from my lungs as I ran right into a solid, suit-clad chest. The owner of the chest flung me around, catching me around my ribs with one, steel-like arm. I had no time to try to run, but I knew I had to do something. I jabbed at the solid wall of flesh behind me with my elbows and kicked back at the man’s shins. He didn’t budge, but I felt a cool, sharp edge against my throat seconds later, and I froze. I couldn’t see it, but I didn’t have to. I knew what it was.
“I thought we had an understanding, Sarah.”
“I did what you said. I followed you out of the hospital. Now let me go!” I started to struggle, but my own movements pressed the blade harder against my throat. I felt the sting seconds before something warm and wet trickled down my neck.
My own blood.
I stopped struggling but pressed my head back against the chest behind me to try to lessen the pressure of the knife while I seethed in frustration and fear.
“You are so much like your mother,” the man said, drawing my attention as he blotted the blood on my neck. I tried to recoil further, but there was nowhere else to go.
“You knew my mother?” If this man knew her, why was he doing this?
“Yes, I knew her. And I killed her.”
That wasn’t possible. “My mother died in a car accident.”
“No, my dear. That’s just what your father wanted you to believe. It was easier on you that way. Just like he thought it would be easier on you to keep everything else hidden from you, too.”
“You’re lying!”
He smiled coolly and a shiver raced down my spine. Whether this man was spouting lies or not, there was one thing for certain: he wasn’t going to let me go.
I’d been trying to keep some semblance of calm until that moment, but panic and terror overwhelmed me. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t move; the only thing I could do was scream. And so, I screamed.
And then the whole world went black.
****
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I don’t know how long I’d been unconscious, but when I came to, I knew I was no longer standing in the hospital’s side parking lot. I kept my eyes closed, trying to figure out what was going on around me without alerting anyone there to my state of consciousness. The floor beneath me vibrated gently; I was in a vehicle of some sort, but I wasn’t laying on a seat. The ground beneath my cheek was fabric, but it was scratchy, like the carpeted floor of a van.
I listened, but aside from the quiet hum of the engine, I could hear nothing else. No sounds of traffic, no voices. Nothing. Maybe they’d thought I’d be unconscious longer and had tossed me in the back of a van. It was possible I was all alone there and no one would notice if I slipped out the back while the vehicle was still moving. Yes, it was possible!
I tried to test my limbs, making sure they were ready, but my hopes for escape plummeted quickly when I realized my hands were bound behind my back. Was it even possible to get up onto my feet without my arms? Yes, it was. If I could roll onto my back, I could push myself upward, and from a sitting position, I could easily stand…open the doors with my bound hands…turn around and make a jump for it.
Hopefully the vehicle wasn’t moving too quickly. If it was, I could try to hold off until it slowed, but that was risky. It wouldn’t give me much time before they noticed I was gone. Then again, if I broke my legs or hit my head jumping out of a fast-moving vehicle with my hands bound behind my back, I wasn’t going to get any farther.
First things first—get up and get the door open. Then I’d worry about the next step. But as I opened my eyes, my breath caught in my throat. A man was sitting not three feet away, the same man who’d held a knife to my throat. His leering smile turned my spine to ice.
“It’s nice of you to join us,” the same calm voice spoke from somewhere outside my line of vision. “I do apologize for this, but you understand I couldn’t have you causing a scene at the hospital, don’t you?”
