by Amy Gamet
“No time like the present.” Noah left the room.
She lifted the plastic cover off the microscope, running her finger down its arm. “No time like the present,” she whispered. Her eyes stung as she moved to get the slides out of her purse.
12
“Her name is Hannah Fielding. She’s a doctor of surgery for Hilton Head Hospital. Widowed late last year when her husband—also Dr. Fielding—had a heart attack at the ripe old age of thirty-four. She has one child, Brady, who’s five. Husband had just opened a financial consulting firm at the time of his death but was still employed by the same hospital.” Logan put down the paper he’d been holding. “That’s all I found on her.”
“Her husband was a busy guy,” said Cowboy. “Maybe the stress led to the heart attack. Any connection to Noah?”
“Nothing, though Noah told me his sister worked at a hospital. Maybe Lizzie was a mutual friend.”
“Very possible, though it doesn’t explain why they’re masquerading as husband and wife. You don’t think they could actually be married?”
“I don’t see how,” said Logan.
“Right. Stupid idea.” Cowboy tipped his chair back, balancing on the back two legs. “So it’s strange, but other than that, we don’t have anything to be worried about.”
“There’s something else.”
Cowboy lowered his head and looked at Logan as if over a pair of invisible glasses.
Logan frowned. “The Hilton Head Sheriff’s Department is missing one of their officers. Deputy Jerome Buchanan disappeared just as the storm was coming on land. The last license he ran through the system was Noah’s. Hilton Head PD has issued an APB.”
“Son of a bitch.” He slammed his chair down. “So he goes to the island and gets pulled over. The cop goes missing and Noah shows up being interviewed by a weatherman with his make-believe doctor wife and son. What in the hell is going on over there?”
13
The only way to make sure Noah didn’t miss anything was to go through the entire file drawer. Lucky for him, his sister had been organized to a fault. Everything was clearly labeled, every folder containing exactly what it should. There were appliance warranties she wouldn’t need and vacation brochures for trips she’d never take.
It was fucking horrible.
There was a file labeled mementos filled with photographs and ticket stubs and he knew he couldn’t look at them right now, so he pulled it out and placed it on the desk for another time—a time when he could wallow in it for a while.
Bills. Insurance. Copies of medical claims. The usual crap everyone kept in file cabinets, but no smoking gun. He went through the desk drawers and, when that proved fruitless as well, moved on to her dresser and nightstand. The condoms beside the bed gave him pause, though of course they shouldn’t have. Lizzie was only a child in his mind, not in reality.
He couldn’t help but wonder who she’d been seeing. She’d never confided in him about a boyfriend, recently or ever. He always assumed she kept that stuff to herself, and that was just fine with him.
That’s when he found the diary tucked into the nightstand on the opposite side of the bed. He put it on top of the Mementos file while he finished his search, but almost an hour later, he’d found nothing else of significance. He grabbed the diary and file and made his way back out to the living area.
Hannah was leaning over the microscope intently, her pose reminding him she was a doctor—a professional woman with a quick mind—and it struck him he normally didn’t date women like her. He stuck to the ones with low-cut blouses and names that ended in i. Maybe he should change that, because Hannah’s brain was damn near as sexy as her body.
Or maybe it’s just Hannah you like.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“I’m not sure.” She leaned back. “Nothing’s making sense. There are crystals on the kidneys and lungs, as well as parts of the cardiac tissue itself.”
“What does that mean?”
“If he were being treated for unusual potassium levels or a chemically induced arrhythmia, those findings would be perfectly normal. But he wasn’t.”
“So what else can cause that?”
“I don’t know. I need to do some research. How did you make out?”
“I found her diary. I have to read it. And some pictures and other things she saved.”
She got a faraway look in her eye. “I remember when Joe died, the hardest things for me to go through were the stupid little bits of his life that never mattered. A Post-it note where he’d scribbled ‘buy lightbulbs.’ That sort of thing. I was finding them for months. It seemed like he’d just stepped into the other room and he’d be back again in a minute, which of course he never was, and it would hurt all over again.”
“I came here to Hilton Head so maybe I could feel something.” He hadn’t intended to tell her what was in his heart, but it was just there, the obvious response to her confiding in him. “Since Lizzie died, I haven’t been able to do that. I’ve just kept it all inside like I was waiting to find out it had all been a terrible mistake and she was really okay. I fucked up my job, alienated my boss. And you’ve got to understand, the job is everything to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
He didn’t know why he was telling her these things, but he couldn’t seem to stop. “I got here yesterday and all I wanted to do was get drunk. I was headed to that bodega looking for beer so I could get smashed and scream at God for taking my sister.”
She stood and moved to him, opening her arms. He was holding himself rigid, as if he were a physical dam keeping his feelings at bay. He tried to warn her with his eyes not to come too close, that he might break and everything would come crashing to the ground.
He lifted his chin. “Don’t.”
“But I—”
“Don’t.” He moved into the kitchen, silently cursing himself for his weakness. He didn’t know if he was afraid he was going to cry or afraid he would kiss the living sense out of her, either one of which was reason enough to back the fuck away. He opened a cabinet and stared into it, unseeing. “I’ll make us something to eat,” he called.
“I’m not hungry.” She walked past the kitchen and into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
14
Noah scrambled eggs on the balcony over a camp stove. They were in the fridge, still good, and he thought of Hannah’s comment about Post-it notes. A simple thing like the eggs being fresh enough to eat was the opposite of comforting. His sister had just been in this world.
Now she was gone.
He’d spent the last hour and a half reading Lizzie’s journal. While he did find out who she was dating—her boss in the accounting department at the hospital, Eric Manning—he didn’t find anything suspicious or otherwise interesting, and he wanted to get into her office at Hilton Head Hospital even more.
He looked down at the water, the level now halfway up a window it had previously covered. He had the inflatable boat he’d taken from HERO Force, but if he headed for the hospital, Hannah and Brady would need to come with him, and he wasn’t sure it was the best idea to take the boy out in these conditions.
“Hi.”
He turned to find Brady standing in the doorway, wide-eyed from sleep. “Hey, buddy. Are you hungry?”
The boy nodded.
“Is your mom awake?”
“No.”
He imagined her curled up beneath the covers. “Just you and me, then.” He scraped the eggs onto a plate, passing it to the boy. “You sleep okay?”
Brady nodded.
“What grade are you in?”
“I’m not in a grade.”
Noah narrowed his eyes. “Kindergarten?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“You get to take a bus?”
“Yep.” He took a bite of eggs and spoke with his mouth full. “Do you have a dog?”
“No. I travel a lot for work.” Or at least I used to.
“My dad said we could get a dog. We ju
st had to convince my mom.”
“Convince her, huh?”
“That means make her think she wants a dog, too.”
Noah smiled. “What kind of dog would you get?”
“A big one. It would play fetch with me and sleep in my bed every night.”
He cracked more eggs into the tiny pan. “Do you know how to swim?”
“Uh-huh. I’m a minnow.”
“A minnow?”
“I used to be a polliwog. Now I’m a minnow.”
He nodded, understanding. “Swimming lessons.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Hannah appeared in the doorway. “Tell me you’re not going swimming in this mess.”
Her cheeks were flushed from sleep, her skin creased between her breasts. “Boating. I’ll have to rig a life vest for Brady.”
“You’re kidding.”
“We need to get inside the hospital.”
“And you just happen to have a boat?”
He smiled. “Actually, I do.”
“Why?”
“I was headed to a condo on the beach in the middle of a hurricane. It seemed prudent to bring a boat.”
“Who does that?”
“I do, and look, we need it.”
She crossed her arms. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea.”
He finished cooking the eggs, handing her the plate when he was done. “Come inside. I want to show you what I found.”
She was eating, which was good, no matter she was less than enthused about the first step in his mission to find out what happened to his sister. He pulled out the stack of papers he’d taken from Joe’s desk, spreading them out on the dining room table and selecting the one he’d read at her house that was addressed to the administration. “Read this.”
She sank into a chair and put down her eggs, taking the letter from his hand. Noah sorted the other papers into piles by what they were.
“He never told me any of this,” she said. “Why wouldn’t he tell me?”
“Maybe he wanted his suspicions confirmed before he shared them with you.”
“We told each other everything. Or at least I thought we did.”
“All couples have their secrets.”
She flipped through papers. “What else did he keep from me?”
“All of these are accounting discrepancies he encountered during the accreditation.”
She picked up a wallet-sized picture of herself, staring at it before her eyes met his accusingly. “Where did you get this?”
“In the desk. Top drawer.”
“It was Joe’s favorite picture of me. He always kept it near him.”
“I’m sorry. I was looking at it and it must have gotten mixed in with the papers.”
“It wasn’t yours to take.” She shook her head. “I’m grateful to you, Noah. You helped us shelter against the storm. I wasn’t prepared and you were.”
“I hear a but coming.”
“But all the rest of it needs to stop.”
He thought of her sitting on the edge of his bed in the night, his body’s reaction to her, and how badly he’d wanted to do something about it. “That’s fine.”
She gestured to Brady on the balcony. “And you need to stop ingratiating yourself with him.”
“I didn’t encourage that.”
“You didn’t discourage it, either. It’s been hard enough for him losing a father. He doesn’t need to get attached to you just so you can disappear in a few days.”
He set his jaw. She was blaming him for what was happening between them, the nagging attraction that begged him to act. But she was also blaming him for Brady’s reaction to him. “I won’t be mean to him because it suits you. He’s a good kid. I like him.”
“If you like him, you’ll spare him the pain of growing attached to you.”
“Are you sure we’re talking about Brady here, Hannah?”
She glared at him.
“The picture is what upset you,” he said. “And it has nothing to do with your son. I think you like that I took your picture, that I wanted to look at it, and that scares the bejeezus out of you.”
She stood abruptly. “I don’t want him going across the island in a boat.”
“That’s fine, but the longer it takes us to get into that hospital, the longer you and I will be stuck together. Are you sure you want to wait for the water to recede on its own?”
He had her between a rock and a hard place all over again, and he watched her thoughts play out on her beautiful features. He wanted to be angry with her, but what he felt for her—protectiveness, admiration, lust—was a far cry from anger.
“Go without me. I’ll give you the codes and the keys. You don’t need me there.”
“You know the players. You know the layout of the offices and building. It’s not just the access you can provide.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. We’ll go today. The sooner we can get away from each other, the better.”
15
Hannah was hot, the life jacket around her torso making her hotter. The sun was beating down onto the black inflatable boat they were sitting in, sun that belonged on a beach on a tropical island instead of a disaster area flooded with foul-smelling water. A dark line of purple clouds hovered on the horizon promising even more storms, and she didn’t know which was worse.
She focused on the light breeze that kissed her sweating face as Noah navigated the debris-filled lake that now covered Hilton Head Island. “Take a left after the post office,” she called out to be heard over the motor. Noah had a map, of course—was there anything that man didn’t have?—but for now she was telling him how to get to the hospital, her everyday commute looking like a foreign apocalyptic land.
They rounded a corner, another boat coming into view. This one was bright yellow and its sole occupant eyed them through binoculars, making Hannah uneasy.
“Leave the talking to me,” said Noah.
She didn’t like him telling her what to do, as if her words could be a liability, but she didn’t fight him on it, either. As they got closer she recognized the man from television. He was the local sheriff, Mike Bogardus.
“Afternoon, neighbors,” said the sheriff. “What are y’all doing out here this fine day in July?”
“Just surveying the damage,” said Noah. “There’s a lot of destruction.”
“There certainly is. Were you two aware of the emergency evacuation mandate for Hilton Head Island issued by the governor?”
“We are,” said Noah. “We chose to weather the storm from our home.”
She bristled at his implication that they lived together.
“And how did you make out?” asked the sheriff.
“Just fine,” said Noah. “Some broken glass. That sort of thing. Nothing we couldn’t prepare for. How about you?”
“Fine, fine. You wouldn’t happen to have some identification, would you?”
“Of course, officer.” Noah handed it to him. “Is there a problem?”
The officer stared at the license. “One of my men went missing before the storm hit. Deputy Buchanan. The last contact he had with the station was a traffic stop out on 278 just as the storm was about to hit. Some guy named Noah Ryker from Atlanta. Former Navy SEAL. He may be dangerous.”
Noah hadn’t given him his actual ID at all. Her eyes latched onto Brady’s, silently telling him to keep his mouth shut.
The sheriff handed the license back to Noah. “If you see Buchanan, please let him know I’m looking for him. Thanks for your cooperation, Mr. Greene.”
So Noah had given him a fake driver’s license. Her heart was skipping in her chest. Who carried something like that with them? For a split second she found herself torn. Should she tell the officer that this was Noah Ryker, and go with the officer instead?
Nothing’s changed. He has a fake ID on him. That’s all.
And he thought to give it to the officer, choosing to hide his real identity.
That wasn’t all he had, howe
ver. He had a boat and guns and a map. He said he liked to be prepared for any eventuality, but what if he really had an agenda, plans of his own that were not what he claimed they were?
“We’ll definitely keep an eye out,” said Noah.
The sheriff nodded. “Be safe.”
The boat moved forward. “You said you were going to turn yourself in,” she whispered.
“I need to find out the truth first.”
She narrowed her eyes. “If they find out what happened to Buchanan, they’ll come after you first and apologize later.”
“No. They won’t apologize at all.”
Noah glided smoothly away.
16
Hannah walked down the eerily dim hallway of the building where she’d spent the majority of her time for the past three years. The air was normally filled with the sound of monitors beeping, patients and staff chatting, elevators chiming as they arrived on the floor, but today there was only the sound of their footsteps and Brady whining.
“I’m hungry.”
“I know, baby. I’ll get you a snack soon.”
Noah touched her arm. “I have a protein bar in my bag.”
She snickered. “Of course you do. Go ahead and give it to him.”
“You want one?” he asked.
“I’m good. My office is right up here.” She needed to get her key ring with the fob that would give her access to the rest of the hospital. “Hopefully the fob is working with the emergency generator on.”
“I think it will be. They had to have accounted for staff movement throughout the building in an emergency.”
She stopped at her office door, surprised to find it ajar. She looked to Noah and he held up his hand, drawing his weapon before gesturing for her to move aside with Brady. He opened the door with his foot. “Nobody’s in here,” he said.
“But somebody has been. I know I locked that door before I left. I always do.” She pushed past him into her office. Papers were scattered over her desk and a large portion of the floor. “What the hell?”
