by Amy Gamet
“You said a bad word,” said Brady.
“Heck. What the heck? Who would go through my things?” She bent and gathered papers from the floor, Noah helping her pick them up.
“What’s in here?” he asked.
“Personal correspondence. Administrative paperwork. Things like that.”
“Someone who thought you might know about the drug theft. When’s the last time you were here?”
“Yesterday, though it feels like a year. I went right from the hospital to the corner store where you found me. But that doesn’t make any sense. Joe’s been gone almost a year. Why would they think I knew something now?”
Noah frowned. “Something must have changed. How many people were left in the hospital when you were here?”
“It’s hard to say, exactly. A few, but it’s a big building. I certainly couldn’t see them all.”
He handed her his stack of papers and they stood. “I thought you weren’t a coffee drinker,” he said, gesturing to a mug on her desk.
“I’m not.” She picked it up, her eyes going wide. “This is still warm.”
He withdrew his weapon again. “Is there anywhere secure I can take you and Brady?”
“Anyone with access to my office has access to ninety-nine percent of the hospital.”
“What about the other one percent?”
“The isolation ward. It requires a PIN. Only a few people have it for security purposes to prevent the spread of contagious disease.”
“Let’s go.”
“Wait, let me grab my fob. And my computer.”
“Why do you need your computer?”
“I need to research the slides from the autopsy.”
“They won’t have Internet access.”
“They’re probably the only place in all of Hilton Head that does. Satellite link. Necessary for emergency patient care.”
“We need to be quiet, Brady,” Noah said. “Can you do that for me? No talking at all?” The boy nodded.
They walked quickly and quietly, Noah leading the way as Hannah directed him up two flights to the isolation ward. She entered her code and the keypad lit up green as the mechanical lock disengaged.
It was dark inside. “Don’t turn on any lights, even if they work,” said Noah. “You need to be safe without anyone knowing you’re in here.”
“What about you?” she asked.
“I need a plan and a map of how to execute it. We’ll use the bathroom and a ChemLight to see.” The three of them sat on the tiled bathroom floor. Noah produced a small notebook and Hannah got to work on a map of the hospital.
“I’m scared,” said Brady.
“Come here, sport,” said Noah, opening his arms to the boy, who climbed on his lap. Noah turned to Hannah. “Is this okay?”
“Given the circumstances, yes.” She drew a long rectangle with a central hallway. “On most floors, these are patient care rooms. But on the second floor they’re administrative offices. Here’s accounting, where your sister worked.”
“Where’s the head of her department?”
“Right here,” she said, pointing to a corner office. Her pen moved across the hall. “Here’s the hospital director’s office, and his secretary.” She moved the pen down. “HR. A conference room.”
“Are there any administrators on any other floors?”
“No, just this one. Who are you looking at?”
“Lizzie was dating her boss, the head of the accounting department, Eric Manning. I want to check him out. Would he have keys to your office?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.” He pointed to the corner office, the hospital director’s office, remembering the name from the letter in Hannah’s husband’s desk. “This guy. Thomas Patel.”
She licked her lips. What he was suggesting was preposterous, yet undeniably likely at this point. “Be careful.”
“Be careful,” Brady parroted, giving Noah a big hug.
When Noah extricated himself, he unzipped his go bag and withdrew several items, tucking them into the pockets of his pants before he turned to Hannah. “Whatever happens, stay in this room. If I don’t come back within an hour, use the Internet to contact anyone you can and let the authorities know you need help. Under no circumstances should you come out alone.”
She nodded. “If you’re right, these people have a lot to lose. Be safe.”
“I will.”
“And I’m sorry for what I said to you earlier.” She looked at her hands. “I was upset with myself.”
He touched her cheek. “You shouldn’t be.” He leaned in and kissed her softly on the mouth. “There’s nothing wrong with this.”
She was as stunned by her reaction to his words and kiss as she was that he’d spoken them and done it at all. She simply nodded, taking it in stride rather than rallying against the feelings inside her.
Brady took her hand.
“Lock the door behind me,” said Noah.
And he was gone.
17
The emergency lighting blinked intermittently, giving the hallway a fun-house look that was anything but enjoyable. Noah made his way through the hospital, weapon drawn, aware of every door he passed and the unknown that might be tucked away inside it.
His money was on Patel for the bad guy. The administrator had access to Hannah’s office and motive coming out his eyeballs. Either he was in on the scam to steal nearly half a million dollars in drugs from the hospital or he was complacent in something else. The buck stopped with him, at the very least, though Noah thought he was likely far more culpable than that.
He made his way into a stairwell, brighter than the hallway before it, and arrived on the second floor. He checked his sister’s office first. The door was locked, and he wondered if it had been since she died, dismissing the idea as unlikely. Hell, maybe they’d already hired her replacement and he was about to go through the filing cabinet of new employee number three hundred and six.
He used a hairpin and the multi-tool from his pocket to pick the lock, letting himself inside. Lightning flashed outside the window, illuminating an angry purple sky, and he marveled at the quick change in the weather.
Another storm is the least of your worries.
He moved behind the desk, trying each of the drawers and picking the lock on the only one that wouldn’t open. This was definitely his sister’s desk, with matching blue office supplies, a document scanner at a perfect forty-five-degree angle, and a puppy desk calendar, and for a moment he missed her so acutely he thought he might scream.
He closed his eyes and took several deliberate breaths before moving to a tall file cabinet.
The drawers weren’t even full, with just a few hanging file folders full of requisition forms, time-off requests, and mailing labels. He cursed under his breath. If he was going to get into Lizzie’s records, he’d have to get into her computer account. Would it have access to the emergency generators? He started up the machine, the quiet hum of the fan surprising him. Billing was apparently a very important hospital function.
He shook his head, a password screen popping up to greet him.
Buttercup.
Lizzie’s beloved dog who died right before Lizzie graduated from college. He hit enter, smiling when the machine continued booting up. She was predictable, that was for sure.
His eyes went back to the document scanner. Given that the file cabinet was empty, she must scan all of her papers into the computer—including the letter she received from Joe Fielding. A quick browse through her file structure and he found the scanning program along with its associated images. Again his sister’s love for organization proved supremely helpful. He found the letter filed under Personal & Confidential.
It was identical to the one at Hannah’s house, except this one had a handwritten note scrawled across the top. It read, “Now they’ll have to answer me.” Joe Fielding, no doubt referring to the administrators he believed were involved in the missing drugs. He narrowed his eyes. Lizzie�
��s boss and lover, Eric Manning, was one of those addressed in the letter.
He thought of Hannah’s earlier comment when she read the letter Joe had written.
Why didn’t he tell me?
He always tells me everything.
Wasn’t that what lovers did? Spouses and significant others? If Lizzie’s boyfriend was involved and he knew she was aware of the letter, he would be under a great deal of pressure to keep her quiet. Joe Fielding had died without pointing a finger or even blowing the whistle on the drug scheme.
“Lizzie was the only one left who knew,” he whispered.
A noise in the hallway made him snap his head. Footsteps. Had Hannah come looking for him though he’d told her not to, or was someone else in the building?
You already know someone else is here.
Hannah’s open office door and the warm cup of coffee proved that.
Another office lay beyond Lizzie’s like an old-time supervisor’s to a secretary’s, the door open. Noah moved into it, drawing his weapon as he moved behind a tall plant and flattened his body against the wall. He left the door open as he’d found it and waited.
He heard a key in the lock of Lizzie’s office door and it opened, heavy breathing like the intruder had run hard. The chair squeaked and rolled. “What the fuck?” said a man’s voice.
Noah winced. He’d left the computer on.
“Who’s in here?” the man asked.
The chair rolled again, more slowly this time. Noah trained his weapon at the open doorway of the inner office. The distant sound of someone running reached his ears. Was someone else coming to join the intruder or had the intruder taken off?
He moved to the doorway, immediately training his weapon at Lizzie’s desk chair. It was empty. He ran to the hallway, straining his ears to hear as he went in pursuit, his legs pumping beneath him as he ran. He rounded a corner just as the man went through a doorway at the other end of the hall.
Noah was fast, his body well-trained. The doorway was a stairwell and he pushed through it, ready to take a shot if he needed to, but finding the stairwell empty. They were on the second floor. According to Hannah’s information, there were patient rooms upstairs and a flooded first floor below them.
He climbed the stairs two at a time, reaching the third of four floors.
The bastard could be anywhere.
He pushed out onto the third floor and withdrew a small CS gas gun from his pants pocket and settled it in his left hand, keeping his Glock in his right. He shot a canister of tear gas into the stairwell behind him and closed the door, assuring the tango wouldn’t be able to use it to escape.
One by one, he cleared each hospital room. A terrific thunderstorm now raged outside the windows, his search punctuated by bright flashes of lightning and loud, booming thunder. Most of the rooms were classic doubles with the privacy curtains pulled back. He checked under the beds and in the bathroom and moved on.
Then he got to a big room. It was far larger, several of the privacy curtains pulled. Noah shot a tear gas cartridge into the room, went into the hall, and waited, his Glock trained on the exit.
No one came out.
He cleared the rest of the rooms quickly and entered the second stairwell at the opposite end of the building. He emerged onto the fourth floor and checked rooms, again arriving at one that was larger than the others. He shot tear gas into the room and waited.
The door opened and a man came flying out, clutching his eyes and coughing.
“Freeze!” said Noah, but the man ran past him toward the clear stairwell Noah had just used. Noah fired into the man’s leg and he fell to the ground, quickly scrambling up again. “Freeze!” he yelled again.
This son of a bitch is going to make me kill him.
He shot for the man’s legs again, missing him completely as the tango ran. If he was willing to take a shot at the man’s torso, he would make it, but the shot would be lethal and Noah wasn’t prepared to lose this man and whatever he might know about Lizzie’s death.
He hesitated.
The man pushed into the stairwell at the opposite side of the hospital. This time Noah was on him, close enough to hear his footfalls, the fresh blood on the concrete like a well-marked trail. They were going up again, one final steel door opening onto the roof.
The man was running full speed toward the edge.
“Stop!” yelled Noah.
The man skidded to a stop as if obeying him and backed up to the knee wall surrounding the rooftop. He held up a hand toward Noah, now just fifteen feet away. “Don’t come any closer or I’ll jump!” the man said, squinting, his eyes red and crying.
Noah froze, raising his hands toward the angry sky. The wind on the rooftop was whipping at his body and he feared the other man would be blown right off the edge. “Be careful of the wind,” he called out.
The man laughed. “You shot me in the leg, now you don’t want me to get hurt? Who are you, anyway?”
“Lizzie Ryker’s brother.”
The man’s eyes went wide. He put one foot on the knee wall.
“What are you doing?” Noah demanded.
He put the other foot on the knee wall, his arms extended at his sides as he came to a stand. “I loved her. I want you to know that.”
That’s when Noah recognized him. This man was at Lizzie’s funeral, had stayed to himself, crying in a corner. “Eric Manning.”
“I wanted to marry her.”
“But you killed her instead.”
His eyes were pleading. “No! They wanted me to, but I couldn’t.”
Noah’s finger twitched on his gun. One shot and this man would be down, the force that had ended his sister’s life disappearing as surely as she had. But it wasn’t enough to put a bullet in this man. No, he wanted to feel Manning’s flesh and bone beneath his hands as he pushed him over the side.
“You were stealing drugs from the hospital,” said Noah.
“No. I didn’t do that.”
“You did.”
“I looked the other way. I was paid not to pay attention.”
“You killed my sister.”
“No! I loved her.”
“Who did it, then?”
Manning looked over the edge and Noah thought he was going to lose him. The slightest movement would send him falling to his death.
“Tell me who!” Noah bellowed.
At that moment, lightning struck the HVAC unit on the rooftop with a sound like a freight train hitting the ground. Sparks flew everywhere, Noah reflexively covering his head and jerking away. Time slowed so that it was barely moving at all, his mouth forming the word no as he watched Manning lose his balance and fall from the knee wall.
Noah ran to the side, another flash of lightning illuminating the body as it rose to the top of the water below.
18
Hannah sat in a hospital bed, Brady curled up against her side. She stroked his silky hair, her eyes trained on the storm beyond the window as she worried over Noah and what was taking him so long to return.
Please let him be safe.
She was weary from this hurricane, tired of the weather that threatened the island and turned everything into a scene of destruction and fear. She longed for sunny days and warm breezes, for the life she used to have, filled with the people she loved and the sense that they were blessed. Lucky.
She certainly didn’t feel lucky now.
She felt forgotten, as if the whole world had fallen to pieces around her—she, Noah, and Brady the sole survivors.
And whoever the hell is inside this hospital.
She told herself not to worry, that Noah was a Navy SEAL who could take care of himself, but now that she knew her husband’s death was deliberate, no one’s safety seemed assured.
Her laptop was sitting on the tray table nearby, closed. She’d found what she’d been looking for. All of the strange findings from Joe’s organ slides could be attributed to administration of the same compound. She felt certain her husband had been
poisoned with a drug called atryptoglycol that destroyed certain sensitive tissues before triggering full cardiac arrest.
Her beloved Joe had been murdered.
Further toxicology tests on the blood samples in the pathology lab would confirm her suspicions, but in her heart she knew she’d finally found the answer she’d needed for so long. She sat in the dark, thinking about her son, who would forever grow up without a father despite the depth of her husband’s love for Brady.
Sometimes life wasn’t fair.
And what about you?
She let herself feel the self-pity she usually kept at arm’s length. She’d lost so much, too. The love of her life, the only man she ever wanted to be with. Her mind conjured an image of Noah unbidden, and she admitted to herself that she wanted him physically.
It wasn’t love. Her feelings for the dark and dangerous Navy SEAL had nothing in common with what she’d felt for her husband, but he certainly managed to rouse the aching emptiness in the pit of her stomach.
The part of her that needed a man to feel alive.
The thunder rolled and she let herself imagine she could take what she wanted from him, no strings attached. A single night to indulge her body with another, to feel his hands on her skin—so desperate for his touch.
Would he be a considerate lover? She frowned. Would the experience be the balm she needed for her soul, or would it chafe against her battered heart? It was a terrible idea, but how she wanted to make love again, to share that kind of intimacy with another.
She’d never been one for casual sex, never allowed a man into her bed outside of a committed relationship, but she’d already shared so much with Noah it seemed like they were at least as close as some of the earlier lovers in her life.
What are you doing?
She closed her eyes and inhaled her son’s scent, grounding herself back in reality.
Noah would be out of her life in a day or two—tops—and she would go back to being just a lonely widow without anyone to look at her like he did with those smoldering gray eyes.
