by Becky McGraw
He also found out why they needed so many eggs from the women at that clinic. They were conducting reproductive cloning experiments, which wasn’t illegal, but everyone in the world believed it was unethical and immoral. So did Dave, because those mad scientists at that clinic were playing God, or Satan, he wasn’t sure which yet.
Dave was sure if the governor knew about their cloning activities at the clinic, he would get an injunction and funnel the information to the proper authorities to stop them, so he called Senator Allison Rooks to get her on that. He knew she was personal friends with the governor. At least maybe an injunction would slow them down long enough for Dave and Susan to get enough evidence to get the feds involved.
Sitting in the co-pilot seat of the helicopter, Dave covered the mouthpiece of his phone. “Step on it, Hawk,” he said, and the pilot nodded.
“Susan knows. Her sister is in the hospital, so I had to call her,” Slade said shortly, but Dave could barely hear him over the rotor noise.
“Who’s in the hospital,” Dave asked.
“Jenna Whitmore, Susan’s sister,” Slade replied, as if to an idiot. “I told you that drug put two other girls in the hospital, and killed one of them. You should’ve let me tell Susan. Her sister was in trouble, Logan.”
Dave heard that loud and clear and his heart melted to flow like lava right down to the toes of his boots. No wonder Susan wasn’t answering his calls, she was pissed, and had every right to be. His reason for not telling her had been totally selfish. He knew if he told her what Slade had discovered, she either wouldn’t have gone with him, or wouldn’t have been able to focus. He’d needed her to do both, so he’d played the odds that nothing would come of it over the weekend, and it looked like he’d just rolled snake eyes.
“Oh, God...” he groaned, shoving a hand through his hair.
“Yeah, you’re gonna need him on speed dial, brother. She’s done with both of us, I think. She hung up on me,” Slade said, sounding frustrated.
“Yeah, she’s not answering my calls, either.” And Slade was probably right in his conclusion that she never would again. He had to get to that hospital to see her face to face.
“You probably don’t want to see her right now if she’s armed,” Slade recommended.
“She just has a pea shooter,” Dave replied.
“I’m sure it’s enough to shoot your balls off, which is where I’m betting she’ll aim. I know I’m going to wear a cup until she cools off. I suggest you do the same,” he said with a laugh.
“I’ll have to take that chance, I need to try and explain, so where is she?”
Dave had zero hope that Susan would even listen to his bullshit attempt to explain, much less understand or forgive him, but he at least had to try. At a minimum, he needed to check to make sure she and her sister were okay for his own peace of mind.
“I’d imagine she’s headed to Seton Southwest to see her sister. That’s where the ambulance took her and her roommate.”
“I need you to head to the hospital in San Antonio to keep an eye the girl we rescued. See what the doctors say, and let me know when she wakes up. Susan is the only one who can speak with her though.”
“Why is that?” Slade asked confused.
“She’s Russian,” Dave explained.
“Susan speaks Russian?”
“Yeah and four or five other languages.”
“That’s fucking amazing,” Slade said, with a laugh.
“You have no idea how amazing she is,” Dave replied, his stomach taking a lurch.
So beautiful, so fucking smart, and funny…the sexiest, most exciting woman he’d ever known, but he had to face the fact it was done. He would never have an opportunity to explore the possibilities with her, because he’d been an idiot. Again.
The pain of this loss was a hundred times worse than before, but he needed to just deal with it the same, by burying himself in so fucking much work he couldn’t look up. It had worked before, and he had faith it would again.
Right now though, he needed to focus on something he might have a chance of salvaging. Getting Susan to help him finish this case, before she left. He couldn’t finish it without her help, so he had to convince her to do that. Since it now looked like the clinic tied into that drug, and her sister was involved, he held out hope he may be able to do that.
After the case was done, he’d let her go, because Susan, like Sarah, deserved so much better than he could offer her. Dave realized now that this was just the way he operated with women, and it was obvious he wasn’t going to change. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Susan more than he already had, and the likelihood of him doing that was great.
From here on out, he’d do womankind a favor by taking himself out of the game. His job would keep him busy, and that needed to be his focus. It was easier, and much less painful when he failed. A bullet would definitely hurt less.
“Logan?” Slade said, and he realized then he’d been sitting on the phone lost in his thoughts. He gave Slade the hospital name and information on the girl, then hung up.
He twisted the mic on his headset to his mouth. “Hawk, I need to you to take me to Seton Southwest near Austin, instead.”
“Crap, that’s two hundred miles in the other direction!” Hawk shouted, throwing him a hot glare. “I’m going to have to stop and refuel.”
“Hurry, please. We need to get there before Susan does.”
With a heavy sigh, Logan closed his eyes and laid his head against the back of the seat to catch a catnap, as Hawk banked and headed toward Austin. They hadn’t slept much in the last twenty-four hours, and had been to hell and back in that time. He hoped Susan had gotten a nap too, but he doubted it. When he saw her, he imagined that was going to make her even less open to hearing what he had to say. Whatever it took though, he was going to get her to agree to finish this case. He’d throw apologies, but if she didn’t listen to that, he’d throw money at her. Enough to keep her until she found another job.
Whatever it took, he thought, as he dozed off.
Susan jerked the door handle, before Joey Ramos’ car even came to a stop under the canopy at the Emergency Room at the hospital. She put one foot out, but then stopped herself to lean back inside and kiss his cheek. “Thanks for the ride. Tell Carlos I said thank you too,” she said as she got out and shut the door. And tell him I said I’ll call him back to talk like he asked when hell freezes over too.
That’s what she had to promise to get him to call his brother to give her a ride. Susan would’ve promised Carlos Ramos anything at that moment to get a ride. It didn’t mean she was ever going to pay up though. If it meant walking the hundred and twenty miles to get here, Susan would have. Thank God it hadn’t come to that, she thought, as she walked through the automatic doors and sprinted to the desk.
“I need to see my sister, Jenna Whitmore.”
The little brunette in scrubs manning the desk evidently realized the state Susan was in at the moment, because she didn’t even ask her name or relation to the patient, before she gave her Jenna’s room number. In the fucking ICU! Biting her lip to hold back a whimper, Susan ran for the elevator, her entire body shaking.
She stabbed the button on the elevator, looked to the right and saw the stairs, then pulled off her heels, and ran for the door. Taking them two at a time, Susan wound her way up eight floors, the holster at her inner thigh rubbing a blister there. She didn’t care, because her sole focus was getting to her sister before she died. To tell her she loved her, and ask her to tell their parents she loved them. Something Susan hadn’t been able to tell them before they died. To tell them…she was sorry for letting them down, and not watching out for Jenna like she should have.
She’d just been—no fucking excuses! Susan had not done the job she needed to be doing.
No, she had been too worried about the circus at the FBI to pay attention to her sister like she should have. And she’d trusted Dave Logan and gone on that operation with him instead of taking c
are of her sister. Jenna dying, was all Susan’s fault.
Her eyes filled as she pushed through the door, barely able to breathe. Staggering, Susan took two steps and her chest felt like an elephant was sitting on it. She stopped and bent over in more pain than she’d ever been in her life. A wail worked up her body from her toes to escape as hot tears burned down her face. She sank to her knees, clutching her stomach unable to get a hold on her tears, or find her breath. Right then, Susan felt like she was dying herself.
A nurse ran over to grab her arm. Susan couldn’t talk, she couldn’t even breathe. “Get a doctor!” she shouted, as she tugged on Susan’s arm. Someone else in dress slacks and shoes walked up to take her other arm and she was dragged to her feet.
Susan couldn’t see either one of them through her tears. Suddenly, she was lifted off of her feet and held tightly to a man’s chest as he walked with her down the hall, and it felt so damned good she buried her nose in his neck. “She’s okay, baby, calm down,” he said, kissing her hair, as he put a hip into a door to enter a room. “They’re only keeping her for observation,” the man with the soothing voice said as he sat down on the sofa with her in his lap.
Sucking in a shuddering breath, Susan wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. When they cleared she looked at the hospital bed and started crying again when she saw Jenna there, pale and swollen, but smiling at her. “Wow, this is abnormal, Sue. You are never hysterical,” Jenna said and her lips tried to curve upward, but she huffed out a breath and plopped back on the pillows. “I’m so tired.”
A wail pushed up to Susan’s throat, but she swallowed it, as she shot to her feet and ran to the bed and threw herself across Jenna’s body. She knew she was getting her sopping wet, but she couldn’t help herself. Jenna hugged with one arm, then rubbed her back. “I’m going to be okay, sis…shh,” she soothed.
“She’ll be okay if we get a sample of that drug,” Logan said from the sofa. “I gave the doctor a copy of the label, but it only has the ingredients, not the formulation. Her friend, Callie is in the next room and she’s not doing well at all. We need to get a sample as soon as we can.”
We? We. We?!? That man was fucking incredible. She lifted from the bed and spun around to face him. “I’m not going anywhere, Logan, except right here,” Susan said, pointing a finger at the floor with anger pushing her grief aside for a moment. “Where I should’ve and would’ve been instead of off at that clinic with you, if you hadn’t lied to me!” Susan’s pistol burned the skin of her inner thigh. If she wouldn’t wind up in jail, she would shoot him dead, she was that mad right now, and he was not making a thing better by being here. She pointed at the door. “Get out!” she shouted.
“I need to stay,” he argued, pushing up to his feet. “To save all these women, we have to get a sample of that drug from the college lab. And we have to go back to that clinic.”
Logan’s voice was so calm, she wanted to punch him in his perfect nose. Her fist clenched to do just that, but she somehow refrained. “We don’t have to do a damned thing! And the only woman I’m interested in saving is my sister!”
“The doctor said he needs a sample to have it analyzed, before he can treat me,” Jenna said weakly, and Susan spun to her. “I’m not as bad as Ca-Cal-Callie,” Jenna added, her lower lip trembling. “She’s going to die, Susan. They just harvested her eggs, and gave her another dose, a bigger one than before.”
Susan’s blood turned to ice. “I want to hear that from the doctor himself,” she said crossing her arms over her chest. “I’m not leaving here, until I do.”
“The doctor won’t be back until tomorrow afternoon, unless there’s an emergency. It might be too late for Callie then,” Jenna said her eyes tearing up. “You need to go with Logan and get that sample, Susan.”
Frustration built inside of Susan to the boiling point. Both Callie and her sister were at fault for letting those people do this to them. “Why are they harvesting your eggs, Jenna? Why are you letting them give you that drug?!?” she screeched, her nails biting into her palms.
“They’re paying off my tuition, and they’re using my eggs to make babies for women who can’t have them. Bertie Williams suggested it when I went in to talk to her about a tuition deferral. It seemed like a good thing to do. I thought the drug was normal, but it’s not. It’s some kind of research that Professor Kovaleski is conducting.”
Bertie Williams. After this was over, if that woman wasn’t in jail, Susan was going to kick her ass—twice—once for Jenna and another time for Callie. There was no telling how many other impressionable young women that hag had taken advantage of. Susan was going to find out what was in it for her. There had to be something.
“Slade said there are posters all over that campus promising women big bucks for selling their eggs,” Logan added, stepping up behind her.
“They gave me even more money for agreeing to let them give me the drug. We had to go to a clinic out in the boonies for the harvesting.” Jenna closed her eyes, as if the last of her energy had left her. “I’m sorry, Susan.”
Susan laid her hand on Jenna’s face, and stroked her temple with her thumb. “Don’t ever shut me out again, Jen—we’re all the family we have in this world.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
Susan leaned down and kissed her forehead, sending up thanks that Jenna was still with her, and might be okay. But if they didn’t get that formula on the drug, she might not be. She lifted up, and spun to push Logan’s chest. “Call one of your men to come and stay here with her, and let’s go get that damned formula,” she growled. “After this is done though, I’m out. I wouldn’t work for you now if you were the last job option I had on earth.”
Logan ignored her comment as if it didn’t matter. Probably because it didn’t. The man cared about no one but himself, and his missions. It seemed to her he was just as done with her, after this job. That was just fine with her.
“I called some of my men back from Houston to help us. Hawk is bringing my entry specialist and one other man back to sit with Jenna tonight. The others are driving in tomorrow. They’ll meet us at the compound.”
“Entry specialist?” Susan repeated dumbly, because she couldn’t wrap her mind around what the man’s job description would cover.
“Former juvenile delinquent reformed in the military. If Fletch can’t get in, nobody can get in. Once a B & E guy, always—”
“An entry specialist,” Susan supplied drolly.
Logan nodded, and Susan leaned down to kiss Jenna goodbye. “You damned well better not die on me, Jenna Whitmore. I love you,” she growled near her ear, and her sister laughed.
“Love you too, worry wart.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Where are we going?” Susan asked as they took the stairwell again, this time up to the roof of the hospital. With all the adrenaline pumping through her veins right now, Susan thought she could probably light the city of Dallas. Hopefully when it wore off she didn’t crash and burn. She had to hold out just a little longer. Once she finished this mission and got her sister out of the hospital, Susan was taking a week to have herself a pity party that was long overdue.
“Caleb is staying here with Jenna until someone relieves him. Hawk will come back to get him on our way to the college tomorrow night. Fletch is coming back to the compound with us to plan out this op tonight. You and I will interrogate the Russian. Mac and Dex have him chained to the bed in the barracks.”
“I thought you said we were going to the campus tonight?” Susan asked, her heart pumping from exertion as she rounded the second landing. Her brain was in neutral, and it looked like Logan’s was too. He had to be as tired as she was.
“It’s almost four in the morning, Susan. We will be going tonight. After we get a few hours of sleep, plan out the operation and get the answers we need from the Russian.”
“I don’t want to sleep. I want to get this over with,” she said, huffing another breath as they reached the exit to the ro
of.
“Well, that’s too damned bad. You’re going to get some sleep. Neither of us will be any good otherwise. All we need is another fuckup that will send us all to jail. If that happens this will never be over with,” he said opening the door for her.
Another fuckup like the one she had the other day, because she’d acted on impulse.
No, Susan definitely could do without that. Planning would be good…and so would sleep. At this minute, she would do whatever Logan suggested. She needed someone to tell her what to do because she was on auto-pilot, a robot, incapable of intelligent thought. That’s why she didn’t think about the spinning rotor blades of the helicopter when she walked across the concrete rooftop toward the aircraft. Logan ran up behind her at the last minute, and ducked her head.
Her blood turned cold at the close call, and a shiver rocked her. All she needed was to be the one who got killed tonight. Today. Fuck, what day was it, she wondered, as she hunched and duck stepped to the helicopter door with Logan’s arm around her back. The door opened and a muscular, but wiry guy in fatigues and a black tank top exited. She figured he must be Logan’s man Caleb, who was going to stay with Jenna.
He smiled, and Susan flinched it was so bright. She’d never seen a man with so many teeth. He had a gorgeous smile, but Susan wasn’t in the mood to see or return it. She stepped around him to crawl inside the helicopter while he and Logan man-hugged and talked. Susan was strapped into her seat and more than ready for takeoff when Logan took the seat beside her and fastened his belt. He leaned forward and beat on the bulkhead and she heard the engine rev up. That was the last she remembered before an elbow nudged her awake.
Susan rubbed her eyes, and yawned. “We’re home, Sleeping Beauty,” Logan said, as he unfastened his belt. “Can you walk, or you want me to carry you?” he asked in that sexy, sleepy voice she remembered, but refused to let affect her, as she unsnapped her belt.
