However, they weren’t so lucky.
The woman, counterpart to the man bellyaching in the room behind her and driver of the car that had put Greg in the hospital, walked off the elevator and fixed Kate with a stare that made her blood run cold. For a moment all Kate could hear was the soft hum of the hallway lights.
She too appeared to be younger than Kate had once thought. Her hair was dark blond and even from the distance between them she saw dark eyes that narrowed at her. In her right hand was a gun.
“Well, hello, Miss Spears.”
And then she lifted the gun and shot.
* * *
THE DOOR DIDN’T fly off its hinges or break clean in half, but as Jonathan kicked out with all the force he could summon after being temporarily knocked off his feet, the door between his room and Kate’s gave way. It splintered unevenly, making him work more to clear the debris until he was standing in his room, fuming.
When he’d gone to answer the door, he’d looked through the peephole to see someone he thought was Jett. The glass was more foggy than clear and Jonathan’s mind was still on his call with Nikki. He’d been distracted and it had cost him. Less than a second after he’d opened the door, the man who had delivered the bloody letter had pushed inside. They’d fought in the small hallway and Jonathan had been lucky to land a good hit that dazed the man, giving him enough time to warn Kate. When he’d returned, the man was ready. His fists dealt out blows that Jonathan hadn’t been prepared to receive. Especially the right hook that had knocked him dizzy.
By the time Jonathan had regained his footing, the man had slammed the adjoining door shut. The key cards able to open the door were both on Kate’s dresser.
Now Jonathan stood in the hotel room with a heaving chest, looking at a scene he didn’t quite understand. The man was outside the bathroom, hunched over and cursing. His eyes moved up to Jonathan but they were angry red slits. The bathroom door behind him was open and Kate was nowhere to be seen.
Jonathan wanted to smile, realizing that the scientist had fought back and disabled her attacker, at least temporarily. But what happened next pushed any victorious thoughts clear from his mind.
A gun went off in the hallway.
Kate!
The man, despite struggling with the pain inflicted on him by Kate, whipped his head around to the door so fast that Jonathan thought he heard it snap. Apparently he wasn’t the only one caught off guard by the discharge. Jonathan rushed the man.
He might have been hurt, his eyes might have been watering, but the dark-haired man wasn’t down for the count. He turned and ducked out of the way at the last second. The hit he couldn’t land left Jonathan exposed in front of him, giving the man an easy target. Much like Jonathan did to the door, the intruder hiked his leg up and pushed his foot against Jonathan’s stomach. The force sent him back into the wall. A cracking sound split the air as a part of the wall gave out under his weight.
Jonathan let out a groan that hitched a ride on the pain pulsing through his body. But that didn’t mean he was down for the count, either. He pushed off the wall with his elbows and threw a punch. The man brought up his arms in time for the hit to be absorbed by his forearms. Still, it did enough to push him back, stepping into the bathroom.
Jonathan came at him again, not wanting to lose the small momentum he had gained. He torqued his left arm back before moving it around to make a solid arc. Imagining, as he always did, going through the target and not simply to it, he pictured his fist going clean through the man’s jaw. It worked. The skin of his knuckles kissed the man’s jaw with hot anger, a hit he couldn’t dodge. As though the sound of the impact alone was powerful enough, he staggered backward. Jonathan moved closer, ready to keep going, when the man’s struggle to remain standing failed. His shoes slipped on the water pooled on the floor, sending his feet flying out from beneath him. He hit the tile hard and his head hit the lip of the tub with a smack. The man’s head lolled to the side and the rest of him went limp. Whether the man was dead or simply unconscious, Jonathan didn’t have time to find out. He ran out of the hotel room and into the empty hallway. Relief that Kate wasn’t lying on the ground anywhere in sight made him exhale. But where was she now?
Their new hotel rooms were between the elevators and the stairs. He took off to the left, hoping she’d gone that direction instead of toward the other stairs.
He needed to find her.
He needed to protect her.
He needed her to be safe.
The doors to the elevator slid open as he neared the end of the hall. An older man with a straw fedora and a smart blue suit looked wide-eyed at him as he flew past. Before Jonathan could warn him that it wasn’t safe, another gunshot sounded. The man shrank back into the elevator and pressed the Close Door button while Jonathan tore open the door to the stairs.
“Kate?” he yelled. His voice echoed off the concrete. The stairwell was too small for him to see to the floors below or the one above. No one replied. He started to run down the steps, but then stopped and reversed his path, going to the fourth floor, convinced that that was where the shot had come from. Why had Kate gone up instead of down?
Jonathan pushed open the door just as someone else was trying to open it.
“Kate,” he exclaimed, more relief than he thought possible exploding within him at the sight of her. She rocked back on her heels, surprised, and clambered for his hands. He gave them, helping to steady her.
“Run,” she said, breathless.
Another gunshot—louder, too close for comfort—added emphasis to the command. Jonathan pulled Kate into the stairwell and guided her along with him back down the steps to the third-floor landing. He pushed them through the door while Kate sucked in a breath. Jonathan glanced back at her and barely caught her as she stumbled forward.
“Dizzy,” she wheezed out.
He looped his arm around her middle and pulled up to support some of her weight as they continued to move toward their rooms. Jonathan knew there was a chance that the man was still alive and kicking, but he also knew that man hadn’t had a gun. Or at least wasn’t willing to use it like his partner. Plus, running down narrow hallways wasn’t going to do them any good. Not with Kate unable to run on her own.
Jonathan reached for his key card in his back pocket when another kink in his ever-evolving plan popped up. The door to Kate’s room began to open. He let out a long stream of expletives as he used all his power to hoist Kate’s body up and keep running down the hall. The fast escape he wanted to make turned into less of a run and more of a pained jog.
“Don’t shoot, you idiot,” the man behind them yelled seconds after the stairwell door banged open. Jonathan didn’t dare look back. Not even when he swung Kate around, using his body as a shield, and hit the elevator Down button. Their one dose of good luck came at the sound of a beep as the doors slid open seconds later.
“Get them,” a woman yelled from farther away. It was the confirmation Jonathan needed that the woman who had run over Greg was also after Kate.
Jonathan punched the Lobby button and the Close Door button while flattening Kate against the wall with his body. The doors slowly began to close. He felt Kate exhale, her entire body relaxing against him. Once they got to the lobby he’d be able to hide her until the cops came. He’d be able to keep her safe.
When there was less than a sliver left of open space between the closing doors, a hand snaked through. Jonathan jumped forward, trying to push the man out, but the doors opened enough for him to push inside. Jonathan fully expected him to keep the doors open for his gun-wielding friend, but he surprised him.
The dark-haired man hit the Close Door button. His partner yelled angrily as they slid shut. Jonathan reached out and pulled Kate over to him, moving her once again behind his back. The man across from them let out a devilish smile.
“My
friend doesn’t like sticking to the plan,” he said. “But don’t worry, I do.”
Chapter Eighteen
Kate screamed.
The man’s fist connected with Jonathan’s cheek while his other hand reached for Kate. He managed to grab a fistful of her hair, but before he could pull, Jonathan hit above his elbow in an impressive rendition of a karate chop. It generated enough pain that the man let go of her hair, but not before yanking down. She barely had time to yell before Jonathan threw his forearm out to keep her pinned to the wall. He didn’t want her anywhere near their attacker.
And she didn’t, either.
The man recovered quickly and sent a volley of attacks at the bodyguard. Instead of dodging them, though, Jonathan used the hand not grabbing Kate to cover his face. The man had them in the corner, and if Jonathan so much as moved an inch to either side, he’d hit Kate square on.
Jonathan was protecting her and getting hurt in the process.
She didn’t like that.
Not one bit.
The elevator dinged as they slowed to the lobby. The man, in one last desperate attempt, hit Jonathan so hard in the ribs that he doubled over. It left Kate open to him once again. He lunged forward and grabbed her hair. She fumbled in the pocket of her robe for her travel-size hair spray. If she could get his eyes again, then Jonathan could take him out.
“Not again,” the man growled when she held the bottle up. He yanked her hair hard toward him, walking backward out of the now-open elevator doors. The pain from her headache intertwined with the burn from her hair being pulled created a wave of nausea. She lost her focus and the hair spray hit the ground.
“Help,” she yelled. Murmurs from the lobby turned into shouts. The man moved quickly, dragging her along by her hair. She couldn’t see the people around her and she couldn’t see the anger on her bodyguard’s face.
But she could hear it.
Large footfalls moved around her before the sound of someone being used as a punching bag met her ears. Soon after, her attacker released his hold. Kate fell on her backside, whipping her head up, ready for the next attack. What she saw instead was Jonathan pulling the man’s dark hair, both of their faces bloodied.
“Doesn’t feel good, does it?” Jonathan bit out. He punched, but was knocked to the side by another well-aimed kick from the man. Kate looked around the lobby to the handful of bystanders. An elderly couple sat on the couch closest to the windows facing the street, two teens stood with a man who had his hands full of luggage and a young mother guarding her toddler at the front desk began moving away. Kate expected someone to step forward but no one did. Until a man yelled from the front door.
“The cops are on their way,” Jett warned. Just on the tail of his announcement was the sweet, sweet chorus of sirens in the distance. The man grappling with Jonathan didn’t miss the new information. His attacks became faster, trying to break Jonathan down in the limited amount of time he had left.
Thankfully, Jett wasn’t done helping yet. He ran up to the fray and tried to pull the man off the bodyguard. His fearless act inspired a chain reaction. The father of the teens dropped his bags and jumped in, too. They disengaged the unknown man from Jonathan just as the elderly man from the window stood up.
“I can see them comin’,” he called.
The realization that the cops were nearly there and it was now three against one seemed to finally push a flight instead of fight response in the attacker. Jett tried to grab for him again but he moved quickly, and he moved around the father as he tried, too. Apparently the man was strong and fast.
Kate could see Jonathan getting ready to run after the man who was heading toward the front door. His body had already tilted forward a fraction, more than ready to do whatever he could to stop their attacker.
But Kate couldn’t claim the same thing.
She didn’t want her bodyguard to get hurt anymore.
Not because of her.
“Jonathan,” she called out. He turned and she nearly stopped breathing. His eyes were filled with an anger so intense some of the feeling transferred to her. She took in his injuries—his busted bottom lip, bruised jaw, split eyebrow—and felt a fury she didn’t think could ever be extinguished. Whoever was behind all of this, whoever the couple was, they would get their due. That train of thought was nearly doused by the cold that crept in. “Jonathan, what about the woman?”
Jonathan’s eyes widened. Kate knew he wouldn’t leave her now, not even to chase down the man. He quickly yelled to Jett about the woman with the gun. Then Jett ushered the people in the lobby behind the front desk and into the part of the building only accessible to employees. Jonathan picked Kate up off the floor and helped her along with them.
“Are you okay?” Jonathan asked as soon as they stopped moving. He held her chin up so her gaze had no other place to go. And maybe she didn’t want to look anywhere else, either.
“I am now,” she said honestly. It created a reaction in his face she couldn’t quite place. She felt her brows pull together in question. “What about you?” She started to reach out—to hold his face and make sure he was okay—when Jett hurried over to them.
“We called the cops when we heard the first shot,” he said. “We also can’t find Arthur.”
“Arthur?” Kate and Jonathan asked in unison.
“The security guard on shift. He wasn’t back here, so—”
A door down the hallway opened with such force the sound echoed throughout the lobby. On what had to be reflex Jonathan moved Kate around him again. The teens’ father did the same with his kids and the elderly couple, putting them behind him. Jett even stepped back to put himself in front of the young mother and her toddler. Everyone seemed to be holding his or her breath until a woman walked around the corner.
It was the hotel manager, Lola Teague, and she was clearly fired up.
“I just watched that woman on the security camera go out the fire exit in the kitchen,” she said. Her hair, which had been impeccable the night before, was now visibly ruffled. The laugh lines at the edge of each eye definitely were not being exercised. “I’d ask for everyone’s calm and patience as we deal with this matter quickly.” The sound of the sirens could be heard clearly from where they stood. Soon the cops would be in the lobby. Lola hurried to the door, pausing just long enough to whisper to them. “Whoever that couple is, they sure are determined.”
Lola had no idea.
* * *
THE COPS WHO had come the day before for the letter were much more interested in what Jonathan and Kate had to say this time around. While they decided not to reveal that Kate had been drugged earlier in the day, they didn’t stop from pointing out what had also happened at the crosswalk. Even a rookie cop could see there was a connection there.
“We ran the picture of that man through our criminal database but didn’t get anything,” one of them admitted. “The blood was real, but we got no match. But now that we have his accomplice on camera, we should be able to get a name.”
Should and would were two very different things, but Kate kept her mouth shut. The officers didn’t know the entire story, so how did she expect them to do their jobs?
Frustrated, Kate cracked the seal of the bottle of water she’d been handed. Her decision to pursue a drug that could potentially save lives in situations where time was the enemy was one she’d never regretted. Even now she couldn’t come to second-guess it. When something consumes your life that much, for so long, the mind begins to treat it like a piece of the foundation that makes you who you are. Part of who Kate was, intrinsically tied to her life, was a drug that turned life into a dream.
“Oh, my God,” Kate breathed out, nearly choking on her water. Jonathan stood a foot or so away, still in the lobby, talking with Lola. When he heard her, he did a U-turn so fast it almost made her dizzy again.
>
“What’s wrong?”
She stood, stronger than before, but nowhere near as agile as she wanted.
“The case,” was all she said.
It was enough.
Jonathan took her by her elbow and maneuvered her into the elevator. The one they hadn’t fought in. She replayed what had happened in the other before recalling all other attacks that had taken place that day.
“I don’t understand,” Kate started. Jonathan didn’t turn his gaze to her. He was more than focused on the elevator doors. Or, more aptly, what might jump out at them when they opened. “The woman would have killed me with her car had you not pushed me out of the way. She’d also have shot me had I not been able to stumble to the stairs. The man, though, seemed to want to take me with him.” The elevator reached the third floor. Jonathan angled his body in front of her again. He stepped out, a man born of cautiousness, and nodded when it was clear. He resumed his position at her elbow. “So they don’t seem to be on the same page. Plus, killing me wouldn’t benefit anyone. I’m no longer, and really never was, the sole researcher of the drug. However...”
They stopped outside her hotel room. Jonathan pulled out the key card.
“I might be the only one with the prototype.”
Jonathan did his due diligence again, heading in first and clearing the room before Kate stepped inside. She took in the details of a few holes in the wall where the men must have struggled and the water pooled on the bathroom tile.
“I thought he was dead,” Jonathan reiterated, pointing to the tub. “I thought he broke his neck, but I was wrong.”
Kate patted the bodyguard on the shoulder and went straight for the bed. She started to bend down but became dizzy. Jonathan was at her side in a flash.
Be on the Lookout Page 13
