Logical Brain: Think about Mackenzie, Oz. She needs her dad. And you need her.
Insane Brain: You can’t let this murdering bastard get away.
I closed the distance some more as I completed the left-leaning curve. No near-misses with a ten-ton missile—that in and of itself buoyed my confidence. I spotted the outline of his head through the truck’s back window.
Through the darkness and driving snow, I could see another hill coming up. Crap! He slowed, and I did too. I made it through unscathed, but at the top, he pulled away as if I were on a bicycle. I stepped on the gas and slowly began to catch up. This cat-and-mouse game could go on forever. What was my endgame? Drive him off the road? Wait until he ran out of gas? Hope that he stopped to pick up some smokes?
Flashing lights hit me from the side. It was a cop pulling onto the road. “Yes!” I yelled. I’d never been so happy to see a police car.
Then I realized this wasn’t a solution. Outside of me pulling over and telling the cop the whole story, he wouldn’t know what was going on. And while I was explaining everything to him, Hopper would have the opportunity to disappear into the New Hampshire countryside. Add in the fact I was driving a car I didn’t own, with no license, with the inside of the car covered in blood…well, that option was a non-option.
Now on a straight path, I increased my speed to more than forty miles per hour. I felt like I was ice-skating on four cubes of ice instead of driving on rubber tires. The cop was flashing his brights—he wanted me to pull over.
Not happening.
We were now on some type of bridge. Hopper increased his speed, so I followed suit. Up ahead of Hopper, I saw two cars on the side of the road—one was a cop. It looked like he was holding a flare.
Hopper’s truck veered to the left. I followed the same path. Without warning, the back end of his truck whipped wildly. I took my foot off the gas, but it was too late. I hit a patch of black ice, and I lost all control of the car. Up ahead, I could also see the truck spinning like the blade of a helicopter. It veered more to the left, while my car did its crazy dance in the center of the road. I might as well have not even been sitting in the driver’s seat; I had no control of the car whatsoever. I tried turning the wheel. Mid-spin, the tires hit something, and the car flipped. I helplessly banged around the inside of the car like a penny inside a can—the car wouldn’t stop tumbling.
And then one last jarring crash. I vaulted into the windshield headfirst.
40
I woke up and saw nothing but white everywhere. My first thought? Is this what Heaven looks like? Or maybe I was in a waiting room, pending a “personal” audit from the someone in a white suit.
I was joking with myself. That was a good sign, right? My head was pounding, my mouth parched. I tried moving my arm. I saw a cast and realized I was hooked up to a bazillion tubes. I began to feel like a caged animal. I tried to take in a deep breath. Wrong move—a piercing stab in my gut.
“Fuuuuck,” I muttered quietly. Using my good arm, I searched for a hole in my gown to get to my wound.
“No touchy, touchy.” A nurse had walked in. She was wearing purple scrubs—I welcomed the splash of color.
I tried asking for a drink, but it sounded like I’d swallowed a mouthful of sand.
She handed me a cup of ice chips. “Take it nice and slow, and then we’ll move you up to broth.” She had a pleasant smile. I smiled back and sucked on the ice chips. She began to walk out.
“When can I go home to see my daughter?” My voice box actually worked this time.
She held up a finger and then disappeared down the hall. What was that supposed to mean? One moment while I get the doctor? One day? One week?
I looked back to the door. A large window was to the right, facing the hallway, the blinds partially open. I saw no one. The place looked abandoned.
More ice chips. I tipped my head back. When I lowered my cup, a woman was standing at my bedside. Her golden-blond hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her eyes were an ocean blue. Her face wore a few stress marks, but I saw relief in her expression. It was Alex. She touched my hand.
“Are you sure you don’t have a little bit of cat in you?” she asked. “Nine lives and all that? Well, if so, you just used up about three of them.”
I smiled. “How did you know I was here?”
She sighed. “Do you know what day it is?”
I took in a few more ice chips.
“You’ve been in and out of consciousness for three days.”
I touched my head and felt a bandage wrapped around it. Then I recalled the crash, ending with my head plowing into the windshield.
“Hopper. What room is he in?” I threw back my covers—and I realized my gown wasn’t all the way down.
“Oh, Oz, why did you have to do that?” Alex turned away for a second. Over her shoulder, she said, “You can’t get out of bed. Put the covers back on, will you?”
I did as she said, and she turned back around.
“Sorry about the peep show.”
“I’ll get over it. Can I get you anything?”
I held up my cup. “Actual water would be nice.”
She left the room and came back with a large cup of ice water. I chugged half of it and wiped my chin. “Hopper. Is he in custody?”
“Damn, you scared the shit out of me.” She put a hand at her waist. “You just hung up on me and did your thing.”
“I had to, Alex. I’m alive, so—”
“I get it. I know why you did what you did. I would have done the same thing, dammit.” She looked off for a moment, as if something had stirred a memory. “I’m just glad you’re still with us. For a while there, we didn’t know how’d you deal with surgery.”
“Surgery?”
“They had to repair your spleen and put you back together on the inside. It took four hours.”
I didn’t respond.
“Oh, they also had to insert two metal plates and screws into your arm. Quite a mess, mister.”
I released a slow breath. “Hopper. You never told me where he is or his condition.”
“You going to wait until I leave and then sneak into his room and do something to him?”
“I plead the fifth on that question.” I clenched my jaw, which made my head hurt even more.
“No need to get worked up. He died in the crash.”
“He did? How?”
“Truck flipped over the guardrail, and it dropped about fifty feet onto some rocks below. He was dead by the time the first responders got to him.”
I pushed out a breath. Bruno was dead. Mitch was dead. I didn’t feel any vindication, though. My heart began to ache for Nicole. “Do you know if they found Nicole’s body?”
A quick shake of her head as her eyes looked down for a quick second. “Oz,” Alex said, touching my hand again, “I know this has been the most difficult thing in your life. I know you loved the hell out of Nicole. I’m just…sorry.”
“Thank you.” I squeezed her hand, and we locked eyes. We shared a bond of some kind. I wasn’t sure how or why, but it was there. Nothing romantic about it, but it was meaningful.
“Why are you here?” I asked. “Where is ‘here’? And when can I go home to my daughter? Well, I’m assuming I can go home without being arrested.”
She smiled. “They care-flighted you to Boston Memorial, so the FBI office is just a couple of blocks away, but I wanted to be close, so I’ve been staying in a hotel across the street. Brad is helping Ezzy take care of the kids back home—well, as much as they’ll let him. They already know everything, so they say.” She waved a hand in front of her face. “Lots for us to discuss, though.”
The nurse walked back in. “Glad you’re doing better, Mr. Lott.”
“I’m not—” I was stopped short by Alex, who ran a finger across her neck. Her signal to not say anything.
Mr. Lott? What was going on?
As the nurse took my vitals and documented them on a tablet, I noticed the name
on my wristband: Ethan Lott.
I strummed my fingers on the bed until the nurse finally left the room. “Alex, who is Ethan Lott, and what’s going on here?”
Before she could speak, I saw the curly locks of a little girl bouncing by the window. Mackenzie ran into the room. “Dad, Dad, Dad,” she said, running up to me. Tears ran down her face, but she stopped short of the bed.
“Other side,” I said.
She ran to the other side of the bed, and I opened my arm and brought her against me. She hugged my neck. “You’re alive, Dad. You’re going to be good, right?”
I looked up at Alex and mouthed Thank you.
She teared up and turned away.
“Yes, sweet pea.” I kissed the top of her head, took in the strawberry aroma of her shampoo. “Dad’s going to be fine.”
41
After twenty minutes of Mackenzie talking about Rainbow and Baxter and winning a writing contest in her English class, Alex’s partner, Nick, walked into the room. He gave me the What’s up? nod.
“Hey,” I said, my eyes shifting back and forth between him and Alex. “Thanks for getting her up here. How did you guys do it?”
“The FBI has a jet at its disposal. And it helps to know people. Right, Alex?” Nick said with a wink. He pulled out a piece of gum and threw it into his mouth. He offered us a stick. Only Mackenzie took him up on the offer.
I gave Alex one of those questionable gazes, not about the FBI jet but more about this “Ethan Lott” name on my wristband.
“I knew my kisses would work,” Mackenzie said.
“What, sweet pea?”
“I’ve been here for two days. I was allowed to come in here four times a day. Each time I’d come in, they let me give you a soft kiss on your cheek. I knew it would work. I told Uncle Nick and Aunt Alex it would work,” she said, nodding.
They were now in the same stratosphere as Tito—aunt and uncle status. I looked to them, and they both shrugged, their smiles a mile wide.
Alex and I locked eyes again. Nick must have picked up on it.
“Hey, Mackenzie, you want to get a burger for lunch?”
“I am kind of hungry. Can Dad go with us?”
“No, but we might be able to sneak him in some real food,” Nick said.
She leaned closer to me, speaking in a softer voice. “Dad, we’ll sneak you in some real food, okay?” She pushed a lock of curls behind her ear. It seemed like she’d changed, grown up, since I last saw her. “What do you want? I’ll get you anything.”
“I’ll have the exact same thing you do.”
“Cool. Let’s go, Uncle Nick.” She started to leave the room but stopped at the door. Then she ran back over to me and planted another kiss on my cheek. “Love you, Dad.”
Tears filled my eyes. “Love you too, sweet pea.”
42
After eating half of a hamburger and a couple of fries and speaking with the doctor, I sat up in my bed, a soft pillow gently pressing my stomach.
“I heard the doctor say it might seem like your insides are spilling out for a while until your stomach muscles bounce back,” Alex said, now sitting in the chair next to my bed.
I recalled feeling the same when I was in the car. “It beats the alternative.”
“Of what?”
“Of actually seeing my insides spill out.”
She snapped out a laugh.
I watched Nick and Mackenzie bounce a small red ball to each other in the hallway. I guess the FBI could get away with shenanigans like that.
“Why is the hospital so empty, Alex?”
“Only this wing on this floor.”
“Okay. Why?”
“To make sure you’re safe.”
I looked at her, but she held her gaze on Nick and Mackenzie. I let that one sit for a second. “Seems like Nick has lost some weight.”
“The marathon is coming up in a couple of weeks.”
“The marathon?”
“Boston Marathon.”
“Right. It’s April.” Another fun fact I’d forgotten about, or probably just didn’t notice after living life as a fugitive and then nearly ending my life in a place that reminded me of the North Pole.
“Must suck to live where it snows in April,” I said.
Alex turned in her chair and faced me. Her expression was all business.
“What?”
“You have a decision to make.”
“Sunny side up, a bowl of fruit, and maybe a piece of bacon.”
She tilted her head and gave me a roll of her eyes. “We’re not talking about breakfast, Ozzie.”
“Could have fooled me.” I waited a moment and then dove into what I knew wouldn’t be an easy topic. “This decision…does it have anything to do with Ethan Lott and this danger you spoke about?”
“Yes and yes.”
I turned to look at my daughter, laughing in the hallway. I couldn’t help it. Not only was her giggle and smile like heart candy, but it also helped fill the gaping hole in my soul—the hole caused by the loss of Nicole. Surgery had sewn up my physical wounds, and the healing process had begun. But my emotional wounds were wide open. When I’d been chasing Nicole’s killer, I didn’t have time to dwell too much on the reality of her being gone. Now it was all over. I had no place to hide my pain. I had no idea how long it would last.
“Before you get into all this, do you know how Cassie Durant is doing?” I asked.
“I spoke to her.”
I turned to look at Alex. “And?”
“She’s distraught about many things, mad as hell, depressed. It doesn’t get much worse.”
“I feel bad for her.”
“She’s very upset over what happened to Nicole and how Mitch was involved.”
“So you’ve confirmed it. Mitch had masterminded this whole thing?”
“I saw the evidence myself. He did it. Our tech team also confirmed that he was the one who had hacked into your email account.”
I felt my heart spasm, and I took in a breath. “I still can’t make sense of it. Did he have some type of vendetta against me?”
“From what we’ve learned, it wasn’t about you. It was about his ego and being rebuffed by Nicole. He had obsession issues, Ozzie. And when he learned of her past, he thought he could pin her death on you. He was deranged.”
I looked at my wristband. “So, ‘Ethan Lott.’ What’s up with that and this danger you think I’m in?”
“Remember the bombing in Austin that killed Riya Patel a few weeks back?”
“I was sitting in the parking lot. Hell yes, I remember it.”
“I told you that we had reason to believe it—the whole conspiracy to bribe the FDA official to approve the new Alzheimer’s drug, all of it—was tied to a group called JustWin, one word, capital J, capital W.”
“I recall you saying that name.”
“We, working with our partners at MI6, had reason to believe there was a connection between JustWin and people who worked for or had ties to Big Pharma.”
“Right. So what does this have to do with me and Nicole?”
“The investigation still has more holes than facts, but now that we’ve identified Bruno Hopper as Nicole’s killer, we’ve done some digging.”
“And?”
“He’s used about six alias names. And at least one of those ties him to members who are under the scope of the JustWin investigation.”
I slowly turned in her direction. “You’re suggesting that this JustWin group hired Hopper, or whatever his name is? I thought Mitch was behind it.”
“He was. Hopper was a hired hitman. At least that’s the way it appears. So, I’m hearing he might also have done work for JustWin.”
“Using one of his alias names.”
“Right. This whole thing with JustWin is not a closed case. Too many holes.”
I rubbed my eyes, took in a slow breath, and exhaled. Then I made sure my pillow was in place. “You think I might be in danger because I went after Hopper? Is he als
o part of the Mafia or something? You know, all that eye-for-an-eye crap?”
She didn’t respond.
“What, Alex? Please tell me why this nightmare isn’t over and done with so Mackenzie and I can go back to Austin and piece our lives back together.”
Nick glanced into the room. I must have gotten a little loud.
“Sorry.”
“No worries,” she said. “I’m a big girl. I just want you and your daughter to be safe and start living a normal life as soon as possible.”
“I’ll agree with you on that.”
A few moments of silence. I stared at Mackenzie playing with Nick, and it helped some. But the images of Nicole figured out a way to pry themselves into my defense system. Smart little suckers. I swallowed.
“On the surface, Oz, it would appear that you’re safe since the two people who were actively engaged in killing Nicole and framing you are now dead. But to me, it seems almost too coincidental.”
“You mean Hopper’s connections to JustWin?”
“That, and we still need to dig more into Mitch Durant’s life. And then there is your tie to bringing down the FDA corruption scandal.”
I carefully shook my head.
“What are you thinking?”
“How the hell I got here? How I allowed Nicole to be killed?”
“Ozzie, it’s not your fault.”
“Are you saying it’s Nicole’s fault?”
“No. And quit being so defensive.”
A few seconds passed. “I needed that.”
“I want to be upfront with you. We still have a lot to learn in this investigation. In time, we could come to the conclusion that you’re clear to resume a normal life.”
I waited, but she didn’t continue. “I thought you were going to say ‘but.’”
“Well, these investigations can drag on. And sometimes higher-ups have different agendas.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve seen some investigations be extended so we could gather more evidence with the hope of nailing people at higher levels.”
ON The Run (An Ozzie Novak Thriller, Book 6) (Redemption Thriller Series 18) Page 19
