Noah's Nemesis

by Dale Mayer

  She sighed. “You mean, pumping my stomach didn’t get it all out?”

  “I think he just wanted to make sure that he didn’t let you go, if there was any chance of you having a relapse.”

  “I get that,” she said, snuggling deeper. “And I have to admit that I’m still quite tired.” Even as she said that, she yawned.

  “Okay,” he said, “it’s still very early. Just go back to sleep.”

  She stared up at him, as he returned to his seat. “You’ll stay here?”

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  “You’re not to blame, you know?”

  “Several people have tried to tell me that.”

  “And I suppose you don’t believe them, right?”

  His gaze was dark, filled with guilt of course. “I was the one there looking after you,” he said. “Obviously I did a shitty job.”

  “No,” she said, “that doesn’t wash for me. You got me out of there before anything more could happen.”

  “But you’re the one who was affected.”

  “I was,” she said. “The stupid thing is, I wasn’t even going to have any more wine. I was done.”

  “So why did you?”

  “The guy who handed it to me said the glass was from you.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then nodded. “I guess that would make sense,” he said.

  “For him, yes,” she said, “and, of course, I didn’t think anything of it. I just thought it was a nice thing for you to do.”

  “Like there wasn’t enough wine flowing?”

  She nodded, with a smile. “Didn’t even think of that, did I?” She shook her head. “Just goes to show you how gullible we are.”

  “We are gullible because we think the best of people,” he said. “The problem is, nobody thinks beyond the fact that it’s a great evening and that you’re all having fun. It’s all good, so you don’t see or even want to see the darkness in other people.”

  “I know I certainly didn’t,” she said. “I didn’t question it for a moment.”

  “Which made it easy for him,” he said. “He used my name. You were tired, and it was the end of a long evening. You’d already had what? One glass? Two glasses?”

  “I don’t even know,” she said. “Enough that I’d decided I was done.”

  “Now, if only you had followed through on that,” he said, with a smile.

  “If only.” She nodded. She struggled underneath the sheet, and he quickly unpacked the blanket on the foot of her bed and pulled it up over her shoulders.

  “Thank you,” she said. He leaned down and gave her a gentle kiss on her temple. She smiled. “Why do I suddenly feel like a two-year-old?”

  “Well, you’re injured,” he said. “I can hardly kiss you any other way, can I?”

  “Oh, but you want to, do you?”

  He snorted.

  “Right, part of the act and all?”

  “Hell no,” he said. “You’re a beautiful woman. Of course I’d be happy to kiss you.”

  She smiled. “I wonder how much of that is an act too?” And then she dozed off.

  *

  “None of it,” Noah said quietly into the darkness. “Not one bit.” And he didn’t even know what to do about that. All he knew was that he didn’t want to leave her side, wanting to stay close to her all the time. It was a hell of a job he had going on here. He was supposed to stay close to her, and that was the good thing. But he was also supposed to keep her safe, and that part he’d not done a very good job on. He understood why everybody was trying to let him off the hook, but honestly he didn’t want to be. He wanted to catch this asshole and to make him pay for hurting her.

  Three times now.

  He couldn’t believe that. It seemed so stupid to use somebody like her to hurt Levi. Noah understood that Dianne was first a friend of Ice’s and then a friend of Levi’s, and it wasn’t a business thing, so, of course, it increased the pain when somebody hurt a friend to get back at you. You wanted them to come after you, but that would have been too fair of a fight. This Maxwell guy clearly wasn’t into fair fights. He was into taking advantage and hurting people.

  Noah just wished this guy would come after him, but Maxwell wouldn’t be that strong. He would take his time and toy with them some more. Sitting back down, Noah was determined to go back to the camera footage and discover where this guy had slipped out of the hotel. There had to be a way to track him and to find out where he was staying. But, so far, none of their efforts had produced solid leads.

  Every time they were left fighting to see who exactly was going after them. Or who they were chasing. They didn’t know who the culprit was in this case. They had photos of him, but why the hell was he always slipping away? Noah settled back down for more work on the videos, finding Maxwell had gone into the hotel—looking like himself and quite happy to be caught on the camera apparently—but had left looking like someone completely different.

  Finally Noah pulled a profile pic and caught the nose and the set of his shoulders. He sent it to Ice, who confirmed Noah’s gut.

  She called him. “That’s a hell of a disguise he’s using on the way out.”

  “That’s why it took us so long,” he said, yawning. “Bastard.”

  “But,” she said, “we’ve tracked him to a small vehicle on the road now.”

  “Good,” he said. “Can you track him to a house or wherever he’s staying?”

  “That’s the plan,” she said. “But he’s likely using a fictitious name and could be anywhere.”

  Chapter 10

  When Dianne woke the second time, Noah stood at the window, staring outside, his hands in his pockets, a pensive look on his face. She studied his profile and whispered, “Now that is a lovely picture to wake up to,” she murmured.

  He immediately walked over to her bed. “What was that?”

  Her smile kicked up the corner of her lips, as she said, “You heard me.”

  He chuckled. “I notice you say that when you’re hurt and injured and lying in the hospital bed.”

  “Meaning, if I had said it in my own bed, it would change the outcome?” she asked, her eyes widening in interest.

  He tilted his head, raised his eyebrows. “You’re playing with fire.”

  “I don’t have a problem with that,” she said. “Do you?” She looked at him with interest. “You look like the kind of guy who can take charge and handle whatever is thrown his way.”

  “I’d like to think so,” he said, smiling down at her. “But definitely not with injured women.”

  “Hey, I’m not injured anymore,” she murmured. “I was just supposed to stay long enough for them to check and make sure I’m okay.”

  “And how are you feeling?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Much better,” she said. And just then she yawned, a big expansive yawn. She stretched her arms up over her head and said, “There’s still a weird kind of flatness in my brain as if, you know, something’s not quite right. But I’m feeling pretty decent.”

  “Good,” he said. “Do you think you can get up and go to the bathroom by yourself?”

  “I need to,” she said, “but—”

  He asked, “Do you want me to get a nurse for you?”

  “Maybe, I’m not sure if I’m ready yet.” She laid there on the bed, staring around the room.

  “Are you okay to go back to the conference?”

  She wrinkled up her face at that. “I need to. Today’s not very involved for me, so that’s good,” she said. “If it was a repeat of yesterday, I don’t think I could have done it.”

  “What do you have to do today?”

  “This afternoon, from two to four, I’m doing a workshop,” she said, “and then I’m done.”

  “Good,” he said, “maybe we can get you through that.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping,” she said, shifting. “Then, once the conference is over, I want to go back to Levi and Ice’s.”

  “They would really like to h
ave you there. If nothing else it will lure Maxwell toward them.”

  “I’m surprised they haven’t come to town.”

  “Oh, Levi’s already here with Stone,” he said. “And we’ve been hunting this guy all night. We actually found him coming in the hotel and leaving again many hours later on the camera records. So, he found a place somewhere in the hotel to hide.”

  “If you think about it, he could have just rented a room in some other name to have a place to disappear to, then show up when he needs to do the deed. He may have even been planning on grabbing me himself at that point in time.”

  “It’s quite possible,” he said. “Luckily I came up to you right then.”

  “I remember,” she said. “I had the glass. I took a drink, and then you were there.”

  “Which is a good thing,” he said, “because otherwise he might have picked you up and moved you out himself.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not going down that pathway,” she said. “That will give me nightmares for a lifetime.”

  “You and me both.”

  She reached up, grabbed his hand, and said, “Remember. This is not your fault.” He looked down at her, and she saw that he had absolutely no intention of forgiving himself. She sighed. “Hey, any chance of coffee around here?”

  “That might be possible,” he said. Then, checking his watch, he shrugged and said, “Well, maybe not. It’s still pretty early.”

  “I’m sure, with all your amazing resources, you can get me a coffee,” she said in a wheedling tone.

  He chuckled. “Always the child.”

  “Nope,” she said, “nothing childlike about me at all.” And then she batted her eyes at him. “If you give me a chance, you’ll find out.”

  “What do you mean, give you a chance?” he protested, with a smile. “We haven’t even gotten that far.”

  “That’s because you’re slow.”

  Immediately his jaw dropped, but the door opened, and a nurse walked in. He swallowed whatever retort he had ready, as Dianne looked over at the nurse and smiled. “I’m feeling much better. Can I leave now?”

  “Not so fast,” the nurse said, with a smile, “but it’s great to hear you’re feeling better.” She explained to Noah, “I need to do a full checkup of Dianne, and we’ll get her to the bathroom to see how she is for walking.”

  “Okay.” And, with that, Noah was ushered outside, without much chance to argue.

  Di looked over at the nurse. “You must have a well-honed technique in order to get that to happen.”

  The nurse laughed. “Absolutely,” she said, “and he looks like one who could make life a little bit difficult.”

  “You think?” she said, laughing. “He is quite the character.”

  “You are a lucky lady,” she said. “He obviously cares deeply for you.”

  Di didn’t have anything to say to that, wondering how everybody else saw the two of them. The fact that it was just a business thing still irked her because she wanted it to be something that was so much more and thought she saw that he did too. But she would have to deal with it when she was finally out of here. Soon the nurse was finished and, after a successful trip to the bathroom and back, said, “I’ll bring the doctor back in a few minutes.”

  “Oh, good,” she said, “I was afraid he wouldn’t show up for a couple more hours.”

  “No, he’s been here all night, and I know he’s likely to head home soon, so let me see if I can grab him.” And, with that, she took off.

  Di settled back against the pillows, wishing she had coffee or that she’d remembered to ask the nurse for it.

  Noah stepped back inside, something hot and steamy in his hand.

  She looked at it, at him, and said, “That better be coffee, and it better be for me.” Her tone was so flat, and her delivery so perfect, when he looked at her, she chuckled. “Ha. Fooled you.”

  He sighed. “It is for you,” he said.

  “And I was just regretting not having asked the nurse for coffee, but, if she brings the doctor back, that would be even better.”

  “Yeah, that would be great,” he said. “Then we could get you out of here.”

  “That would be divine.” As it was, she hadn’t even finished the coffee when the doctor showed up.

  A few minutes later, he said, “Yep, you’re good to go.” And he promptly left.

  She smiled up at Noah. “Now that’s good news.” She looked at her clothing, her evening wear, hung on a hanger nearby, and groaned. “I should have asked you to bring me something.”

  “Not an issue,” Noah said. “We’ll go straight back to the hotel, and you can either go to bed or have a shower and change there.”

  She winced, as she started to get up. He stepped outside of her room, so she could get changed, but she drew the line at her shoes. Putting on heels when she felt like shit was a little bit more than she could handle, so she picked them up in her hand, and, still wearing the hospital’s no-slip bootie socks that they’d given her to wear, she walked out to the hallway, to see him standing there, talking on his phone.

  As soon as he saw her, he hung up, turned to look at her, studying her carefully top to bottom. When he got to the footwear, his lips twitched.

  “I don’t think I can stomach putting heels on right now,” she said quietly.

  “You don’t have to,” he said. “Walk out with your head up. Absolutely not a problem.”

  She snorted. “I can do that,” she said. “Just watch me.” Then she proceeded to stride confidently and surely out of the hospital—in her blue hospital booties.

  *

  Damn, Noah liked Dianne’s confidence. And her style. He was still chuckling when he led her to the vehicle and then helped her get into the front seat. She put her high heels on the floor and said, “Am I ever glad to get out of there.”

  “I’m sure you are,” he said. “It was still the right place for you last night.”

  She wrinkled up her nose at him. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” he said, “and I really hope you don’t do that to me again.”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh, right, I did this to you,” she muttered. He chuckled. As she relaxed back, she said, “Man, I just want to go back to my place.”

  “And what place is that?”

  She stopped, thought about it, and said, “Good point. Home hasn’t been home for a very long time.”

  “And what about your hotel?”

  “Well, I’m happy to be going to the hotel right now,” she said, “and I’ll be even happier when we can go to Ice and Levi’s.”

  “That sounds good to me too,” he muttered. “Yet we can’t forget about the fact that this was the third attack while you’ve been here.”

  “No, and I don’t know if this was more dangerous or not.”

  “Well, we don’t know the intent behind his actions,” he said. “Was he there watching and just planning on having you collapse and get rushed to hospital, or was he planning on whisking you away?” He watched a wince slip across her features, and he nodded. “Not what we want.”

  “Hell no,” she said. “That’s nothing I want at all.”

  “On the other hand,” he said, “now that we have you back again, and we didn’t see any sign of this person at the cocktail party last night, I have to wonder just what he had planned.”

  “Maybe it just hit me all that much faster than normal,” she murmured.

  “And I was considering that too. Maybe you would have made your way up to the hotel room, not feeling great, and he would have picked you up there.”

  “That’s what I was thinking too,” she muttered. “But I don’t plan on having any drinks with anybody I don’t know really well for a long time.”

  “That’s one of those lessons that you don’t let go of easily, isn’t it?”

  “Absolutely.” He drove her back to the hotel. As she got out, she stared down at her feet and sighed. “Okay, it was one thing to walk out of the hospital like this
,” she said, “but it’s another thing entirely to walk through the lobby and head up to my room.” Quickly she pulled off the hospital socks and slipped on her heels, only wincing slightly.

  He smiled at her but deliberately refrained from making any comment. He held out his arm, and she slipped her own through it.

  “You know what it looks like.”

  “It looks like you had a very nice night,” he said.

  She snorted at that. “Of course it does. However, I don’t care what other people think,” she said, holding her head high. They walked through the lobby to the elevator, then moved on up to her room. By the time she was inside, she crossed over into her room and threw herself down on the bed.

  “Do you want to sleep some more?”

  “No,” she said, “but I’ll have a shower and a coffee.” She groaned as she got back up again and found a pair of leggings, a long tunic, and some underclothes. “If you can handle ordering the coffee,” she said, “I’ll grab a shower.” And, with that, she headed into the bathroom.

  She heard him on the phone before she started the water but wasn’t sure who he was talking to. It really didn’t matter; she desperately needed a shower. Under the water, she just stood there for a long moment, letting the heat soak into her skin, feeling her body strengthen, as it finally relaxed. When she was dressed again, she stepped back out, a towel wrapped around her head.

  He looked up, smiled, and said, “You look about eighteen.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not,” she said good-naturedly. “That’s definitely younger than I was going for. But you didn’t say forty, so that’s good.” He laughed. Just then came a knock on the door. She jumped, then frowned, as she watched him walk to the door.

  He looked over at her reassuringly. “Coffee, remember?” She nodded slowly but didn’t move. He opened the door and let a trolley be pushed inside. He tipped the waiter, shut the door behind him as he left, and then brought the trolley to the couch. “Come and have something,” he said.

  “I guess that means we aren’t going out at all today.”

  “You tell me,” he said. “Did you need to go shopping or something?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t really feel like shopping.” She had to admit that she was still feeling pretty drawn and tired. She walked over, sat down on the single big chair, then watched as he poured two cups of coffee. She accepted hers with a smile and set it on the coffee table beside her. “Food though,” she said, “is another story.”