“Great, the samples have been cross-matched with our database so check and see if she’s there,” Jack instructed. “And have the police officer back at the door come in and look at the photo to confirm that’s who he saw.”
“We’re on it,” Ruby said, then looked at me for confirmation. “Right, Trina?”
How far could I push him before he pulled me off their case? Officially, I was supposed to be cooperating with the FBI, so I could stay on the case. I still had a murder to solve. Technically, it was his show, and he could easily have me removed from the investigation, which would leave Ruby very vulnerable. As much as I wanted to bust this human trafficking ring, I wasn’t going to let that happen. “Yeah, sure. Copy that.”
Jack went to check on Alan while Ruby and I made our way to the surgery waiting room. After checking in with the unit coordinator and showing him our badges, we took a seat in the waiting area.
Ruby was quiet and looked anywhere but at me. I could tell she was upset with me but wouldn’t say it.
“Just ask me,” I said.
She leaned back in her seat, her arms crossed.
“You know you want to.”
She sat up and glared at me. “Fine. Why don’t you believe him?”
I thought I was prepared to answer, but I realized I couldn’t just blurt out my misgivings. She would hate me for it. “I just think that we should be cautious until we get everything sorted out, that’s all.”
“I’ve known that man for years and worked for him for five years. I know he isn’t involved.”
“You had your doubts, though. And that’s what I’m trying to say. Let’s wait and see this thing through first.”
“You’re always wanting to wait and see. Well, you wait, my mind is made up,” she insisted, standing up and walking over to the window.
I didn’t follow her. What would be the point? Instead, I pulled out my phone and called Paul, the irony of that not lost on me. Paul could just as easily be the mole except that I’d been with him in the trenches and he always had my back.
“Paul, where are you?”
“In the ER, where the hell are you?”
“In the surgery waiting room waiting on the suspect to wake up.”
“Stay put until I get there,” he ordered and ended the call.
He sounded mad. Great, now everyone’s mad at me. I seemed to have that effect on people, but I’d learned the hard way to follow my heart and call it like I saw it. Lori taught me that. Paul taught me not to look at the obvious… I jumped up, glanced at Ruby, and then ran out of the waiting room over to the unit coordinator’s desk. “Where will they take the patient when they get out of surgery?”
“PACU,” he replied. “And I was just coming to tell you, he’s out of surgery and on his way to the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit.”
“Take me to him. His life may be in danger and not from the surgery.”
The gawkish man with pale skin looked at me as if I were crazy. Finally, he pointed and said, “Just through those doors and then the next set of double doors on your right.”
“Thanks. If another cop comes in looking pissed, send him my way,” I ordered, darting into the unit.
No Room for Doubt – Ruby Grace Sutherland
I could see Trina’s reflection in the window, and I watched as she walked out of the room. Neither of us would relent, both of us sure of our convictions. Why couldn’t she just trust my feelings? My knowledge and history with Jack? I couldn’t be with someone who didn’t trust me or my emotions… Then why am I in love with her?
Shaking my head hopelessly, I thought back to my first meeting with Jack. I was such an eager teenager, ready to prove to the world that I was in charge. My dad wanted me to be a doctor and go with him on his mission trips. But I knew that I wanted to be a detective early on and when I heard Jack speak on the subject in high school, that was it for me. I had to be a special agent. He always said to look for what’s not there, because it will be there once you see it. Then I realized how stupid I had been. Why would the fake nurse stop at just the one suspect? She’d want to eliminate both kidnappers before she left.
I ran out of the room and over to the coordinator’s desk. I showed him my badge again and asked where they took surgery patients immediately after surgery.
“You’re the fourth person who’s asked me that,” he responded, pointing down the hall to the double doors. “Just through those doors and then the next set of double doors on your right.”
“Who were the other three?” I asked.
“Two cops and a nurse,” he replied.
“Oh, shit!” I ran down the hall and barged through the double doors and was met by a group of people running my way.
“Help, she’s got a gun,” one nurse cried.
“She shot someone,” another added.
“There are police on their way,” I said. “Help clear the floor—”
“But our patients. We can’t leave them.”
“If you don’t, she’ll kill them all. Now go!” I didn’t wait for them to understand; I pulled my gun from my purse and took the safety off. Then I hit the disc and slipped inside the PACU. A moment later, the speaker overhead announced, “Code green, evacuation, ER.” Then I heard code silver, which I knew was for active shooter. I knew that I didn’t have much time before all hell broke loose.
The bay area consisted of five gurneys on the right, a nurses’ station in the middle, and another row of five gurneys on the left. Patients lay in different stages of consciousness in curtained-off pods. Holding my gun in one hand and my badge in the other, I quietly peeked in each pod. I was surprised by two nurses hovering over their patients that were in the same curtained pod. I shook my head to warn them to be quiet, and they both pointed at the far end of the unit, across from the nurses’ station.
I crept over to the desk and knelt, listening. I couldn’t hear from that vantage point, but I could see that the curtains were closed on that bay. The pod beside it was empty, no bed, just a chair. The one beside it, two pods down from the gunman, had a patient in it. I quietly made my way to that patient, who thankfully, was sleeping. His nurse, however, was close to hysterical.
I held my badge out as I walked up to her. “FBI. What’s your name?”
Whispering so low I could barely hear her, she said, “Joyce.”
Smiling at the irony, I said, “Joyce, that’s a very good name. I need you to remain calm and quiet. Understand?”
She nodded, though her hands still shook.
I could hear Trina talking, and I eased my way into the empty pod.
“You won’t get away with it,” she said.
“Oh, but I already have,” a voice replied.
I couldn’t see through the polyester fabric of the cubicle curtain, but the curtain moved as if someone were walking around. That’s when I noticed blood on the floor. Lots of blood. Someone was bleeding out. Two cops and a nurse. Was that Trina’s blood? Or Paul’s?
“Just let me help him before you’re charged with killing a cop, too,” Trina said calmly. Too calmly. “That’s a needle stick you won’t be able to walk away from.”
It had to be Paul. I must admit, I was greatly relieved. I looked closely at the shoes of the person walking around behind the curtain, and I was sure that they weren’t Trina’s shoes. She had much bigger feet. Thank God. The killer walked into a pool of blood, and I made my move. I grabbed her ankles and yanked her feet out from under her. I heard a thud and then saw the gun sliding across the floor. I ran for the gun and picked it up.
“Call for help,” Trina ordered. She was kneeling on top of the woman, twisting her arm while digging her knee into the woman’s back.
“We need a nurse over here!” No one moved. I ran back to Joyce. “Hurry, we need you.”
Once she recognized me, she followed me instantly. As soon as she saw Mike lying on the floor, a bullet wound to his abdomen, she hit the intercom button and called a code blue. Then she called her coworkers. “
Ann, Brenda, I’ve got a GSW, I need your help.”
The other two nurses came running over just as the crash cart team barged through the door, followed by Paul and several police officers. Trina kept pressure on the suspect, glancing at Mike as the team worked on him.
Satisfied that the area was secure, Paul holstered his weapon and walked over to Trina. He waved at two officers and pointed at the woman, groaning under Trina’s knee. “Cuff her and get her out of here.”
Trina moved out of the way and the two helped the woman up, one holding her while the other handcuffing her. Surprisingly, she was quiet. I would have thought she’d struggle or threaten us, but she was cooperating. Almost as if she didn’t think she did anything wrong. Or… she had an escape plan.
“Are you all right?” I asked as Trina walked up.
“Yeah. She was aiming for me, but Mike jumped in front of me. Stupid idiot. Stupid, stupid… stupid.”
She wasn’t talking about Mike. I put my hand on her arm. “Trina, it’s not your fault. He did what he was trained to do. And by doing so, he gave you the time needed to capture the shooter. If he hadn’t acted so fast, you might all be dead.”
“Now he might be the one who dies,” Trina said, stuffing her hands in her jeans pockets.
“And he might not. Let’s pray for a positive outcome and not go borrowing trouble.” She tilted her head and looked at me curiously. “What?” I asked.
“Nothing, just something my mother used to say.”
The cops walked the killer out of the room, her hands cuffed behind her. The techs and nurses wheeled Mike out on a gurney, his pale, unconscious body looking smaller than it should.
“I thought Mike was in the ER waiting on Paul. What was he doing up here?” I asked.
Trina shrugged. “He’s the only one who could identify the assassin, so I guess Paul sent him on ahead.”
A nurse stepped out from behind the curtain where the first suspect was. “Detective, the patient is waking up.”
“Good, we need to talk to him,” Trina said.
“He might not be able to answer your questions for a bit. He’ll be pretty groggy still,” the nurse said.
“That’s a good thing,” Trina replied. “His tongue will wag easier that way.”
“Give us the room,” I said as we walked in.
The nurse nodded. “I’ll be right out here if he needs me.”
“We won’t be long,” I assured her.
Tell Me, Damn It – Trina Wiles
This whole damn case, and we couldn’t catch a break. They’d been a step ahead of us every step of the way and I was sick of it. We were about to walk into the lion’s den, and we still didn’t know who the lions were.
“You got a name?” I asked as soon as I stepped up to the gurney.
“Bruce, uh, Scott,” he mumbled. “Bruce Scott.”
“Bruce, my name is Detective Trina Wiles, and this is Special Agent Ruby Sutherland.” We both showed him our badges and then I pulled out the Miranda card even though I knew it by heart. “You have the right to remain silent,” I began reciting the script. “Do you understand the rights as I have read them to you?”
“Yeah, whatever,” he said.
“With these rights in mind, do you mind if I ask a few questions?”
“Hell, yeah, I mind.”
“Well, that’s your right,” I said, and then glanced at Ruby. “I guess it’s the needle for him. What a waste.”
She looked at me keenly and then caught on. “Yeah, should only take a few minutes. Of course, he’ll have to sit on death row for a year or two and worry for the day when they come for him with a needle. But he’s tough, I’m sure he can—”
“Wait. I didn’t kill anyone,” he argued, becoming much more alert. “I swear. I was just supposed to grab the guy and keep him on ice for a couple of days.”
“Who hired you?” Ruby asked.
He looked at her and frowned.
“They just tried to kill you, Bruce,” I warned him.
“Someone tried to kill me?”
“And they’ll try again, so you’d better start talking.”
“Let them come after him again,” Ruby said. “Save the state the money for execution.”
“But what if he told us what we wanted to know?” I asked, setting the scene
“Well, maybe I could cut him a deal?” Ruby said on cue.
“Yeah, yeah, a deal. Cut me a deal and I’ll talk,” he said. “I want protection.”
“Tell us who hired you?” Ruby repeated. “And maybe I’ll just do that.”
He frowned and grimaced when he moved his bad arm. “I don’t know, damn it.”
“Was it the redhead who tried to kill you just now?” I asked.
“Redhead? No, I don’t think so. I never met the guy. We talked on the phone and did a dropbox thing. Half now, the rest on Tuesday.”
“What did his voice sound like?” I asked.
“His voice? I don’t know. He sounded like a guy,” Bruce answered.
Ignoring his attempt to be evasive, I continued, “Did he have an accent or maybe a really deep voice? What about a high-pitched voice?”
Bruce pulled the blanket up around him with his good arm. “A deep voice, I guess. He didn’t have an accent. He kept asking me if I wanted to feel him, which is just plain creepy.”
Ruby gasped and turned white as a sheet.
“What is it?” I asked, walking toward her.
Regaining her composure quickly, she waved me off and said, “Nothing. Are we done here?”
“Do we have somewhere else to be?” I asked cynically.
“I need to go into the office and search the database for a couple of things.”
“Is it safe for you to be there?”
“As safe as it is for me to be anywhere, these days. Look, you don’t have to come along, I’m just going to be sitting at a computer for a couple of hours.”
She was definitely upset about something, and I wasn’t about to let her out of my sight. “All right, then. Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Say It Isn’t True – Ruby Grace Sutherland
As soon as we got into Trina’s car and she revved the engine, I admitted my suspicions.
“You were right,” I exhaled reluctantly.
“That’s great. Uh, about what?” she asked as she pulled out of the parking lot.
“I know someone who likes to say ya feel me all the time. He thinks he’s being cool.”
“More like lame. What century is he from?”
“He’s um, my ex-partner, Greg.” My face flushed, and I felt the burn in my throat. I looked out the passenger side window, trying to suppress the urge to cry. The buildings whizzed by as we drove across town. It wasn’t that far, but I realized it seemed longer when Trina hadn’t said anything for a while. I wiped my eyes and turned to her.
“I didn’t want to be right,” she said quietly, staring out the windshield.
“And I didn’t want you to be, either,” I admitted. “But if he is the mole, I need your help to catch him in his lies.”
“How?”
“You play the bad cop, and I’ll play the I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about, cop.”
“Sounds like fun,” she quipped.
“But first, we need to gather more evidence. Jack said he had forensics working on the phone tap, I want to check and see if they found anything.”
“And we need to tap into Greg’s email and see what he’s been up to. Can you get a search warrant?”
“Yes, if I have Jack request it. We don’t have solid evidence, so my name wouldn’t pull any weight.”
“Jack?”
“Yes, damn it. We can’t do this on our own, Trina. We need his help.”
“Yeah, I know. Give him a call.”
I tapped in Jack’s number and when he answered, I hit the speaker and then asked for a search warrant.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, “The warrant
came through right before I was kidnapped this morning. Coincidence? I don’t think so.”
“You think it was Greg who sent them to kidnap you?” I asked, exploring the possibility that he could be on to something no matter how badly I didn’t want it to be Greg.
“Yes, I do, and the fact that they were obviously expendable fools means someone is getting desperate. Listen, on my authority, start checking Greg’s email and also his case history. I want to know what’s missing from his files. Get with Billy first and find out about my cell phone. I’ll be there in about an hour. If you find anything just sit on it until I get there.”
“I’m on it,” I said none too eagerly. I was about to spy on my ex-partner and that just didn’t feel right to me. “But I’m looking for his innocence, not his guilt. I don’t want to ruin his reputation if he’s not guilty.”
“Agreed,” Jack said. “Oh, and Trina, you’re not FBI… yet. So keep your nose out of our files.”
She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, understood.”
As we pulled up to the big green building on One Justice Park Drive, I wondered if I would run into Greg. I wasn’t sure how I would react, and I was actually afraid that Trina might arrest him on the spot. I hadn’t forgotten that he pretended not to know me when I had amnesia, but I was hoping that it was because he thought I was working a case undercover. At this point, that was a bit of a stretch.
Trina and I went down to the computer forensics lab to see the digital expert, Billy Brooklyn. We agents liked to think that Billy came to us as a child prodigy; he looked that young. Actually, Billy was a college graduate working on his Ph.D. And he was in very high demand. But he gave preference to anyone with the title Special Agent in Charge or above.
“Hi, Billy. Remember me?” I asked as we walked into his lab. His lab was a very large portion of the overall lab, with wall to wall monitors, computers, and tools that I couldn’t begin to name. I hadn’t been in his lab since I went undercover but it looked exactly the same. Maybe a little messier.
“Absolutely. Still as pretty as ever.”
“Why thank you, sir.”
“Jack said you’d be visiting,” Billy continued, looking at me through the magnifying glasses he wore.
No Rhyme or Reason Page 23
