Race Against Time

The sugar was a much-needed jolt, as was the caffeine in the coffee. A quick glance at the clock on the opposite wall was a reminder that he’d been up for eighteen hours. It was a good thing tomorrow was his day off. He finished off the food, drained his coffee and went to the bathroom. When he came out, the dark-haired man was still there, still texting.

Nick sat, leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, thinking again of the redhead. There was something about her that niggled at his memory. He couldn’t imagine forgetting someone who looked like that. Bloody as hell, her beauty had still been obvious—and all that red hair. Maybe she just reminded him of someone else.

* * *

Dev Bosky knew the other man in the waiting room was a cop. His gut knotted when he saw him walk in, and the urge to leave was huge. But sitting in a room with a cop was still safer than going back to Anton Baba without his son. He’d already learned the kid was no longer in the hospital but didn’t know where he’d been taken. He had contacts who could track the location of the kid later. First thing he had to do was get rid of his witness.

He’d been texting Ian for over an hour and still hadn’t heard back. That alone was worrisome. It occurred to him that Ian’s decision to go back without the kid might have been a deadly one. That fear alone was enough to keep him on task.

Three

Nick glanced at his watch. The woman had been in surgery a little over three hours, and he was beginning to worry when a doctor in green scrubs entered the waiting room.

“Who’s here for Quinn O’Meara?”

Nick stood and flashed his badge.

“I am. Detective Nick Saldano, Las Vegas Homicide.”

The doctor acknowledged Nick and then gave him the update he’d been waiting for.

“I’m Dr. Munoz. Miss O’Meara’s surgery was successful. Barring complications, she should be fine.”

“Where will you be taking her next?” Nick asked.

“She’ll be in Recovery for a while and then up to her room. Fourth floor. You can check at the nurses’ station for her room number.”

“There will be a police guard on her room until she’s released,” Nick said.

“As you see fit,” the doctor said. “But I don’t want our other patients bothered or frightened. If need be, I can have her moved to a smaller facility that might be easier to secure.”

“Understood, sir,” Nick said.

They walked out together and parted company at the door with Nick heading to the elevator.

Back in the waiting room, Dev was too keyed up to sit still. The woman was so close, but there was no way he could get to her from here without getting caught. So, they were going to put a guard on her room. That meant his only chance to get to her would be when they were moving her to the fourth floor.

He wanted to go up now and get the lay of the area, but he didn’t want it to appear as if he was following the cop, so he waited another ten minutes while he thought things out. He had a silencer. He could pop her and whoever was wheeling her to the room just as they exited the elevator, then make a run for it before anyone even noticed he was there.

After giving the cop enough of a lead, he made his way up to the fourth floor using the stairs. He noted which elevator they used to bring up surgery patients, but when he saw how close it was to the waiting room, and then realized the cop was already sitting within sight of the elevator, he knew he had to rethink his plan. He was going to have to go through the cop to get to her. Baba would be pissed if he killed a cop, but he also wanted the woman dead, so the way Dev looked at it, his job was to do what Baba sent him to do, regardless.

With a half-assed plan in place, he entered the waiting room and saw the cop on the phone. He headed for the coffee machine.

* * *

Dr. Fuentes wasted no time getting to the Baba estate, but had no idea it was Baba’s woman he would be seeing. He’d been there enough over the past few years to realize she was something of a fixture and was horrified when he saw the shape she was in.

She was lying on her bed with her back to the door and made no attempt to communicate when he came into the room. Upon closer examination, he was shocked by the condition of her bloody back and the unkempt state of her hair and clothing. He’d need to be cautious of how he worded his questions. To his relief, Anton initiated the conversation.

“Star was in a car wreck. There are other factors concerning her condition that do not affect how you need to treat her, and we will not speak of these, do you understand?”

“Yes, of course,” Fuentes said. “Where are her injuries? If she needs X-rays I will have to have her transported to an ER, and she might require hospitalization based on the results.”

Anton frowned. It wasn’t something he’d considered, but if she had broken bones, he couldn’t ignore them. Regardless of what happened between them, having her healthy would either facilitate a cease-fire between them, or render her a whole and healthy product ready to move.

“She hasn’t spoken of any specifics except that her back hurts, which is obvious.”

Fuentes nodded, took off his jacket, gloved up and began his examination by cutting away what was left of her blouse. He hid his horror at the gouges dug into her slender back, tried to ignore the quiet sound of her weeping and kept going, checking for broken bones and anything that might indicate internal bleeding.

Anton knew the doctor was paying close attention to the change in Star’s breathing, as well as the flicker of her eyelids when he touched on something painful, but when they began to turn her over and she screamed, Anton’s heart sank. She was worse than he’d thought.

Dr. Fuentes shook his head.

“She needs X-rays for sure. There may be some cracked ribs and I fear internal bleeding. As for her back, just at a glance I see small rocks and sand in the wounds, which will require a very sterile setting to clean up. Will you please allow me to call an ambulance for her?”

Anton frowned, but he obviously had no other choice.

“Of course,” he muttered.

Dr. Fuentes cleaned his hands and then stepped out into the hall to make the call.

Anton knelt beside the bed and ran a hand down the side of her cheek.

“Star?”

Her eyes opened, piercing him with a watery blue stare.

“Let me die.”

“Then who will take care of Sammy?” he asked.

Rage flickered on her face and then disappeared.

“I am no longer his mother. You decided that. You have destroyed me. Let me die.”

He stood abruptly. She’d nailed him on that. When someone had no fear of death, he had no way to coerce them to his will. Then Fuentes stepped back into the room.

“There is an ambulance on the way. I will wait for them in the foyer.”

Anton sat down in a chair beside the bed they shared and thought about the changes yet to come.

Star was shaking. Shock and pain were moving through her in waves. The fact that Sammy had been found was such a huge relief to her that the tears she shed were tears of gratitude. And she knew something Anton had yet to learn. The two people who died in that fire were federal agents. It was only a matter of time before the Feds made their move and took him down. However, if she was still under his control when he found out, he would kill her.

A short time later the ambulance came, and the paramedics loaded Star up and took her away. Anton called for his car and a couple of his men to go with him and followed, unwilling to let her out of his sight for long.

* * *

Quinn was struggling to wake up. She didn’t remember going to bed and didn’t know where she was. All she could hear was a woman trying to wake her up. She sounded like Mrs. Treadway. Quinn didn’t like Mrs. Treadway. She wouldn’t let them have butter or jelly on their toast.

“Quinn, can you hear me?”

Quinn moaned. She was so cold she couldn’t stop shivering.

“Please, Mrs. Treadway, I don’t feel like school,” she mumbled.

The Recovery nurse smiled.

“No school, Quinn. You had surgery and you need to wake up now.”

“Cold. Hurt,” she mumbled and then tried to lick her lips. They felt swollen.

“I’ll put another blanket on you,” the nurse said.

As soon as Quinn felt the weight and the warmth of the added covers, she began to relax.

The nurse tucked the heated blanket around her and then laid a hand on Quinn’s forehead.

“Quinn, open your eyes now!”

Quinn was trying, but her lids felt too heavy. After several moments more of struggle, she finally saw light and then the face of the woman beside her.

She wasn’t Mrs. Treadway, and Quinn was no longer nine years old.

“Good girl!” the nurse said.

“Where...?”

“You’re in Centennial Hill Hospital. You had surgery on your shoulder.”

Quinn exhaled slowly as memories flooded.

“Someone shot me. There was a baby...”

“I don’t know anything about a baby. We’ll be taking you to your room in a few minutes. You can ask someone there, okay?”

Quinn let herself drift, wondering if any aspect of her life would ever get easy. This time of year, people would be chattering about holiday plans, going home to a block-party barbecue and having family over on the weekend. It all sounded so good—so ordinary. She had never lived an ordinary life.

And then the same nurse was back, patting Quinn’s arm.

“We’re going to move you to your room now. You just lie still and we’ll do the driving,” she said and giggled.

Quinn braced herself for motion, guessing it might hurt, and she was right. When they began wheeling her through the hall leading toward the elevators, she closed her eyes against the bright fluorescent light fixtures in the ceiling above and was drifting back to sleep when they suddenly stopped.

“Quinn, you’re doing great. It was my honor to take care of you, and now Thomas will take you the rest of the way to your room.”

All of a sudden Quinn was in the elevator with a stranger named Thomas. After what she’d been through, the thought unnerved her. Then she heard the orderly humming and relaxed as the car went up. When it stopped, Thomas put a hand on her shoulder.

“Are you okay, ma’am?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“We’ll get you comfortable soon,” he said.

The doors opened as he began to push her out into the hall.

* * *

Nick had chosen a seat near the door so he could watch the elevator, and when he saw the elevator doors sliding open and the end of a bed emerging, he jumped up and went to see if it was his patient. He saw her red hair first and was about to speak to the orderly when he heard footsteps running up behind him.

The panicked expression on the orderly’s face was all the warning he was going to get. He pulled his weapon even as he was turning around. It was the man from the waiting room. He was running toward them with his gun already aimed.

Nick jumped in front of the bed. “Get her back in the elevator!” he yelled and pulled the trigger.

Thomas reacted quickly, catching the door before it closed and pulling the bed back inside just as gunfire erupted.

Dev pulled the trigger as the cop was shouting. In his haste to get off the first shot, his aim was off.

Nick leaned just the least bit to the left as he fired and saved his own life. The bullet from Dev’s gun grazed the side of his head instead of hitting him between the eyes, but for a moment Nick thought his head would explode from the pain. But it hadn’t affected his own aim. Shot in the heart, the gunman hit the floor. Nick was still standing and the man was dead.

* * *

When the two gunshots sounded only feet away from her bed, Quinn screamed in terror, certain she would die. When the orderly slammed the side of her bed against the elevator wall, she cried out again, this time from the pain.

“I’m so sorry,” Thomas exclaimed, trying to get around her bed to the button to close the door.

And then Quinn saw the cop from Homicide move into her line of vision. There was blood running down his face, and he was holding his gun in one hand and the elevator door open with the other.

“You’re bleeding!”

Thomas turned, saw the blood running down the cop’s face and leaped forward.

“You’ve been shot!” he said.

Nick’s head was pounding. He ran a finger through the groove the bullet had left in the side of his head and shuddered. That was close. Too close.

“It’s just a graze. Are you two all right?” Nick asked.

“Yes,” Thomas said.

“Then get her to her room, stat,” Nick said and began helping the orderly get the bed back out of the elevator.

Nurses were running toward them. They already knew he was a cop and that he was there to guard a witness in one of his cases, so there was no mistaking what must have happened.

Nick flashed his badge.

“Get her to her room and stay with her. Don’t let anybody in but the police,” Nick said.

One nurse grabbed Nick by the arm.

“Are you hit anywhere else?” she asked.

“No.”

“You need to get to ER. I’ll go get a wheelchair,” she said, then hesitated when she glanced at the shooter and the blood spilling out onto the floor beneath him.

“What about him?” she asked.

“He’s dead. Forget me right now and get her out of the hall. He may not be the only one after her.”

Quinn was scared. The man standing at the foot of her bed was bleeding, and everyone was running madly around her.

“What’s happening?” Quinn cried.

Nick heard the fear in her voice and turned around. Their gazes locked, and for a heartbeat everything faded. It was just him watching her eyes fill with tears.

“It’s okay, Miss O’Meara. You’re safe.” He grabbed the orderly by the arm. “Move her now!”

After that, panic ensued as the RN on duty began issuing orders to put the floor on lockdown.

“Step aside!” Thomas yelled. “Coming through.” He rushed her down the hall and into her assigned room.

Nick was watching them go when the thundering sound of running feet echoed up a stairwell. He turned with his gun already aimed, only to see a team from Hospital Security coming through the exit door and out onto the fourth floor with weapons drawn.

“Las Vegas Police!” he shouted and held his hands up with the gun in one hand and his badge in the other.

The first guard to reach him immediately took him by the arm.

“Detective, what happened?”

“You have a woman in room 424 who was shot earlier this evening out on Highway 93. Unknowingly, she rode up on a murder in progress and got shot for her troubles. That man followed her and just tried to finish the job.”

The guard nodded. “We need to get you to ER, Detective. Wilson, escort him down, and the rest of you start a room-by-room check to make sure there aren’t any gunmen on site. I’ll wait here with this one’s body until the police arrive.”

“I need a guard on room 424 or I’m not going anywhere,” Nick stated.

“Go. We’re on it.”

Nick was reluctant to leave, but he also knew he needed some first aid. He called in to his lieutenant again as they were going down in the elevator to tell him what happened.

“Lieutenant Summers.”

“Lieutenant, this is Detective Saldano. Someone tried to take out the O’Meara woman as they were bringing her up from surgery. I shot him.”

“Is she all right?” Summers asked.

“Yes, sir. The shooter is dead, and I’m on my way to ER to get some first aid.”

“You’re wounded?”

“Head wound, sir, but nothing serious. It’s going to be a big headache and nothing more.”

“Write up your report and consider yourself off duty.”

“Sir, seriously, I’ll be—”

“That’s an order,” Summers said, leaving no room for argument.

Nick sighed.

“Yes, sir.”

The security guard glanced at Nick.

“Pulled you, didn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Nick said and leaned back against the wall as the elevator took them down to ER.

* * *

Anton was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, watching as the EMTs were preparing Star for transport. He didn’t like what was happening, but he’d made the decision to keep her alive, and this was the consequence.

His phone rang, and he frowned when he saw the name on his caller ID.

It was his snitch in the Las Vegas PD. This was a call he never ignored. He backed out into the hall and lowered his voice.

“This is Baba.”

“Mr. Baba, this is Alicia Alvarez. We just got word that a man named Dev Bosky was killed in a shoot-out with a homicide cop in the Centennial Hill Hospital.”

Anton stifled a curse. So much for getting his son back the easy way.

“Thank you.”

“Yes, sir,” she said and disconnected.

Anton shoved a hand through his hair in abject frustration. What the hell was going on? All the people he normally depended on were failing him miserably. He was just superstitious enough to wonder if he’d brought it upon himself by betraying the mother of his son.

At any rate, he couldn’t go after the witness from the desert at the moment. Dev was already dead, and if he did anything more it would surely tie him to that crime. He was going to have to step back for the time being and see how this played out. The Feds would come, that he was certain of, and he would be questioned. His best bet now was to remain patient and, as always, deny, deny, deny. After all, Dev hadn’t worked for him in months...

* * *

Star cried out as the EMTs loaded her faceup onto a stretcher, bouncing her repeatedly on her injured back as they took her downstairs to the ambulance. She could hear Dr. Fuentes talking to Anton as they followed her down, but she wouldn’t open her eyes.

Her back was miserable, but she didn’t think she had any broken ribs or internal bleeding. Still, she was going to stay quiet and allow the paramedics to take her to the hospital. The only way she was going to survive any of this was to get away again, and right now the best chance she had to get away was on this stretcher. Her mind was focused on one thought: Sammy. The only hope she had of getting him back was to testify against Anton Baba—and to do that, she had to escape and stay alive.

When they transferred her to a gurney and loaded her into the ambulance, she moaned. She heard the back doors closing and then waited until it was moving before she dared a quick look.

There were two EMTs with her and then the driver up front. These two were strangers to her, but she knew enough about Anton’s world to understand that didn’t mean they weren’t in his pocket.

One of them was swabbing the inside of her arm.

“Just a small stick,” he said, as he slipped a needle into a vein to establish an IV.

Star felt nothing but the constant throb and burn of the wounds on her back. The ride was rough, and by the time they reached the hospital, tears were running down her face.

The EMTs were running when they wheeled her into ER. She knew because she could hear the rapid slap of their shoes against the tile. She heard one of the men giving out her stats and heard a woman ask her name.

“Her name is Star Davis,” the EMT said. “She’s Dr. Fuentes’s patient. He’s on the way to the hospital, too.”

“Star, my name is Dr. King. Can you tell me where you hurt?”

Star moaned softly.

“My back, my back. Please turn me over,” she begged.

The doctor frowned as she pointed to two of the nurses.

“Help me roll her... Not much. I just need to get a quick look at—”

The doctor froze. It was only for a second, and then she began issuing orders quickly and loudly.

Star sighed. The relief of lying on her side, if briefly, was huge. Her tears turned into soft, choking sobs.

“What happened to you?” Dr. King asked.

“I was in a wreck,” Star said.

X-ray techs wheeled the portable X-ray into the room.

“I’m sorry, Miss Davis. I’m going to need you to lie flat for these X-rays,” the doctor said.

“No, no. Not again,” Star moaned.

She felt hands on her shoulders, at her waist and at the backs of her legs trying to ease her back down, but when they rolled her down onto her back, the pain was so intense she passed out.

Dr. Fuentes came into the exam bay, recognized Dr. King and nodded.

“Dr. King.”

“Dr. Fuentes,” she replied, giving him a hard look. “What can you tell me about your patient?”

“That she lives with Anton Baba and she was in a wreck.”

Dr. King guessed the rest of what he wasn’t telling, which meant not asking too many detailed questions.

Seconds later, Anton and his two bodyguards entered the room.

“Wait outside,” Anton told the men and then aimed his questions at the doctor he didn’t know. “What is her condition?”

“Mr. Baba, I’m Dr. King. We’re just about to x-ray her, but she’s unconscious at the moment—the pain is quite intense. As soon as we’re finished, we’ll focus on the wounds on her back,” Dr. King said.

“Did she say anything?” Anton asked.

The doctor frowned.

“That she was in pain. If you will step outside long enough for us to get the X-rays we need, you will be allowed to return until we take her to surgery.”

Anton glanced at her, startled by this news.

“She needs surgery?”

The doctor folded her arms across her chest.

“I assume you saw her back?”

Anton nodded.

“Then you understand the severity of her injuries. She’ll need to be under anesthetic and in a perfectly sterile environment when we begin removing the debris embedded in her back and closing the wounds.”

“Yes, of course,” Anton said. With one last look at Star’s unconscious body, he stepped out of the room.

He was pissed all over again. Now she was damaged goods, which would definitely bring down her worth in a sale. She was still the best woman he’d ever had in bed. Maybe this accident was the nudge he needed to keep her with him. All he had to do was get their son back, and he knew she would stay.

Still, what a fuckup.

He would kill Ian all over again if he wasn’t already dead. It was just as well that the cops took Dev out, too. Saved him the trouble of doing it.

* * *

Nick was sitting on an exam table in the next bay waiting for a doctor to come back with the results of his X-rays. They had already cleaned and dressed his head wound, and his head was throbbing to the point of making him nauseous when he noticed the chaotic sounds of an emergency in the room next to his.

He heard the soft cries of a woman in pain and couldn’t help but hear what the EMTs were saying as they discussed her injuries. He heard the word “wreck” and then “in the desert” and frowned. But when he heard she was one of Dr. Fuentes’s patients and the name Anton Baba, Nick’s heart skipped a beat.

Could this possibly be the mother of the little boy Quinn O’Meara had found?

There was more shuffling in the room next door, and then he overheard Anton Baba introduce himself. He held his breath as he leaned close to the wall separating him from one of the most wanted criminals he’d ever known, not wanting to miss a word of what was being said. He didn’t dare make a phone call and take the chance of being overheard. He inhaled slowly but grabbed his phone and sent Lieutenant Summers a quick text.

Get word to the Feds. Anton Baba is in ER. I’m not certain, but I think the woman getting treated in the room next to mine might be the Feds’ missing witness. She said her name was Star.

Then he hit Send.

An answer came quickly.

Do nothing. They’ve been informed. Go home.

Nick sent back a final text, Will do, then slid off the table, slipped his handgun back into the shoulder holster and put on his jacket.

The moment he stood up, the room began to spin. Damn it. Most likely he had a concussion to go with that bullet wound, but after knowing Baba was so close, he didn’t care about orders or his injury. He wasn’t leaving the O’Meara woman alone when the man who wanted her dead was in the same hospital.