Race Against Time

He tentatively fingered the bandage on his head and then slipped out of the exam room, stopping at the nurses’ desk long enough to tell them he would be on the fourth floor if anyone needed him, then walked out despite their protests that he had not been released.

The ER staff didn’t want him to leave, but his boss told him to go home. Since he couldn’t do two things at once, he decided to do his own thing. He’d stay with Quinn O’Meara until real backup arrived. Just in case.

* * *

Nick got back to the fourth floor, but was stopped at the elevator by a Las Vegas cop. After showing his badge, they let him pass. He made his way down the hall in his bloody clothes, fielding comments about his welfare until he got to Quinn’s room. Another cop was outside her door. He recognized Nick, eyed the bandage on his head and the blood all over his shirt and jacket, but stepped aside to let him in.

The room was quiet but for the machines hooked up to the woman’s body. The nurse stood up as Nick walked in.

“How’s she doing?” Nick asked.

“She’s doing well. Resting comfortably. Are you all right, sir?” the nurse asked.

“I will be,” Nick said. “I’ll be staying here with her.”

The nurse frowned, then scooted an overstuffed chair close to the bed for him to use.

“It reclines. If either of you need anything, press this red button,” she said, pointing to the call button fastened to the side of Quinn’s bed.

“I hate to ask, but if there is a clean scrub shirt in an extra-large anywhere around, I sure could use it. And...could someone bring me a cup of coffee? My head is killing me. Oh, and if any ER doctor comes looking for me, tell him where I am.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” she said and left.

Nick moved to Quinn’s bedside, still trying to figure out why she looked so familiar. She was pretty in a wild, unharnessed kind of way. Long red hair, with slightly darker eyebrows that framed her deep-set eyes, which he remembered as being a vivid shade of green. He turned her hand palm up, felt some calluses and wondered if it was from riding the Harley or something else that she did.

He brushed a flyaway strand of her hair from her forehead and then eased himself down into the recliner. From where he was sitting he had a clear view of her and the door. He patted the shoulder holster, making sure his phone and gun were in place, and then leaned back.

A few minutes later the nurse returned with a clean blue scrub shirt, his doctor-ordered meds, a cup of coffee and a sweet roll.

“From the break room,” she said and handed them over with a sympathetic smile.

“Thank you so much,” he said softly.

She nodded, then checked Quinn’s IV and heart monitor again before she left.

Nick changed into the clean shirt, and by the time he had finished the food and coffee, the sick feeling was gone from his stomach. His head wasn’t throbbing as much as it had been. He got up to throw his garbage into the trash can, and as he was washing up, he heard Quinn’s voice.

He hurried back to the bed, but she wasn’t awake, just talking in her sleep—and crying.

“Where is he? Where’s my Nicks?” she mumbled, then turned her head and slipped into a deeper sleep.

His heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t heard that name in nearly twenty years.

He backed up and sat down in the recliner again, and sent a text to one of the other detectives in Homicide.

Run a background check on Quinn O’Meara. Get license tag info off her Harley. It’s in police impound. Send it to my phone.

Then he put the shoulder holster back on over the scrub shirt and leaned back in the chair to wait. Thirty minutes turned into an hour as he drifted in and out of sleep, awakened occasionally by the sound of Quinn’s mumbling and crying.

When his phone finally signaled a text, he scrolled through the information quickly. He couldn’t believe what he was reading. He leaped to his feet, looking down at Quinn in disbelief.

“Oh, my God! Queenie!”

She was crying in her sleep again.

He stroked her cheek, then wiped the tears.

“Queenie?”

She sobbed, still caught in whatever nightmare she was having.

“Nicks is gone,” she murmured.

“Oh, my God, my little Queenie. What happened to you after they took me away?”

Four

Induced by pain and drugs, Quinn was caught up in a very vivid dream of her past. He was cursing her with every breath, beating her on the back with one fist while he pushed her head under water with the other.

Quinn was kicking and thrashing, needing to breathe, trying desperately to get away, but the hand on the back of her head kept pushing her down, farther and farther into the water.

Help me, God. If you’re real, make this stop.

She woke abruptly, trembling and gasping for air. She heard the heart monitor before she saw it, and when she opened her eyes, she was shocked that it was hooked to her.

My things! Where are my things?

Everything she owned was on her Harley. Then she noticed the man sleeping in the recliner beside her bed, recognizing him as the cop from Homicide. Why was there a bandage on his head and why was he—

Her pulse jumped.

The elevator. The shooting! Blood all over the side of his face as they rushed her past him. Shouldn’t he be in a bed somewhere, too? Why was he still here?

She found the buzzer and rang for a nurse.

Nick sat up with a jerk and then grabbed his head as the room began to spin.

“Oh, crap,” he mumbled, then eased himself upright and moved to the side of her bed. “Are you okay?”

She pointed at the bandage on his head.

“Are you okay?”

Before he could answer, a nurse’s voice came over the intercom.

“Good morning, Quinn. What do you need?”

“To go to the bathroom,” she said.

“We’ll be right there,” the nurse said.

“I’ll step out of the room,” Nick said.

“No need,” Quinn said. “Sit back down before you fall down. Do you know what happened to my bike? Everything I own is on it.”

“Your Harley is in police impound. It’s safe and so are your things,” he said and eased back down in the recliner just as a nurse walked in, saw Nick and pointed toward the door.

“Detective, would you mind stepping out for—”

“No!” Quinn interrupted. “Please! I’ve been shot at twice in the last twelve hours. He and his gun stay.”

“Okay by me,” the nurse said with a smile, then lowered Quinn’s bed and let down the guardrail.

Quinn glanced over her shoulder, giving Nick an awkward smile.

“But, um...maybe you want to turn around so you don’t get flashed?”

Nick nodded, then winced as his head rang with pain.

“I’m closing my eyes,” he said.

Quinn groaned as she eased up from the bed, then grabbed the nurse’s arm to steady herself and headed for the bathroom.

“Call if you need help,” the nurse said, closing the bathroom door behind Quinn as she went inside.

Quinn eased herself down on the commode and then had to talk herself out of crying. Twenty-four hours ago she had been in Alamo, Nevada, doing a favor for a friend by filling in at her restaurant after her regular hostess took time off to get married.

If she had not just lived it, she wouldn’t believe all that had happened to her since leaving Alamo. Her shoulder was throbbing right along with her head. She was scared of what might happen next and still unsure of why any of this had happened to begin with. How had a simple trip to Vegas gone so wrong?

By the time she was through in the bathroom, she was shaking from the exertion and pain. She called for the nurse, then grabbed her arm to steady her steps, stopped at the sink long enough to wash up and didn’t relax until she was stretched back out in bed.

“They’ll be bringing breakfast soon,” the nurse said, with a wink at Nick. “We had them send a tray up for you, too.”

“Many thanks,” Nick said, following her to the door, then looking outside to make sure the guard was still there.

He recognized the officer, gave him a nod of recognition, then shut the door and walked back to her bedside. There was no use beating around the bush anymore.

“So, I guess we have a lot to talk about, don’t we, Queenie?”

Quinn’s heart skipped a beat.

“What did you just call me?”

Nick smiled and repeated, “Queenie.”

All of a sudden she was a child again, sitting up in bed and waiting for the boy who slept in the room across the hall to come read her a story—the only person who’d ever called her by that name. She stared at the man in front of her, trying to picture the boy’s face, but it had been too long.

“What’s your name?” she said.

“Detective Nick Saldano, Las Vegas Homicide, but you used to call me Nicks.”

Quinn’s eyes widened at that. Oblivious to the pain, she threw back her covers in excitement.

Nick got a flash of her long bare legs, and then her good arm was around his neck.

“I can’t believe this. I never thought I’d see you again,” she said and buried her face against his shoulder.

Nick was surprised by her reaction and then touched by it as he eased her down to the side of the bed and took her in his arms.

“Don’t cry, Queenie. You’re breaking my heart,” Nick said, his voice shaking from emotion.

Quinn leaned back, still searching his face for recognition.

“I never would have known it was you. How did you—”

“You talked in your sleep,” Nick said.

“I did?”

“You asked for Nicks. That was a name from the time I was in foster care, so I ran a background check.”

Quinn was trembling as she touched his face, then the bandage covering his forehead.

“That man you shot. He was shooting at me, wasn’t he?”

Nick nodded.

“He came close to killing you,” she said, taking his hand. “I would never have realized who you were. This is all so—Why is this happening? Who was that baby I found? What hell did I stumble into?”

“You’re shaking,” Nick said. “This has been a lot for one day. You need to lie down.”

Quinn let him tuck her back in, but refused to turn loose his hand.

“You were my guardian angel...my touchstone in that house. Where did you go when you left our foster family?” Quinn asked.

“I didn’t know I had any other family until my mother’s sister and her husband found me. They adopted me and brought me to Nevada. Didn’t they explain why I left?”

Quinn sighed.

“All our foster mother said was that your family took you home. I was little. I didn’t understand. I just felt...abandoned.” She shook her head. “It was my fault for getting attached. After you, I didn’t let anyone get close to me again.”

Nick felt a pang of regret for the little girl she’d been.

“So no adoptive parents?” he asked.

He saw her expression go blank and her eyes narrow.

“It didn’t work out,” she finally said.

He sensed something dark behind those words but decided this wasn’t the time or place to press it.

“Where do you live now?” he asked.

“Nowhere.”

He frowned. “What do you mean, nowhere? Are you wanted somewhere? Are you on the run from someone?”

She didn’t much like what he’d asked, but she understood the reason why he’d asked. He was, after all, a cop.

“I’m legal. I work for a while and then I move on. No ties or traces of me left behind.”

Nick felt sick. Something bad had happened to her.

“Then I guess it was fate that our paths crossed once more,” he said.

She wanted to know everything about him but was afraid to find out he already belonged to someone else, so she shifted the conversation from their briefly shared history to the present hell she’d brought down upon herself.

“Whose path did I cross before I stumbled into Las Vegas Homicide?” she asked.

“The Feds were helping a woman and her baby escape in return for her testimony against the man she was being held by.”

“And? Where are they now? It didn’t look like anyone other than the baby survived that crash.”

Nick shrugged.

“The way we figure it, you rode up on the aftermath of the murder of two federal agents. They didn’t survive the accident. The baby’s mother was in the car, but she and the baby survived. We don’t know how. We have nothing but guesses as to why she was with the Feds except that he’s someone they’ve been after for years. Maybe she was going to testify against him...maybe not. I can’t say. The main thing is that the baby is safe, thanks to you. What you did—that was amazing.”

Quinn’s stomach knotted.

“Who is this man? What’s his name?”

“Maybe it’s best you—”

Quinn jammed her finger into his chest.

“I have the right to know who wants me dead,” she snapped.

Nick took her hand. She was right.

“Anton Baba.”

All the color went out of Quinn’s face, her anger turning to shock and then fear.

“Oh, my God. He’s notorious.”

“And yet has never been convicted of anything,” Nick added.

“I’m dead,” Quinn said and closed her eyes.

* * *

Star woke up in a hospital room and never remembered coming out of surgery. The first face she saw was Anton standing at the foot of her bed talking to a doctor. She felt instant despair. Her life was a joke. Her future was doubtful.

Then Anton saw she was awake and rushed to her. Even though he was smiling, there was a flash of anger in his eyes.

“My darling, the worst of that terrible wreck is over. Now all you have to do is heal. I will leave a guard on the door outside...for your protection, of course.” He brushed a thumb across the softness of her lower lip, then pressed it inward against her teeth just enough to remind her she’d displeased him greatly. “Dream of me as you sleep,” he whispered, then leaned over and kissed her forehead before he left.

There was nothing she could do as she watched him leave. She was helpless to defend herself, and her life—and the life of her baby boy, wherever he was—was in the hands of fate.

The pillows wedged against her back kept her from rolling over onto the bandages, but it still felt like someone was holding a torch to her back. When a nurse came in to inject meds into her IV, she was shaking from the pain.

“Bless your heart, honey,” the nurse said. “This medicine will give you some relief. Don’t fight it. Just close your eyes and sleep.”

“Thank you,” Star said and closed her eyes.

The nurse was right. She could immediately feel a heaviness sliding through her body, limb by limb, pulling her conscious self back into the darkness. The last thing she remembered as she was going under was the look in Anton’s eyes and the tone in his voice. It was a warning: don’t run from me again.

* * *

Star was dreaming about home—something she hadn’t done in years. Maybe it was because she was separated from her baby and now understood the loss her mother surely must have felt when she disappeared. She woke up in tears and rang for the nurse, then waited for her arrival. She needed to go to the bathroom and was dreading making a move.

The nurse came in, turning on lights as she moved toward the bed.

“Good morning, Star. How’re you feeling this morning? What would you rate your pain level on a scale of one to ten?”

“Probably a seven or eight,” Star said, as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, then moaned. “Oh, my God, my back! Is it time for my pain meds?”

“I’ll find out,” the nurse said, helping Star to the bathroom and then back to bed. As soon as the nurse got her settled down, she left to check on Star’s request for pain meds.

Star looked for a phone and noticed it was gone and then rolled her eyes. Who would she call? There was no way to know who Anton had in his pocket, but she knew he had snitches everywhere...in every facet of the government. She looked at the closed door, imagining what it would be like to have the freedom to just walk out and never look back. She was crying quiet tears when the nurse came back, injected pain meds into the IV and adjusted her covers.

The dreams faded.

The meds dragged her under.

* * *

Federal Agents Gleason and Powers were elated to know where their lost witness was, but by the time they reached the ER of Centennial Hill Hospital, Baba and his men were already there. Forced to change their plans, Gleason left Powers in ER to keep an eye on them while he headed for the hospital administrator’s office. It would be signing Star Davis’s death warrant if they confronted her in Baba’s presence, so they needed to find a more subtle way to question her.

He learned from the office that Star would be taken into surgery shortly, but that Baba had already appointed an armed guard at the door of her room. He’d be there waiting when she got back from Recovery, so there would be no way to get to Star alone. With the help of the hospital administration, they organized a small undercover approach—they’d return the next morning posing as a doctor and his nurse making rounds, which would allow them to check on Star’s “recovery” without drawing any alarms from Baba’s guard.

When they got to Star’s room early the next day, Gleason was dressed in scrubs, clipboard in hand as he approached Baba’s man. He frowned at the gun he could see in the shoulder holster under his jacket.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Gleason asked.

Luis stuttered a moment, trying to think how to answer without antagonizing the medical staff.

“I am Luis Alvarez. I work for Mr. Baba, and at his request, I am guarding this woman while she’s healing.”

Gleason glared at him. “He thinks she’s in danger from the people who are healing her?” he snapped.

“You’ll have to speak to Mr. Baba as to why I am here. I’m only doing what I was ordered to do,” Luis said.

Gleason gave the guard a disgusted look, then stormed past him with Powers, his “nurse,” right behind him, into Star’s room, making sure the door was firmly closed behind them.

Star was awake but clearly uncomfortable. Powers positioned himself at the door to keep watch, while Gleason approached Star’s bedside.

“Good morning, Star. How are you feeling today?” Gleason asked.

“Like all the skin has been flayed from my back. How are you?”

Gleason blinked. The rage in her voice was so subdued he almost missed it.

He flashed his badge, hoping that would reassure her they were there to help, but she slapped it away.

“Doctors don’t use nurses as guards at the door. I knew who you were. Where is my son?”

“He’s safe,” Gleason said.

“I’m sure you will understand when I say I don’t believe you. If Anton finds out the two people who died in that fire were Feds, I’m dead. You know that, right?”

Gleason nodded.

“That’s why we’re here. We’re ready to put you under protective custody and—”

“I don’t trust you. I can’t. You people already promised to help me once, and that cost me my son. You nearly got us both killed! You were supposed to protect us. Where the fuck was that damn chopper when we were getting shot at?”

Gleason understood her pain, her anger. This was his job, but it was her life they were talking about. Still, he tried to remain objective. “We got a late start to the pickup site. We deeply regret what happened. We weren’t aware you were in that kind of danger.”

“You lie. I heard Lacey calling you.”

Gleason bowed his head. Damn. That wouldn’t help her ability to trust them.

“Not in time. She didn’t call in time,” he said, lowering his voice. “Star, I’m sorry. We’re all sorry. But please keep your voice down—Anton’s man is still out there.”

Star took a breath, then looked Gleason in the eye angrily. “Where is my son? I want to see him. I have to know he’s okay or this conversation is over.”

Gleason pulled out his phone and sent a quick text.

“Okay. They’re getting him to the phone. We can FaceTime. You can see him...talk to him for yourself.”

Star’s heart almost burst with relief, tears rolling down her face as they waited. But she wouldn’t let herself believe until she saw him.

The phone rang, Gleason answered, and then he moved to the side of her bed and leaned over, holding his phone in front of her face so she wouldn’t have to move.

“There’s your boy. Talk to him, but keep it quiet. That guard outside can blow this whole thing wide open.”

When Star saw her baby, her breath caught in the back of her throat. He didn’t have a scratch on him, and he was chewing on a teething biscuit. It was one of his favorite snacks. The sight of him and the crumbs on his cheeks made her heart ache. Instead of weeping, she waved.

“Sammy? Hi, baby, it’s Mommy.”

The toddler’s eyes widened, and then he was slapping at the phone and saying “Mama” over and over.

“I love you, Sammy. We’ll be together soon,” she said and blew him a kiss.

He put a fat little hand on the phone, blocking her sight, but she knew he was trying to touch her.

Gleason ended the call and dropped the phone back in his pocket.

“Where is he?” Star demanded.

“Like I told you, he’s safe.”

“That’s not good enough. I want out of here. You have to get me out now,” she said.

“We’re working on it,” Gleason said. “Just trust us. We’ll get you out of here before Anton checks you out.”

“Why are you waiting? You don’t know him. If he wants me dead, it could happen anywhere...even here.”

“Just stay calm and trust us,” he said. “We’ll be back in a couple of hours. We need to get people in place so that if Baba tries to run after he knows we have you, he won’t get away. Do you want to have to go into witness protection for God knows how long while we try to find him? If he leaves the country, you could be hiding all your life. Do you want to chance that?”

Star groaned. “Oh, my God, this hell is never going to end.”

“Try not to be afraid. We’ll have someone undercover on the floor at all times, and we’ll be back before nightfall.”

“And I’ll get Sammy back when we leave?”

“As soon as we get you settled in a safe place, yes. You don’t want him in any danger, right?”

“He was born into danger,” Star said. “I need him with me.”

“Okay, yes...just rest and heal. We’ll be back, and soon,” Gleason promised.

He gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile and nodded at Powers to follow him as he exited the room, glaring at the guard again for good measure as they left.

Star was relieved to know Sammy was safe. She’d been given a reprieve, of sorts, but she was impatient and deathly afraid of the timing. And her pain was getting worse, not better. When the nurse came in a few minutes later with her pain meds, Star closed her eyes and thought of her son as she drifted back to sleep.

* * *

Anton sent a text to Luis, asking if all was well with Star. Luis sent a quick text back saying she was in her room and had no visitors other than medical personnel. Anton nodded in satisfaction and sent back one more text.

Make sure she stays there.

The threat was implied, but Luis understood. His life was at stake if anything went wrong.

Now that Anton had Star back in his grasp, he began to send out feelers to all his snitches, trying to find where the police had taken his son. They likely had him in some kind of foster home at the moment while they tried to work out who his family was, and if that was the case, he’d get word soon. If he didn’t get Sammy back, there was no way to know what Star would do. Her mothering instinct was strong. As long as she was still alive but without her baby, she would try to destroy Anton. But if he got rid of her before he got his son back, Anton was sure he would never see Sammy again. Now that he’d publicly tied himself to Star, he would be the prime suspect if she died under suspicious circumstances.