Deadly Ties (16 page)

Click
.

A lock slid into place.

Once again she’d been forgotten in a dark tunnel. And this time, she was as good as dead.

Across the parking lot, Karl Masson watched the scuffle.

Lisa Harper couldn’t win, fighting three men at once. But a flicker of admiration lit in him; she had given it her all.

Fortunately for Karl and his men, her all wasn’t enough.

He waited until the driver got back into the truck and Powell and Edmunds—not their real names, of course, but NINA friendlies all the same—got into their car. The truck left the lot with the docs following behind. Karl hung back and brought up the rear.

When the truck turned onto Highway 98 and headed west, he gave the signal to the docs, flashing his lights.

At the next intersection, they turned right and headed north. He’d pulled them in via New Orleans, but where they were from, he had no idea. NINA friendlies never relayed non-mission-essential information.

At the edge of the village, the truck disappeared around a curve. It was in the clear. Karl’s breathing slowed. Now he could take a break long enough to attend to a piece of private business.

He should phone Dutch and let him know that Lisa was on her way to the future he’d bought for her. But he could wait. Going after strangers was one thing, but your own wife and her kid, especially when the kid had left you alone for years? That was just weak. Lisa had showed more strength in fighting off her abductors than Hauk had in anything. Besides that, he’d lied to Karl, and for that, he’d have to pay.

In due time
.

His phone chirped.

Karl answered it. “Hello.”

“Is my shipment on schedule?”

Raven
. “Yes ma’am.”

“Excellent.”

The line went dead.

Karl closed his phone. Not much spooked him. He’d been in this business too long. But every time he spoke to Raven, he got knots in his stomach and every nerve ending in his body went on alert.

Of all the people he’d had contact with at NINA, she was hands-down the one you never wanted to disappoint.

She tolerated no errors. Accepted no excuses. And with her everything held the urgency of a detonating nuke.

Fail, and you only failed once.

The Crossroads folks had settled inside the ICU waiting room. Clyde sat listing in a corner chair, dozing, with Nora beside him. Ben and Kelly were on a small sofa, whispering softly, and Peggy sat across from them in a wing chair, nodding off, jerking awake, then nodding off again.

Everyone had been running full out all day preparing for the party, and now it was nearly midnight. Exhaustion had set in.

At the door, Mark stared across the hallway past the nurses’ station to the heavy wooden ICU doors.

Harvey, who had ditched his tie and put on his lab coat, walked over. All the center docs had hospital privileges at Seagrove Village Community. “You okay?”

“Fine.” Mark didn’t shrink away. “It’s just that she’s been back there a long time.”

“Lisa hasn’t seen her mother up close since she was sixteen, and she’s terrified she’s going to lose her. She probably won’t surface until Annie’s able to walk out of ICU on her own.”

“I don’t know, Harvey.” Mark hated to give his fears voice, but this one was pulsing through him like blood courses through veins. “Something feels strange.”

Harvey clasped Mark’s shoulder. “Being anxious is normal. Annie’s just been the victim of a violent crime.”

It wasn’t that. It was Lisa. Inside, he felt her screaming. And inside, she probably was. Her mother was clinging to life by a thread; of course she was screaming.

Rose walked up the hallway, heading toward the unit. “You guys need anything?”

“We’re fine,” Mark said. “I thought you and Jessie were headed home.”

“Short-handed. Flu’s sweeping through the village, and the hospital’s been hit hard. Everyone able-bodied has been called in or is staying over.”

Mark nodded. “How is Annie? Is Lisa holding up?”

“I’ve been down in the ER, so I’m not sure. But I’m relieving Jessie now. She’ll be out in a second, and you can ask her.”

“Thanks, Rose.”

“Sure.” She smiled and then disappeared behind the doors.

Minutes later, Jessie came out, dragging her feet, weary and haggard.

Mark stepped into her path. “How are they?”

“Annie’s hanging on. No significant change, but that’s good news. The longer she’s stable, the better.”

“And Lisa?”

“Sad, crying, scared—everything you’d expect.” Jessie looked next door to the family-member consult room. It was dark and empty, and she frowned. “I thought she’d be here and you’d be with her.”

“What do you mean?” Mark asked.

“She went out the back door—”

“Back door?” Mark’s voice elevated, startling Clyde awake. “You said there was only one door.”

“There is, for general use. The one in back is ‘doctors only.’ ”

Great. Just great
. “Why did she go out it?”

“To talk to those doctors she called in to consult.”

Fear burst in Mark. Ben jumped to his feet. Everyone stood and Harvey shot forward. “No one called in any consults.”

Jessie seemed baffled. “There were two doctors, Powell and Edmunds. They evaluated Annie, checked her chart, and went over their findings out back. Lisa came in, and a few minutes later, they returned and asked her to step out back to talk. That was the last I saw of them.”

The Crossroads group gasped and grumbled.

“When was that?” Mark couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “How long ago, Jessie?”

“About half an hour—maybe a little more. I was about to leave, but Rose got tied up downstairs, so there was a delay. Yeah, probably forty-five minutes or so.”

Everyone started talking at once.

“Stop.” Mark raised his voice, turned, and held up his hands. “Peggy, get in touch with my team. Tell them what’s happened.” He rounded on Ben, who was dialing his phone.

“Detective Meyers,” Ben said.

Mark nodded. “Harvey, check with everybody in the building and see if anyone saw Lisa or the men she was with. Mel, help him.” He swiveled his gaze to the nurse. “Jessie, write down clear descriptions of Powell and Edmunds. Detailed and specific, as close as you can get.”

“Mark, don’t you think you might be overreacting?” Kelly asked. “Jessie knows Dutch. It wasn’t Dutch, was it, Jessie?”

“No, it wasn’t Dutch.”

Nora stepped forward and told Harvey, “Check the building, dearie—now.”

“Page her,” Jessie said. “Lisa told me if there was any change to page her, so she’s got her pager with her.”

He hadn’t seen a pager or a cell, but Mark jumped on it. “Do it—and call security and issue a code. Lock down the facility, Jessie. No one comes or goes without a security check.”

“I can’t do that. It’s premature.” She shrugged. “They might just have gone down to the cafeteria for coffee.”

“Do it or I’ll pull a fire alarm.” Something was wrong. Mark knew it—just as he knew now was too late; she wasn’t here anymore.

Pain shattered inside him. Fear rode hard on its heels. He stiffened, clenching and unclenching his fist at his side. “Peggy, when my team gets here, tell them to review the security tapes. I want every corner checked and everyone quizzed. Someone had to see something—and get Beth Dawson over here. See if she can figure out how they got into the hospital’s security system.” They had to breach it to pull this.

Peggy nodded. “Calling her now.”

“Don’t just stand there, Jessie.” Mark motioned with a swinging hand. “Move. Call the code.”

“Okay.” She started toward a phone hanging on the wall. “But tell me why I’m doing this before we even check the building? Because that’s the first thing security will ask me, and I don’t have a good answer.”

Mark fought panic, buried the guilt and regret and shame swamping him. Still, he was shaking so hard he could barely speak. “Because unless every instinct in my body is dead wrong, Lisa has just been abducted.”

12

T
he waitress plunked down a steaming mug of coffee.

Karl reached for it, spinning the steaming mug around to grab its handle. Just as he lifted it to his mouth, his cell phone rang. He checked caller ID.
Dutch
. The man was a nuisance.

“Hey.” Karl crooked a finger, summoning the waitress. “Can you put this in a to-go cup for me?”

“Sure can.” She spared him a smile.

He answered the call. “Hold on.”

Dropping the money to cover his bill on the counter, he took the cardboard cup from the waitress, nodded his thanks, and then made his way out to his car.

Safely inside, he set the cup into a cup holder and went back to the phone. “You there?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are you?”

“Waiting for the flat to be fixed. The spare’s shot.”

Lying. Again
.

“I still haven’t heard from the hospital.”

“You probably won’t for awhile.” Karl spotted the I-10 sign. Two eighteen-wheelers pulled into the roadside café and parked. “They’re pretty busy right now.” Taylor would reason his way out of checking on Lisa for a time, but by now that time surely had expired and he had everyone in the place hopping to find out what happened to her.

“So the cargo is in tow, then?”

“Yes.” Karl sipped the hot coffee. “An associate handled the hotel. You’re in room 222. Key’s under the mat—there wasn’t a fire extinguisher close by. Your alibi is in place.”

“What about the patient?”

“ICU. In a coma.”

“She’s in a coma?” Dutch shouted, then lowered his voice. “Tell me I’m not going to be stuck taking care of a vegetable.”

“Out of my control. She hit her head on a concrete marker.”

“I can’t believe it.” A pause, then Dutch added, “So is she going to recover or die?”

That was the best he could muster for someone he loved? Karl had run into some cold ones, but Dutch Hauk put them all to shame. “Too soon to tell.”

“When will they know?”

Karl’s patience snapped. “How should I know?”

“Well, can’t you have somebody ask?”

“Think about it. That would be a serious tactical error. I don’t make tactical errors.” Karl took another sip of coffee. Man, he hated dealing with amateurs—especially ones who considered themselves professionals. “In light of this unexpected development, do you want to cancel the cargo portion on your contract? If the patient survives and she is a vegetable, someone needs to take care of her. Or do you plan to do that yourself?” That was the best Karl could do to give Lisa Harper a fighting chance. With this moron she deserved one. Besides, Angel would have liked it.

“No way. The patient either fully recovers or dies.”

“So it’s full-steam ahead?”

“Absolutely.” Dutch grumbled. “I didn’t pay for a vegetable, and I am not dealing with a vegetable.”

“Hope she makes it, then.”

“Why?”

“I like her.” Annie hadn’t known Karl, but she had welcomed him into her home as Dutch’s guest with dignity and grace. She reminded him so much of Angel. His heart squeezed. How long would it take to stop missing her? Likely a lifetime. If she’d just had a chance …

“The cargo shipment is not about Annie. It’s about that sniveling brat of hers. She’s a problem, she’s always been a problem, and I’m going to stop her from ever being
my
problem again.”

What the man was doing to Annie was bad, but what he was doing to Lisa. He didn’t just resent the girl, he hated her. “If your wife recovers, what’s happening to her daughter will kill her figuratively, if not literally. But of course you realize that.”

No answer.

“If you didn’t, you might consider your actions a little shortsighted. Just something to think about.”

“Keep your advice and just do your job. I’ll handle my wife and her daughter.”

Karl thumbed the black plastic tab to seal his cup. Its snap echoed through the car. “Very well.” He lifted his hand and studied the spiderweb tattoo between his forefinger and thumb. “But don’t say you weren’t warned.”

Mark, Harvey, Joe, and Grant Thurman, the fiftyish, potbellied head of hospital security, huddled in Thurman’s office, waiting for him to get off the phone with Jeff Meyers.

Mark took the opportunity to confer with Joe. “Where are we?”

Joe dropped his voice. “Tim is on point at Annie’s bedside. Nick is running a third review on the security tapes. Harvey’s interviewing employees. Kelly’s talking with folks down in the ER who might have seen something, and Mel’s working the owners of all the cars parked in the lot. Sam, Ben, and Clyde coordinated with Meyers and are working Annie’s assault, talking to potential witnesses, her neighbors, and Dutch’s store employees. Basically, they’re scouting for anyone who might have seen or knows something about the attack. Nora and Peggy are calling in volunteer reinforcements and people from church to help canvass the condos, restaurants, and the marina—everything facing Highway 98 where people might have seen something. Beth Dawson and her partner, Sara, are working on the security breach from the center.”

“How’s she checking the hospital computers from there?”

“Thurman gave her clearance and a remote-access code.”

“Good.” Mark let Joe see his worry. “They’re working the assault. We need to focus on Lisa.”

Joe gave Mark a level look. “They’re connected. We have to work them both, bro. Yeah, Lisa’s position is unknown and Annie’s here getting care, but one of those connecting threads could be
the
one we need to find Lisa.”

“You’re right.” Mark sank his teeth into his lower lip. “It’s just—”

“You love her and you’re freaking out.”

Mark blinked, then blinked again. “It’s my fault, Joe.”
Just like Jane
.

“You got faulty intel on the doors.”

“I should have checked myself.”

“You can’t be all and do all. That’s not fair, bro. Look, you know the drill. We control what we can, knowing we can’t control everything.”

Mark nodded.

Thurman hung up the phone and turned to Mark. “Jeff’s put out an APB on Dutch and his car.”

That could easily be justified by Annie’s condition. Anything related to Lisa would require special authorization. Without some evidence of foul play, she couldn’t be designated as a missing person for forty-eight hours.

“We haven’t found anything on the tapes,” Grant Thurman said. “One minute Lisa was inside the unit, the next she was gone. Your man and mine are going over them again, just to be sure nothing was missed.”

If there was anything to find, Nick would find it. “Is the camera covering that hallway functioning?”

“We thought it was, but it turned out to be a loop. The lens was destroyed.”

Mark glanced at Joe. He returned it with the same certainty in his eyes Mark felt down to his bones.

“That’s evidence of foul play, isn’t it?” Harvey asked Thurman.

“Against the camera but not against Lisa.”

Harvey frowned. “What is it, Mark?”

He hated thinking it, much less saying it aloud, but truth was truth. “Dutch didn’t do this—well, he might have paid for it to be done, but he didn’t execute it. It’s obvious the two doctors were complicit in getting Lisa out of the hospital.”

Harvey shrugged. “Anyone who’s ever watched a crime show can destroy a camera, even Dutch.”

“Yeah, but not everyone can hack into the hospital’s security system and upload a film loop.”

“Joe’s right,” Mark said. “Powell and Edmunds are professionals.”

Thurman lifted a hand. “They don’t have privileges to practice here, and we can’t find anything in the directory on them being on staff or having privileges anywhere else in the area either.”

Definitely professionals and apparently not doctors. “Are Edmunds and Powell working directly for Dutch, or is this part of something bigger?”

“Bigger?” Thurman looked at Mark, who nodded.

Understanding passed between them. “We’d better get Jessie busy viewing photos.” Thurman clearly knew Mark’s Special Operations past and knew or intuited it was time to stop asking questions.

“After she gets her descriptions down. We don’t want to muddy her memory.” Jeff Meyers would agree on that. “Grant,” Mark said to Thurman. “How did these two clowns get into your ICU as docs?”

“They said Lisa called them to consult on Annie.”

“That’s all it took?” Surely not. That would be beyond bizarre in a post-9/11 world.

“Yeah.” Thurman flushed. “Believe it or not, we don’t have problems like this. There was no reason to doubt them, especially with Dr. Harper having privileges here. It wasn’t logical that they’d be here under false pretenses.”

“Well, they were, so you’d better develop a different policy.” Heat flooded Joe’s voice. “You’ve got this kind of problem now, and the media is going to chew you up and spit you out for a week on it—and that’s
if
Lisa is found safe. If not, you might want to spruce up your résumé.”

Thurman took exception to that comment, and he and Joe barked back and forth.

Mark ignored them and prayed Lisa would be found safe.
She’s accomplished at self-defense. She’s sharp. She’s determined. She’s a survivor. She’ll do something to help us help her. Somehow, she’ll do something
.

In the meantime, Mark would keep looking. He walked out of Thurman’s office.

Harvey came up behind him. “While they’re arguing, I’m going back downstairs to continue interviewing employees.”

“Good idea. I’ll walk down with you.” Mark interrupted the argument. “Joe, I’m going to take a look at the parking lot.”

He acknowledged with a quick nod, then lit into Thurman again. Mark should have put a stop to it, but the truth was, Thurman had it coming, and as pointed as Joe was being, he was calm and cool. Mark wasn’t.

Harvey and he took the stairs down and then entered the corridor. “I have a whole new empathy for what Ben went through, not knowing who was behind the incident with Susan. All the possibilities that keep running through my mind—they’re making me crazy.”

Harvey looked over, the tail of his lab coat lifting behind him. “But remember that Lisa isn’t Susan. This is a different situation, and Lisa’s trained in defense. She’ll find a way.”

“I’m counting on it.”
And praying harder than I’ve ever prayed in my life
.

“If you hear anything—”

“I’ll let you know right away.”

At the cafeteria, Harvey peeled off.

Mark kept walking, went out the sliding door, and then turned right. Most people automatically turned right on entering or leaving someplace.

He glanced at his watch. One in the morning. Crisp and dark, except for the amber light cast from tall streetlights in the lot and lining the sidewalk. He scoured the concrete. Found loose gravel, two old cigarette butts, a scrap of paper with tire-tread marks on it, and a wad of chewing gum. He turned back, passed the door, then walked down the left. Nothing.