Hidden Fire, Kobo (42 page)

"No. No, I'm fine. But Randy—"

"We'll have him out of here and to
the hospital in a jiffy," the woman said. She had a blood pressure cuff on
Randy's arm. The man cut Randy's jeans away.

Sarah got a glimpse of Randy's wound. She
swallowed back bile. She'd come this far without passing out. She wasn't going
to faint now that they were being rescued. Or throw up.

"Feeling faint, ma'am?" the man
said. "Put your head down." He pressed the back of her head. "Cough.
It forces blood to the brain."

"I'll be fine," she insisted. "Take
care of him. He might have a concussion, too."

"Wait back here, please," the
man said. We need a little more room to work." He said something into a
radio, then crouched beside the woman.

Their words ran together. She recognized
some, like pulse and respirations, but had no idea if the numbers they called
out were good or bad.

"Need a better vein," the woman
said. The man cut the sleeve of Randy's shirt off. "What's the ETA on that
chopper?" the woman said. Sarah detected an underlying urgency in the
tone.

"Has he taken any drugs?" the
man asked.

"Some aspirin, but that was hours
ago. Around one, I think. Maybe a little later."

"Okay, that helps." He spoke
into the radio again. Something about bleeding. "Nothing else?"

Sarah shook her head. "Wait. He said
Gloria put something in his lemonade. Made him pass out. I don't know what it
was."

"Thanks." He mumbled something
else into the radio. "Any allergies?"

"Not that I'm aware of." The
clearing was washed in light. The dogs stopped barking, and Sarah heard the
whup-whup sound of a helicopter above.

"About damn time," the man
muttered.

A stretcher descended from the heavens.
The paramedics lifted Randy into the cage-like contraption and strapped him in.
She stepped close enough to squeeze his hand before they winched him skyward. "I
love you." She thought he squeezed back.

She tilted her head, shielding her eyes
from the spotlight as Randy rose to the belly of the helicopter. She watched
them load him inside and then the helicopter was gone.

"Why didn't you go with him?"
she asked the paramedics.

"There's an EMT on board," the
man said. "They'll be at the University Medical Center in ten minutes,
tops."

"Will he be all right?" Sarah
asked. "He seemed all right. I mean, in pain, but he was walking and
talking until right before you got here."

"The doctors will check him out.
Shock can set in like that. Delayed reaction. Or the loss of blood caught up
with him."

"How did you find us?" she
asked, finally able to consider the world beyond Randy.

"Someone reported Trent Wallace
missing. The sheriffs checked into it and found a warrant for his arrest, so
they brought out the sheriff's K-9s instead of our local search and rescue. My
partner and I are part of the team, in case someone gets hurt. There are a lot
of accidents in the mountains."

"Guess we were lucky you were here,"
Sarah said. "Do you know who called?"

"No, ma'am. But maybe the cops do."
She gestured to Wallace and the cops surrounding him. They'd replaced her
makeshift ties with handcuffs. The dogs were leashed now, but were still
anxious to get at the man, who had turned remarkably docile.

"How do we get back?" Sarah
asked.

One of the police officers came over. She
extended a hand. "I'm Rachel Michaelis," she said. "You must be
Sarah Tucker. We're about a mile from the edge of campus along a hiking trail.
About three miles from where we've parked the vehicles. Or, if you want to do
some mountaineering, about fifty yards that way—" she pointed up the
mountain with her flashlight—"will put you on the fire road about half a
mile from the cars."

Sarah stared along the beam of light at a
tree-covered mountain. "I think I'll take the one-mile hike, thank you,"
she said. "Can we leave now? I want to get to the medical center."

Rachel called to one of the other
officers. "Take my car back to campus." She tossed a key his way. "Let's
go."

"What about Trent Wallace?" she
asked.

"He'll be walking, too. The dogs can
use the exercise."

With Rachel's flashlight as a guide, they
walked along the mountain trail. To Sarah's mounting impatience, Rachel
insisted on keeping the pace slow enough to avoid falling into a ditch or
tripping over roots and rocks. Behind them, Sarah could hear the dogs panting
and Trent Wallace shouting that none of this was his fault.

They walked in silence for about fifteen
minutes. Sarah's anxiety built with each step. "What made you come
looking?" Sarah asked, as much to keep her mind off Randy as to satisfy
her curiosity.

"Randy missed his appointment with
me. I didn't think much of it. I don't know the man, or how reliable he is.
Then I got a call from one of his colleagues. Novak, or Kojac."

"Kovak," Sarah said. "He's
with Pine Hills."

"Right. Kovak. Well, he said he'd
been on the phone with Randy and that he'd heard what sounded like a scuffle.
They were able to locate his truck from the cell phone signal. It was parked at
a construction site at the edge of campus. Kovak told us what he'd found out
and we started looking." Rachel pointed the beam to the left. "Turn
here," she said. "We're almost back to civilization."

They walked on asphalt now. Sarah saw car
headlights and red and blue flashers in the distance. She broke into a jog.

"Sarah, wait!" Rachel yelled.
Gunshots filled the night.

Randy squinted into the warm brown eyes
of a pale-skinned woman in hospital scrubs hovering over him. "I'm fine,"
he insisted. "Get someone with the right papers for me to sign so I can
leave." He reached for the IV stuck in his arm. Her hand blocked his and her
expression said she'd played this game before and was used to winning.

"I don't think so, Mr. Detweiler. I
can release you tomorrow morning, but you've got a mild concussion, an ulcer,
you've lost a lot of blood, you were in shock and there's the possibility of infection
from your gunshot wound. You've had two units of blood. That IV is balancing
your electrolytes and pumping you full of antibiotics. Give it time. Let's
ascertain there are no serious aftereffects."

Her accent was vaguely British, but with
a more musical lilt. He forced himself to pay attention. Out of everything she'd
said, he zeroed in one word. "Ulcer?" He pressed his belly. "You're
kidding."

She narrowed her eyes. "I never kid
a patient about something like that. The ER doctors caught it when they
examined you. Bet you've been having abdominal pains for a while."

"An ulcer?" he repeated.

Her expression softened. "Don't
panic. You'll get some pills, be fine in two weeks."

He struggled to sit up. Her hand held him
down as if he were nothing more than a rag doll. His head throbbed. He read her
name tag. "Olivia du Toit, M.D."

She took his hand and directed it to the
side rail of his bed. "If you want to sit up, use the buttons on this
panel. There's a remote for the television, but I recommend sleep." She
put a call button on his pillow beside his head. "Press that one if you
want a nurse. I've okayed some pain pills. Your leg's probably going to smart
once the local wears off. I'll see you in the morning." She jotted
something down on a clipboard and whisked out of the room.

His brain was pea soup. He tried to put
the pieces of his memory together without success. Memory loss. One of the
symptoms of a concussion. Wonderful.
That
he remembered.

The door opened. An older gentleman in a
white lab coat came into his room carrying another metal clipboard. "Dr.
du Toit said you're not satisfied with your accommodations. I'm Sebastian
Jones. How about a little post-concussion trivia game? Maybe I can get you out
of here sooner." He plucked a pen from behind his ear. "What do you
remember?"

"About what?" Randy said. "What
day it is? Who's the president? Who won the '67 world series?"

He laughed. "How about the last
twenty-four hours?"

Not much, he realized, searching for more
than blurred images. He bolted upright as his head cleared. "Sarah. Where's
Sarah?"

The man frowned and wrote something down.
"Calm down, Mr. Detweiler. Who's Sarah?"

Was this part of the memory test? "Sarah
Tucker. We were together." His mental jigsaw puzzle was missing too many
pieces. "How did I get here?"

"You were airlifted out of the
mountains. You don't remember?"

"I remember being in the mountains.
Trent Wallace shot me. Sarah tied him up and he was telling us about Hugh
Garrigue." He shoved his hair off his forehead and winced with pain.

"Easy," Sebastian said. "You've
got some scrapes and cuts on your head."

"You should see the tree." He
remembered that much. Where was he? Why wouldn't his thoughts stay in line?
Garrigue. Another piece of the puzzle slipped into place. "Damn it. Get
the cops in here. Now. And find Sarah."

"Take it easy."

"No, you listen to me," he
said. "There are killers out there. And one of them might have Sarah. If
you don't get the cops in here in the next two minutes, I'll do it myself."
He reached for the IV again.

Sebastian approached the bed and stayed
Randy's hand. "Fine, fine. I'll get right on it. Leave your IV alone. It's
got what you need to help you get out of here." He bent down and fiddled
with the tube. "There. That's better." He stepped away from the bed,
his arms folded across his chest.

Randy's arms tingled. He couldn't move
them. Or his legs. "What did you—" He gasped for air. The room went
black.

* * * * *

"Where is he?" Sarah demanded.
She sat on the edge of a gurney in an emergency room bay, her legs swinging
back and forth with impatience. A nurse swabbed her arms with antiseptic. Sarah
barely acknowledged the sting on her cuts and scrapes. "Randy Detweiler.
He was brought in here over an hour ago. By helicopter."

"I remember," the nurse said. "They
took him upstairs as I recall. Fished a bullet out of his leg, I think."

"What room?"

She shrugged and peeled off her latex
gloves. "You'd have to ask someone in admitting."

Sarah jumped off the gurney. "Which
way?"

"End of the corridor, take a left."

She sped off. The sleepy-eyed clerk at
the desk checked her computer screen. "Three-ten," she said. "Elevator's
over there."

Sarah hurried to the elevator and pressed
the button.

"Sarah?"

She turned at the voice. "Rachel.
Are you all right?" The officer had an elastic wrap around her left wrist.

"Fine. Tweaked my wrist a little. Be
fine in a day or so." She smiled. "Not my gun hand."

The elevator arrived. "Mind if I
ride up?" Rachel said. "I've got a couple of questions for Randy. And
maybe a couple of answers."

"Of course." Sarah stepped
inside and pressed three. Rachel followed and leaned against the rail.

"I'm sorry you got hurt at all,"
Sarah said. Rachel's reflexes had brought Sarah to the ground before she'd
dashed into the middle of a shootout.

"Part of the job, although we don't
see much of that around here."

"This must be the season for big
crime in small towns," Sarah said. "I can't believe everything that's
happened."

With a ding, the doors slid open. "This
way," Sarah said, reading the signs. As they neared Randy's room, a man in
a lab coat came out, headed their way, his head bowed over a clipboard. "Excuse
me," Sarah said, quickening her pace to intercept him. "Were you with
Randy Detweiler? Can you tell me how he is?"

"Sorry," he mumbled. "Have
to ask a doctor." He moved past her, apparently in a rush to get to the
elevator.

Something didn't feel right. She'd seen
that man before. Recognition flooded her with fear. "Rachel," she
said. "Stop him. And call for backup."

She pushed Randy's door open. He lay in
bed, his breathing labored. His face was the same color as the sheets. She
rushed to his bed and found the call button on his pillow. She pressed it. "Help
me," she called out, not knowing if anyone heard her. She raced down the
hall to the nurses' station. "Help. Room three ten. Something's wrong."

In the corridor, Rachel had the man face
down on the floor, her knee in his back. She pulled handcuffs off her belt and
snapped them shut. She barked commands into the radio on her shoulder.

The nurse rushed to Randy's room. Seconds
later, a white-coated woman sped inside after her. Sarah followed. Three other
medical staff showed up pushing a cart of fancy-looking machines. Scary-looking
machines.