Wicked Intentions (Steele Secrurity Book 4) (2 page)

H
eather Reed stepped
out of the hospital and inhaled a deep, cleansing breath before starting her trek to her car in the parking garage alone. The long, twelve-hour shift had morphed into fourteen hours, thanks to a shortage of nurses and an abundance of patients, and she was more than ready to go home. Her feet ached after the constant rushing from one room to another all day. Her lower back was stiff from all the time she spent standing in one place to complete her charting. She was more mentally drained than usual because of her heavy patient load, but taking care of others when they needed her the most was her passion. Nursing wasn’t just a job she left behind when she left the floor.

When she’d found her calling in life many years ago, she’d known immediately she wouldn’t be happy doing anything else. Her propensity to nurture and her desire to help others made her a natural in nursing school. Quickly rising to the top of her class, Heather insisted on taking the harder cases the other students shied away from. During her first clinical rotation in the oncology unit, she knew she’d found her niche. The work was hard and exhausting, but she knew her patients needed her more than the average.

Her mind drifted back to the first time she accompanied the oncologist to deliver the dreaded news that the treatments weren’t helping and it was time to stop them. Her elderly patient was lying in the bed, watching TV like every other day. She remembered thinking how normal everything seemed, but within a matter of seconds, everything changed. The doctor sat on the edge of the bed and talked to the woman like an old friend rather than with the standard clinical distance.

By the time the doctor finished imparting the unfortunate news, the patient was at peace with the decision they’d agreed upon, while Heather was the emotional wreck. She stood at the foot of the bed and listened to the conversation, admired how well the patient accepted the bad news, and felt her heart break because she knew it wouldn’t be long before the cancer ravaged the sweet lady’s body. Heather’s cries turned into muffled sobs, despite her desperate attempts to remain professional. When she and the doctor left the room, he stopped her in the hall and asked if she needed the sedative he’d prepared for the patient, trying to infuse humor into the situation.

No matter how many times she’d delivered the news since that day, it was always the same. She left the hospital carrying the weight of her patient’s burden on her shoulders. Empathy was part of what made her such a good nurse, but it was also part of what brought all the memories flooding back. Along with the debilitating loneliness. The current patient who prompted the memories to resurface hadn’t received bad news yet, but Heather couldn’t shake the feeling it was coming.

She also couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up at full attention. Anxiety filled her mind and a strong sense of dread filled her chest, squeezing her from the inside like a vise. Despite being tired, she quickened her steps and hurried to the safety of her car. Once she was securely locked inside, her eyes scanned the parking garage for anyone out of the ordinary. She knew just because she didn’t see someone didn’t mean he wasn’t out there.

When she exited from the garage, she purposely turned in the opposite direction from the route she normally took home. She trusted the gut feeling that warned her she was in danger. On one hand, just the thought of it all threatened to shut off her rational mind and fill her with fear. On the other hand, her stubborn, determined side refused to be intimidated by anyone cowardly enough to watch from the shadows. Her drive took an extra hour longer than normal before she reached her house. Fortunately, the numerous stops at various stores, unexpected turns onto side streets, and a couple of double-backs revealed the car that had followed her continuously.

Armed with that knowledge, she was able to evade the person following her and reach the security of her enclosed garage. Once inside, she intentionally left the lights off and watched for approaching headlights through the bow window at the front of her house. When the car lights illuminated the street, she stepped to the side of the window, completely out of sight, and kept her eyes glued to the car as it made its way around the cul-de-sac.

The silhouette of a single occupant was visible from her viewpoint, and it had masculine characteristics. “What do you want, creeper?” she whispered to the darkness around her. “What the hell are you up to?”

The car crawled at a snail’s pace back in the direction it had come from originally, before turning to continue the search on the next street over from hers. She was confident her exact location hadn’t been discovered; however, she wasn’t about to give up the advantage she had over him. Moving through her darkened rooms, she gathered the items she needed and showered in the hall bathroom, where the light wasn’t visible from anywhere else.

She thought about driving her second vehicle instead, since he obviously knew her primary car by sight, but decided against it. If he waited in the parking garage again, he could easily spot her walking to it. “I’ll park somewhere else instead,” she reasoned to herself. “Leave through a different door out of the hospital, move like a ninja, undetected, right to my car. Piece of cake.”

With her plan for the next day in place, she crawled into the bed and welcomed the rest that would soon follow. As tired as she was after her long day, the events of the evening had her nerves keyed up and her mind racing. She picked up her cell from the nightstand and called the first number stored in her favorites. When the call rolled to voice mail, Heather listened to the familiar voice with longing before she disconnected.

“I miss you so much,” she whispered.

The next morning, Heather left for work earlier than normal, hoping to avoid giving away her exact location by beating her stalker to the punch. In her dark blue Land Rover with blackout windows, she navigated the streets with ease, taking more turns than required while constantly keeping her eyes on the traffic behind her. Rather than parking in the regular parking garage, she pulled into the lot behind the doctors’ offices across the street from the hospital.

One of the benefits of working there for the past ten years was she knew every access point to gain entry. Once inside, she worked her way to the oncology floor undetected, using the secure hallways that required employee access codes to enter. But when she actually reached her unit, she knew she’d be vulnerable and completely exposed for her entire twelve-hour shift. With the substantial number of patients under her care, she didn’t have time to validate every visitor who appeared on the hall.

“Becca, I need a favor.” Heather approached her charge nurse and best friend in the nurses’ lounge.

“Sure, hon. You’re here awful early this morning. What do you need?”

“I need you to watch for anyone suspicious on the hall today. Anyone hanging around without ever actually visiting someone’s room.”

“You got it. But what happened? Why are you so spooked?”

“Someone followed me home from here last night. I lost him before I reached my house, but I watched him drive around my neighborhood looking for me.”

“I’m alerting security right now. We need someone stationed up here until we figure out what’s going on.” Becca quickly moved to the desk and called security. She turned back to Heather when she hung up the phone. “Their shift changes when ours does, so they’ll send someone up when the new crew gets in. We still have about forty-five minutes before shift change, though.”

“Thanks, Becca. I’m going to go ahead and meet with Renee for briefing on what happened with my patients last night. The sooner I can finish the first round of pulling medications, the faster I can get out of the open hall and into my patients’ rooms. With the door closed. So no one can see in.”

“Don’t worry, I know where to find you if I need you,” Becca chuckled. “You can only hide from me for so long. If some strange guy shows up looking for you, I’ll take care of him. We have plenty of shit around here that’ll knock him on his ass.”

“I love having you as my best friend. You are the best…and you’re a little frightening when you’re mad.”

* * *

A
fter he’d lost
her the previous night, he drove for hours along every street in the enormous subdivision, determined to find her. He had to give her credit for being one of the few people he’d ever underestimated. The morning’s mission was to get her work schedule so he could better track her movements. Tracing her comings and goings was becoming more cumbersome and time-consuming for him. He’d walked the halls of the hospital on more than one occasion, just to confirm she was still in the building. She’d left at different times every day she’d worked, and some days she didn’t show up at all.

He was angry with himself because the night before had been the best opportunity he’d had to follow the gorgeous nurse with the short black hair back to her house. His brother, Turan, had been the computer genius, able to find anything with just a few clicks, but computers weren’t his forte. Rashad had taken a more conventional preference to learning what their uncle had to teach them. He had perfected his intimidation tactics and all but eradicated any kind of feeling, but it was his proficiency with high-yield explosives that set him apart from the others. He hated to admit the moment of nostalgia that hit him when the memory of his brother snuck up on him. That moment of weakness was dangerous.

Rashad chose a spot in the parking garage and waited for Heather to show up. Cars and trucks rushed by in a mad dash to make it to work on time. When the influx of traffic slowed to a trickle and she still hadn’t shown up, he muttered a curse under his breath and jerked his car door open. He moved quickly through the garage to the covered breezeway that connected to the hospital, determined not to be bested by that woman, or any woman, ever again.

Once inside, Rashad walked casually through the hospital as if he didn’t have a care in the world. When others smiled or spoke to him, he replied with a feigned warmth to avoid raising any alarms or giving anyone reason to remember him. When he stepped off the elevator on her floor, he moved more carefully so his target didn’t see him. Not that he was hiding from her, but when they officially met for the first time, he didn’t want a flicker of recognition to light in her eyes.

With the recent shift change, the nurses were extra busy preparing for their first round to check on their patients, giving him ample opportunity to fade into the background. Patients were just waking up, call lights were going off all up and down the hall, and the breakfast trays had just arrived. While everyone scurried from one room to another, Rashad slipped into the nurses’ break room to look for any information he could find on her.

One wall had a row of gray metal lockers for the nurses to store their belongings, but they all had combination locks securely fastened. There was no way he could find hers, break in to it, and leave undetected. A computer sat on a desk against the opposite wall with an uncomfortable, plastic chair. He quickly sat and tapped on a couple of keys, and the screen lit up, requesting a secure login ID.

“Damn computers,” he muttered under his breath as he rose from the chair. As he walked around the table in the center of the room, the corner of a paper sticking out from under a legal pad caught his eye. He slid the paper out and smiled to himself. “Thank you for leaving me a printed copy of the floor’s six-week schedule.”

As he folded the paper into quarters, the break room door opened and a nurse stopped dead in her tracks when she saw him. “Can I help you, sir?”

While slipping the paper into his back pocket, he flashed his most charming smile before he replied. “I’m trying to find the break room for the family to use. You know, the one with snack machines, coffee dispenser, and bottled drinks. I’m afraid I may be lost.”

“I can show you the way,” she offered. “This room is only for the nurses to use.”

“Ah, well, that would explain a few things,” he replied, pouring on the false charm. “Lead the way.”

The nurse turned and led him back to the main corridor. “Take the next hall on the right, and the vending area will be about halfway down on the left. There’s a sign hanging from the ceiling just over the doorway.”

“Thank you so much for your help,” he replied.

“No problem,” she answered. “Have a good day.”

Rashad made the trek to the break room, taking the opportunity to look around nonchalantly for Heather as he walked. Not seeing her on his initial pass, he waited in the break room and bought a few snack items for appearance’s sake before making the return trip. When he turned the corner back into the main hall, the first person he noticed was the security guard at the nurses’ station. His first thought was he’d been made, but he released his held breath when the guard leaned over the counter and kissed the nurse.

“I’m headed home now, babe. Have a good day,” the guard said. “Love you.”