CHAPTER FIVE
Matt
“Can you tell us who attacked you?”
After hours of pouring over surveillance videos and recordings of emergency calls, they’d finally gotten a break. It was by chance that Colt came across a first-responder dispatch channel that reported of an EMT attacking another EMT at the Jericho Airlines ticketing counter. The man who was attacked noticed a suspect EMT drugging one of the bombing victims who was only described as a dark-haired woman.
Matt and Colt were able to track the man down and had been showing him the evacuation footage of the Atlanta airport.
Thirty minutes of video time in, Matt was ready to come out of his skin. Grace was injured. Not only was Grace injured, she could have also been abducted. He didn’t even want to speculate on what this meant right then. First things first.
“Anything?” he prompted the EMT.
“No.”
Matt exhaled impatiently. Colt cut him a warning glance. He understood that these procedures took time, but did Grace have that luxury? She had enemies. The Mexican cartel for one, and if one of their men had her, their torture methods were legendary.
Five more minutes passed.
“Hmm …” the EMT said. “That’s them. I recognize their uniform from Halifax Emergency Response.”
Colt quickly paused and magnified the video. The frame was grainy, but there was a high possibility that the woman they were carting off on the stretcher was Grace.
“That’s her, Montgomery,” Matt exploded from his chair and paced the room, raking his fingers through his hair. “Tell me you can track them.”
“It’s beyond my expertise to know how to stitch this all together,” Colt admitted. “But I know who can. I just need to give their analysts this footage and they can track them from there.”
“Probably be a good idea to check which area hospitals and rescue squads have missing ambulances starting with Halifax,” Matt suggested before turning to the EMT. “We owe you, man.”
“No problem. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to stop Ms. Levinson’s abduction.”
“You’re helping us get her back.”
And Matt wasn’t stopping until she was safely in his arms.
It took another two excruciating hours before they had an address. The ambulance disappeared into a bank building’s basement parking and it had never emerged. It was also only a couple of blocks from Colt’s condo. There were cops and uniforms everywhere, which probably explained why the ambulance was laying low. If it had been reported stolen, heavy traffic would foil their escape from the city.
Something wasn’t adding up. It seemed far-fetched that the bombing was used to abduct Grace. No. She had witnessed something possibly connected to the bombing and was taken so she couldn’t talk. Four ambulances were reported stolen in the past week. Halifax Emergency Response had reported that it had one that had never checked back in that afternoon after being dispatched to the airport bombing. The driver of that vehicle was EMT Mario Diaz.
“That’s the building.” Colt pointed to the structure before them.
Just when they were about to cross the road, Colt received a call.
“Montgomery.”
Matt scanned the area while his friend talked on the phone. People were still milling around and the sports bar beside them was full. Everyone was riveted on the news channel though. So far there were forty-one dead and two hundred injured. The suspects were at large, but had been caught on surveillance videos before the bombing. No one had claimed responsibility yet, but all signs pointed to radical Islam.
“What? … Okay ….” Colt said. “Send the feed to my phone and don’t lose her.”
His attention snapped to Colt. “They found her?”
“Yeah, come on.” Colt jogged across the street as Matt followed suit. “Someone’s after her,” Colt said shortly. His friend’s phone buzzed and its screen lit up, showing a woman fast limping through a crowd.
Grace.
Adrenalin surged through Matt’s system. He looked up ahead to see if he could identify her location. On the screen, the walls behind her were brick and up ahead of them was a row of brick buildings.
“A few blocks up,” Matt said under his breath. He and Colt weaved in and out through the crowded sidewalk.
“She just passed a cop,” Colt muttered, glancing at his phone. “Why didn’t she ask for help?”
“Probably because the person who abducted her was also a first responder. Trust is not high on her list right now.” But she would trust a familiar face. Even if she hated him right now, Matt was her best bet for safety. He’d make sure of it.
“She entered a convenience store … fuck, the two guys from the ambulance just followed her in.”
Matt’s pulse roared in his ears as he and Colt broke into a dead run. They needed to get to her fast.
He needed to get to her.
It probably took them two minutes to get to the store, but it felt like an eternity. Matt burst through the automatic sliding doors, his eyes searching frantically for Grace. Something made him look at the convex security mirror located at the furthest aisle. Sure enough, his girl was being herded into the corner by those two douchebags.
Pointing to the mirror and to the end of the aisle, he motioned for Colt that he should approach from behind Grace’s abductors.
Matt approached from the aisle before the last one so he could put himself between those men and his woman. Before he made the turn, he reached for his gun tucked behind his waistband. Drawing it out, he swung around the aisle, startling Grace and her kidnappers and shielding her from them. Matt didn’t have the luxury of taking in her condition because he had to eliminate the threat first.
“Stand back, you fucks,” he growled while pointing his gun at the two men in EMT uniforms. “You okay, Grace?” he asked without looking at her.
No answer.
The shuffle of feet behind him made him turn his head and was shocked to see Grace running away from him.
What the ever-loving fuck?
She disappeared out a side door.
“Fuck!” Matt cursed under his breath. “Goddammit, woman!”
“Go!” Colt yelled, pointing his gun at Grace’s abductors. “Somebody call 911.”
Matt tore down the aisle and shouldered through the door where Grace exited. It opened to an alley behind the convenience store. He spotted her picking herself off the ground beside a dumpster. She must have fallen.
“Grace!”
“Stay the hell away from me,” she screamed.
“Grace! What is wrong with you?”
She limped forward to put distance between them. It was a pathetic attempt as she stumbled again. Rolling on her ass, she scuttled away from him. Matt was confused at the expression on her face.
Fear.
He approached cautiously.
“Grace, I’m here to help you,” he intoned in a steady voice. “You can’t still be mad at me. Nothing matters anymore except your safety.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mister.” Her voice was hoarse. “Just stay away from me.”
Mister?
The light in the alley was poor at best but the dark patch on her jeans that had soaked through a bandage alarmed him. Maybe she was delirious from blood loss?
“Look, you’re injured and clearly not yourself.”
“What do you guys want from me?” she screamed.
“Babe …”
“I know nothing!” she sobbed. “I don’t remember a thing, do you understand? I know nothing!”
Fuck. What does she mean?
He studied her. Her hair was matted against her face. Streaks of dried blood and grime lined her face. Her right eye and cheekbone were swollen and yet she was unmistakably Grace. He would know those bow-shaped lips anywhere.
She got up shakily once again, swaying
Matt reached out to steady her, but she jerked away from his touch.
She laughed, almost on the verge of hysteria. “I know my name because I saw my face on my driver’s license. Other than that, there isn’t a thing you can get from me.” She looked at him pleadingly. “So please, just let me go,” she whispered.
“I can’t let you go, babe,” Matt replied softly.
Her eyes closed, her face scrunching in defeat and shoulders slumping. “I’m so tired. So … so freaking tired.”
And with those words, she crumbled at his feet.
*****
Matt closed the door to the condo’s guest bedroom and leaned against it. He was feeling a mixture of overwhelming relief and sudden weariness. It was as if he’d been jacked on adrenalin for so long and was just now experiencing a definitive crash. He slid to the floor and buried his head in his hands.
Christ. What a day and the questions were only beginning.
“Scotch?” Colt asked.
Matt glanced up and accepted the proffered drink.
“Thanks, man.”
“She okay?”
He exhaled deeply and took a sip of the amber liquid. “Depends how you define okay.”
Thank fuck he was able to catch Grace when she fainted and before she hit the pavement. The nearest hospital was just a couple of blocks down from where he found her, so he ran the short distance and marched her right into the emergency room.
“Bombing victim,” he barked and nurses immediately swarmed around them. Grace had regained consciousness at the hospital but was too weak to protest treatment. The blood loss and the concussion had taken its toll on her. It cut deep when she wouldn’t let him near her, clutching at the hand of the head nurse as if the medical personnel could shield her from Matt.
“She’s confused, I think,” he said hoarsely.
“Don’t let him near me,” Grace begged of the nurse.
“We won’t, sweetie.”
Many eyes looked at him suspiciously, but he didn’t give a fuck. All he cared about was Grace’s well-being, so he backed away from the exam room so the doctors could get to work. They wouldn’t tell him anything until several scans, MRIs, and many hours later revealed that Grace couldn’t make medical decisions for herself.
She had a bad concussion that caused almost total retrograde amnesia. She didn’t remember people or events. She remembered skills that depended on muscle memory and general social and historical information that was learned.
The only reason Grace allowed herself to be taken home by Matt was because she didn’t trust the cops either. Apparently, she had overheard that the person or entity who had her kidnapped had some Atlanta PD in their pocket.
“Why should I trust you?” Grace fired at him.
“Because I’m the only friend you can trust right now, Grace. It may be too much for you to process, but you are DEA, and you’ve hinted before that the Mexican cartel has sent an assassin after you.”
“They mentioned a man named El Segador.”
Matt’s blood had run cold. The Reaper. He tried his best not to look alarmed and smiled reassuringly instead. “He won’t get you. I have the resources to protect you.” An entire town actually.
“If I’m DEA, shouldn’t I be contacting my boss? Shouldn’t they be taking care of me? Maybe I was on assignment.”
Matt hated Grace’s boss, Elliot Holden.
“Would you simply trust him if he walks in here right now and whisks you back to DC?”
Her face looked troubled. “The man at the airport told me to trust no one.”
“Until you get your memory back, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
Luckily Grace was too groggy to reason or argue with him. Her doctor wanted to keep her overnight, but with people who’d been capable of blowing up Atlanta airport looking for her, they’d be too exposed at the hospital. Hell, it’d be so easy to walk in disguised as a doctor, a nurse, or a paramedic.
So he brought her to Colt’s condo and they would be leaving for Misty Grove at dawn.
“How’s Diaz and the other guy?” Matt asked.
“They’re in police custody,” Colt said. “My buddy will keep me updated. Don’t worry.” He trusted Colt to be on top of it.
“We know they work for El Segador, but I doubt they’ve dealt with him directly. He’s the cartel’s top hitman. He’s not going to make himself accessible to low level foot soldiers.”
“You know this throws a wrench in the ISIS theory of the airport bombing.”
“They’ve claimed responsibility,” Matt reminded him. A few hours ago, all news channels and social media were abuzz with the video released by the terrorist organization.
“How did deLamar take the news of Grace?”
“I didn’t tell him she has amnesia.”
“Damn …” Colt chuckled. “So, you told him Grace simply went with you willingly?”
“Yup.”
“There’s going to be hell to pay when Troy finds out you’ve withheld information and his woman.”
Matt bristled. “If Grace is going to be someone’s woman, she’s going to be mine.”
Colt smiled slowly. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Fuck you,” Matt muttered, feeling uncomfortable with his declaration, and not really sure he meant it or was just peacock posturing. He was definitely in uncharted territory.
“Have you contacted Elliot Holden?”
Matt shook his head. “I’ve never trusted that weasel. I’m not letting him know I have Grace until I have her safely tucked away on our turf.”
“You know you just got off the hook with the DEA, right?”
“That ‘biker war’ was fabricated and you know it. It had nothing to do with the DEA, and I just went along with it and became the fall guy. Fucking Admiral.” Matt sighed. As much as he grumbled about Admiral Porter’s decision, he knew it was the right one to protect the Chrysalis survivors and the secrets of Misty Grove. “I promised Grace I’d keep her safe, and I’ll risk anything to keep that promise.”
Colt stared at him in a strange this-is-not-you look, but it didn’t bother Matt in the least. He’d never been this protective over anyone that wasn’t family, and something told him his life was about to change.