CHAPTER TWO
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Sawyer Madison quickly made his way through the typical emergency waiting room, scanning the pained faces of those who were sitting in the chairs. Most of the people here were glaring at the nurse who was sitting behind the registration desk. The woman was obviously wearing her everyday work scrubs as she continued to stare at her intake screen as if she didn’t know she was the most hated woman in this hospital right now.
It was an exercise in emergency room triage—certain injuries outranked others. Massive bleeders and those susceptible to shock tended to get to the front of the line. If someone had a fever and he or she wasn’t going into convulsions…well, waiting for that one vacancy for what could be hours was inevitable.
“Excuse me,” Sawyer said, grabbing the nurse’s attention. She instantly grabbed a clipboard and a pen, setting it atop the sterile counter. Her name tag read Brenda. “I’m actually looking for a patient who was brought here roughly an hour ago. Her name is Cam—”
Sawyer broke off his words, cursing underneath his breath at recalling that Camryn hadn’t been admitted under her real name. He retrieved his cell phone from its holder he had clipped to the left side of his belt and read the display.
“Camilla Stivak.” How in the hell Camryn expected people to believe that was even a name astounded him. “She was brought in with a head injury.”
“Are you family or her significant other? If so, go through the double doors and she’s in room three on your right-hand side. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait to see her until she is admitted to a room upstairs or released from the hospital.”
Brenda was efficient and to the point. Sawyer could appreciate that. He offered his appreciation, erroneously said that he was family, and then swiftly made his way through the automatic double doors she must have triggered to open from somewhere underneath her desk once he had checked the box in her assessment. It didn’t take him long to determine which room was his destination. The signs were easy to follow.
“Camryn?” Sawyer called out discreetly, giving a courtesy knock when all he really wanted to do was barge inside and make sure his friend’s kid sister was okay.
Camryn’s added line to the text message she’d sent earlier requesting he not call her brother rubbed him the wrong way. Brody was her flesh and blood. He deserved to know what was going on.
Sawyer wasn’t in the habit of keeping secrets from his teammates, especially when it came to matters of family. He reflected on the fact that he might have taken his jesting with Brody a little too far about being obsessed with his sister. It wasn’t like he would have ever acted on it.
“Sawyer, is that you? Come in,” Camryn called out, her soft accented voice carrying through the door. It was unmistakable. Midwestern folks all had that pronounced R sound, though this time her tone contained a hint of exhaustion.
“Are you okay?” Sawyer asked, stepping inside the room and suppressing the words that really wanted to escape his mouth. Holy shit. What the hell had happened? The only time he’d seen her look worse was in that science fiction movie when her character had a knock-down, drag-out fight with an alien species. Of course, most of her clothes had gotten torn to pieces, but at least she hadn’t been eaten like the other gal she’d costarred with. The paleness to her beautiful features wasn’t done by a makeup artist this time. He said the second thing that came to mind though, and he meant it. “You need to call Brody. This is beyond some simple mishap.”
Camryn appeared to be signing her release papers while a nurse stood on the other side of the bed, staring at her patient as if she’d won the lottery. She would definitely have a story to tell come morning. It was then he realized he’d called out Camryn’s real name. Damn it.
Shouldn’t Camryn’s agent, publicist, or whatever the hell they were called be here with her to handle things like this when the shit hit the fan?
“Camilla, you really should call your brother before I do.”
The nurse appeared somewhat amused at his fumbled attempt at undoing his previous mistake, but it was clear she understood exactly who she’d treated for the last hour. Camryn was more than recognizable lying there in that hospital bed, regardless that she was using a ridiculously stupid, made-up name.
Sawyer caught sight of the letters printed out on the papers in Camryn’s hand. She would have had to have identification to go along with Camilla Stivak’s information. He wondered who exactly had given her false identification and was it any good?
“I’m not calling Brody, because all he’ll do is fly off the handle and worry. He’ll tell me that I need to return to Florida where he can keep a closer eye on me,” Camryn stated, though Sawyer didn’t miss the wince she gave when she drew a deep breath just before starting to raise her voice. Just how hard had she hit her head? She finally finished signing her release papers and handed them back to the nurse. “Thank you, Nancy. I appreciate everything you’ve done.”
“Are you taking her home?” Nancy asked him, a frown crossing her somewhat rather thin, chapped lips. She’d gone from being an avid fan to a professional ball-breaker in under a second flat. “She’s going against the doctor’s wishes and releasing herself from our care. She’s suffered a moderate concussion this evening. She’s been told that she needs to have someone with her throughout the rest of the night, waking her up every hour to ensure that her symptoms don’t become worse. You should bring her back without delay if she experiences confusion, nausea, or vomiting. The instructions I just repeated are on the sheet I gave her.”
“I’ll make sure to do exactly as you suggest.” Sawyer shot a sideways look of disappointment Camryn’s way, but she ignored it as she slid off the bed and slipped her manicured feet into what looked like very uncomfortable shoes. “Thank you. I appreciate you taking such good care of her up to this point.”
Nancy paused and once more looked Camryn’s way, most likely debating if she should ask for an autograph. She made the right decision though and quietly left the room. It was more than apparent that Camryn hadn’t told the medical staff what had truly transpired, or a slow-talking, quick-witted, plainclothes Louisiana state police detective would have been called and a report would have been in the process of being written.
“Are you out of your mind?” Sawyer asked harshly, stepping forward and not allowing Camryn to move toward the door. “The doctors and nurses want to keep you overnight for observation, and you say no? What? You have better things to do? Brody’s going to blow an ever-loving gasket, and it’s me who is going to have to deal with the fallout.”
“No, he’s not going to blow any kind of gasket, because he’s not going to know about this little accident.” Camryn slowly tilted her head back, telling Sawyer that she was dealing with one hell of a headache. Damn, but she was a beautiful woman. Her brown eyes practically sparked with anger and intensity as she met his gaze head on. “I called you because you’re the only one here who I know I can trust to help me without my name being leaked to the press. I already contacted my publicist, who’s already been on the phone with the hospital’s chief administrator. Of course, Jessie and Rylan over at Latrobe’s can be counted on to be discreet, as always. The last thing I need is something like this being made public.”
Sawyer sized her up, wondering just how far he could push her without being entirely excluded from this over-inflated Hollywood cover-up scenario she was constructing. Brody had warned him that Camryn had a wild streak to her, but it had more to do with her being overly headstrong than it did with making bad decisions. Standing here staring down at a woman who didn’t have the sense to listen to the doctors, however, had him rethinking that initial judgement.
Hell, he shouldn’t even be here right now. Safeguard Securities & Investigations was working on a major case at the moment, and his ass should be staking out the front of Mary Baker’s rather small house with a lot of Craftsman-style accents located in the Carollton Historic District of New Orleans. As it stood, he’d called in a quick favor from a friend who was a ranking member on the NOLA police department. He was able to get an unmarked patrol car to cover for him while he drove over here to the hospital.
“Tell me exactly what happened without excluding any details,” Sawyer requested, somewhat resigned. He made a split-second decision to follow her lead. He didn’t like keeping shit from a team member, but he could always decide at a later date to tell Brody everything once he understood what was going on. First, Sawyer needed to see how serious the situation really was. She’d mentioned someone pushed her, but he couldn’t imagine such an act had been done with malice or even purposely, for that matter. “Did you have too much to drink, maybe? Did a new friend get a little bit too friendly and—”
“Of course you’d think that,” Camryn muttered, pushing past him as she made her way slowly toward the door. It appeared she took offense at his assumption that she couldn’t hold her liquor, but it was New Orleans, and she did mention being on Bourbon Street. “What actress doesn’t stay out late, partying until the wee hours until she can’t stand up. For your information, it was only eight-thirty at night. And to answer your next question—no, I didn’t have too much to drink. I wasn’t in a position where I would drink more than two cocktails. I was intentionally pushed off the sidewalk. I reached out for the assailant rather than putting my arms out to catch myself, which meant I couldn’t react quickly enough to keep my head from hitting the ground.”
Sawyer could only stare at the closing examination room door. Camryn had decided to exit upon making her last declaration. He would have sworn that she’d eventually take back her previous claim of this being done on purpose, but she hadn’t in the end.
“Damnit, Camryn,” Sawyer muttered as he grabbed the heavy door before it closed completely. He caught up to her in the hallway, taking ahold of her upper arm as gently as he could to prevent her from going any farther. “You’d better talk to me before I change my mind about calling Brody.”
Camryn’s dark gaze studied him, apparently trying to figure out just how serious his threat was about betraying her trust. Her sudden attentiveness at his admonition gave him time to study her as she stood there glaring at him.
She was everything Hollywood made her out to be—a classic beauty in the mold of previous Hollywood flowers, such as Martina Stella or Claudia Cardinale.
Camryn Novak had a flawless heart-shaped face, perfectly bowed lips with just the right amount of natural rouge, porcelain skin that bordered on perfection, and seductive bedroom eyes that reminded him of those delicious chocolate diamonds he always saw in those jewelry store commercials.
She was also off limits, about as far as she could possibly be. He would do well to remember that.
“I screen tested for the main role in a television pilot today,” Camryn finally confessed, backing up a few steps so that she was out of the way of the family members coming and going from patients’ rooms. They remained separated by the width of the hall. He decided to allow her the distance so that she could continue uninterrupted and not feel pressured by his presence. He wasn’t so sure that was the only reason he remained at bay, taking in mind the sudden air of vulnerability that swept over her as she leaned back against the wall. It looked as if she needed the leverage to bare her soul, and he tamped down the urge to tell her once more that she should have heeded the doctor’s advice. “Afterward, I joined one of the actors I’d worked with before on another project for a drink. I swear I only had two, if you’re wondering. And I also never let my drink out of sight.”
Sawyer clenched his jaw to prevent himself from saying anything that would prevent her from finishing her story unabated. The sooner he got to the bottom of why someone would have pushed her with the clear intention of physically hurting her, the faster he could return to his given assignment and not experience any more guilt over not calling his friend the moment Camryn’s text had come through to his phone.
“I was about to head back to my hotel when I saw a man taking pictures of me.” Camryn paused, almost as if she were still debating internally on whether or not that was unusual. Sawyer figured it happened all the time, but what the hell did he know about the everyday lives of actresses and actors? Even he had become somewhat infatuated with the fact that Brody’s little sister was the one and only Camryn Novak. It wasn’t everyone who could claim such a world famous relative. “Sawyer, I don’t think he was with the paparazzi. He was different.”
Sawyer still wasn’t seeing the problem here, but he had a bad feeling about what she was suggesting. Had she acquired a stalker, or worse? His fingers itched to grab his cell phone and call Brody immediately. His second reaction was to take care of this scumbag himself, maybe find some dark alley to teach him a lesson in proper manners when addressing a lady.
“Are you saying a fan first took your picture, and then with intent…pushed you into the road to somehow purposefully hurt you?”
“I don’t know why he did what he did, which was why I called you,” Camryn said, crossing her arms and somehow appearing even slighter, if that were possible. She had a rather tiny build and was maybe five feet five inches compared to his hulking six-foot frame. “He followed me for a good ten minutes through the crowd, maybe more, before I thought I’d ditched him. I ducked into Latrobe’s after I bumped into this stranger, causing his drink to spill all over both of us. Someone recognized me and offered to help me clean up, and I ended up signing some cocktail napkins until…”
Sawyer reflexively considered himself a rather laidback kind of guy, given deference to his Type A personality. After all, he had to be to deal with a lot of different extreme self-involved personalities in his line of work, and that included his teammates. But his patience was running thin, and it most likely had to do with the fact that this mesmerizing woman standing in front of him was asking him to withhold information from a brother.
“Camryn, just spit it out.”
She was wearing a white and red-stained, off-the-shoulder, flowy-type blouse with a pair of jeans that formed to her body in a way most woman only dreamed of when they dressed in their off-the-shelf department stores copies of her designer clothes. He was somewhat surprised when she was able to easily slide her fingers into the front pocket of the denim.
“This was included in some of the napkins I was signing.” Camryn handed him a white, tattered square with black ink soaked through both sides. He turned it so that the inscription was legible. “My name and a date…one that doesn’t occur for another two weeks. I started thinking about the case you and my brother are working on and my thoughts kind of ran away from me.”
“What do you mean?” Sawyer asked, continuing to stare at the torn napkin in his hand. There was no way in hell she could be referring to their quarry—Shepherd Moss. What was the off-chance that a sadistic serial killer would take that particular avenue of approach and basically announce to the entire world that he was going to kill his next victim—who also just so happened to be the relative of one of the agents searching for the same notorious murderer? It sounded ludicrous to even suggest it, but he’d seen some horribly weird shit in his line of work. Camryn’s silence finally had him looking up, catching her slightly awkward facial expression. Oh, shit. “Camryn, what did you do?”
“I looked up to find him standing near the entryway of the foyer on Royal, still hiding behind his camera and taking pictures of me signing autographs,” Camryn confessed somewhat dismissively with a small shrug of her shoulder. The gentle lines around her eyes contracted in an effort to stem her current pain. He really needed to get her somewhere more comfortable. “I went after him.”
“What do you mean, you went after him?” Sawyer asked with a rather pissed-off inflection, wanting clarification before he told her that such a move was beyond foolish. He didn’t doubt that Brody taught her what to do in certain situations, but it appeared that she didn’t truly understand the significance of his advice.
“I wanted to confront him, to find out what he wanted from me,” Camryn said rather defensively. She squared her shoulders and let her arms hang down her sides, even closing her manicured fingernails into the palms of her hands. “He stood there and pointed toward the napkin, Sawyer. He was the one who gave it to me. This isn’t your typical obsessed fan, wanting to say hi or take a picture with me to show his friends. He was…different.”
Sawyer was being placed in a relatively onerous position, because even the slightest chance that Camryn had been placed in the crosshairs of a psychopath meant taking certain precautions. She must have sensed what he was about to say, because she was already shaking her head and pushing back against the wall. She didn’t even bother to look back as she headed for the double doors that would take her out through the waiting room full of emergency patients.
“Camryn, stop.” Sawyer had dealt with the fact that his boy next door looks caused people to think he was a pushover. The dimple in his right cheek certainly didn’t help dismiss his carefree appearance. But that was far from his true nature, and Brody’s sister was about to find that out. “You and I both know I can’t let you walk out of here without some sort of personal protection.”
“I’ve been on my own for a very long time, Sawyer. My days of requiring a babysitter are long gone.” Camryn was still testing how far she could push him, but even she had to see that she’d put him in an impossible situation. She was within two feet of those double doors when she turned back his way. “My fear momentarily got the best of me, because I’m not usually put into those kinds of positions. The reason I’m even here in New Orleans is because my agent thinks it’s time to put me out to pasture. It’s time for me to start doing sitcoms or hour-long dramas on television. Regardless, the date on that napkin is there for a specific reason. It wasn’t until I was in that MRI machine that I remembered the color of the man’s hair—dark brown. And his other basic features were different. Don’t think I didn’t call up Shepherd Moss’ picture on my phone to do a comparison. It wasn’t him. It was just my overactive imagination.”
The coiled pressure inside of Sawyer’s chest slightly gave way with relief that this situation wasn’t about to turn into a full-fledged shitstorm. The entire team—Townes Calvert, Keane Sanderson, Royce Haverton, Coen Flynn, not to mention Brody—would have descended upon New Orleans in an instant, as well as the U.S. Marshal Service and the feds had anyone actually believed for a second that Shepherd Moss was within these city limits.
New Orleans would be a serial killer’s wet dream of a hunting ground…fresh meat waving in front of the wolf as he cruised through the crowds of unknowing sheep.
Unfortunately, it didn’t erase the fact that Camryn believed she’d purposefully been shoved to the ground by someone…hard enough to warrant her a trip to the emergency trauma ward. He couldn’t just leave her here, and he wouldn’t have done so even if she hadn’t been a teammate’s sister.
“You still can’t go out the front entrance. That is, if you don’t want to start back where you left off at Latrobe’s,” Sawyer said, gesturing behind him to another exit sign that he was banking on leading them to the other side of the building where no one would catch sight of her leaving. How did she put up with this type of surveillance nonstop? “Someone is bound to take your picture and post it to their social media, so we’ll head out the back. We’ll then drive to the police station where you can make a formal report.”
“And have the headline in tomorrow’s newspaper read Actress assaulted by a stalker after a night of drinking?” Camryn asked, still not moving away from the double doors. She cocked one impeccably sculpted eyebrow that he’d only ever seen on models and actresses. “I don’t think that’s in my best interest. Sawyer, why do you think I contacted you of all people?”
“You can stop right there,” Sawyer warned her, not about to be drawn into a situation that would put him in the crossfire of both Brody’s wrath and his boss’s for not following through on his assignment, let alone the blood it would put in the water for his other teammates. “I’m working a high-profile case—meaning I left my assigned post—to come here because you were in trouble. You are Brody’s sister, and we take care of our own. That much I could get away with. I did not come here because I have nothing better to do than locate some random nut job who got carried away and subsequently tune him up in order for him to stay away from you.”
Camryn looked down at the ground, and for a moment Sawyer thought she was going to cry in response to his declaration. God help him if she did. He didn’t mean to sound as if her situation wasn’t important to him. As a matter of fact, her plight had become the first priority on his list…and that’s what angered him most. He shouldn’t feel this type of responsibility for her, and he chalked it up to the fact that she was Brody’s sister. Anyone in his situation would have this type of strong reaction, right? He involuntarily took a step forward as any man would have at seeing a woman in distress, but he was brought up short when she raised her dark gaze filled with…determination.
“I happen to know just how important the case is that you’re working on, but all I need to know is if I’m dealing with a fan who needs to learn boundaries or if I’m actually in trouble with a budding psycho killer. One day, Sawyer. I need this kept low profile for a number of reasons. Please. I’m asking for your help.”