Chapter 26
Simon jammed the gas pedal to the floor and shot down the country road. He’d been driving for hours since Genevieve rejected him. Him. After everything he’d done for her. And she was offering their business relationship as a peace offering. Like that would be enough to appease him.
There had to be someone else. The way she had reacted when he saw the drawing…furtive, secretive. He’d find out who the man was, and, disfigured or not, he’d regret coming between them. He’d die as easily as Andy.
But he had another problem to deal with first. Mai. He had to find a way to get to her. First he’d go by the hospital to see what kind of security they put in place. If he couldn’t get to her while she was in the hospital, he’d deal with her once she was released.
He turned east and drove to the lake. The houseboat he used had been long abandoned, the elderly owner too ill to visit or keep it up, leaving it free to use as he chose. It was still docked, with police tape wrapped around the railing and barring the door.
His cabin was farther uphill from the lake. He pulled the jaguar around the back of the house and let himself in the back door. It took him only a few minutes to change into worn jeans, a faded T-shirt, and tennis shoes. He tucked one leg from a pair of pantyhose into his pocket, along with seven-inch switchblade, tugged a baseball cap down over his hair and, leaving the keys to the Jag on the ring by the door, sauntered out to the old blue truck and fired up the engine.
Twenty minutes later he parked behind a local mini-mart down the street from the hospital parking lot. Before exiting the truck, he pulled on rubber gloves. He cut through nearby yards until he reached the perimeter of the hospital’s property, following the fence to the sidewalk and wandering in through the emergency room entrance, where patient traffic was at its heaviest. Conscious of the cameras along the way, he kept his head down and adopted a long, loping stride unlike his own natural gait.
Mai wouldn’t be in the surgical wing, pediatrics, maternity, or oncology, but possibly on general medicine on the fourth floor. There would be an officer posted at her door if the country hicks running the police department knew anything about what they were doing.
He bypassed the elevator and took the stairs, careful to keep an eye out for cameras. He eased the door open on the fourth floor and looked through the crack. Midway up the hall a young police officer sat in a chair, sipping a cup of coffee while he read a book.
A heavyset nurse dressed in colorful scrubs came out of a room across the hall. She pushed a computer stand before her as she walked down to the nurse’s station, parked the computer next to it, and moved around the desk, disappearing when she sat down.
Simon eased the door shut and took a moment to think things through. He’d be too exposed if he opened the door and walked down the hall, so he needed some distraction to draw the officer away. Or draw the man to him. Excitement sent a charge of adrenaline through his system, and his heart raced. It had been too long since he’d faced a challenge like this.
Keeping his head down, he went back down the stairs to the third floor, wandered down the hall to the elevators, and pushed the button, sending it up one floor. Next he stuffed the cap in his pocket, took out the pantyhose and, leaning forward, pulled the hose over his head and replaced his ball cap, checking his reflection in the shiny metal elevator door to make sure his features were sufficiently flattened and distorted.
The door opened, and he rushed toward the nurse’s station. Two nurses were sitting at the computer terminals keying in information. One glanced up, and he registered her age, about fifty, and weight as way more than she should be carrying, as she said, “May I—” She got no further, because he sprinted around the counter and punched her in the side of the head, knocking her off her chair to the floor.
The other nurse jumped to her feet and darted toward a room behind the station. He grabbed her by the hair, his fingers digging in tight. He drove her head against the edge of the counter, then dropped her to the floor.
The moment the cop grabbed him from behind, he jerked out his switchblade, pushed the button, and slashed the cop’s arm. He jerked back and fumbled for his gun. Simon turned and buried the knife hilt-deep in the man’s neck, and he went down, choking on the blade and the blood running into this throat.
Simon reached for the cop’s pistol—not the standard thirty-eight he expected, but a nice Beretta. Leaving his three victims helpless and bleeding on the floor, Simon walked down the hall to the door where the cop had been sitting.
He checked the gun’s chamber and, seeing a round was already in place, flipped the safety off. He pushed against the door, only to find it locked. He fired three shots into the lock and kicked the door open. Two elderly women cowered in the corner, their bony arms up in the air in a posture of surrender.
“Where’s Mai?”
One of the women sobbed and hunched her shoulders. She pointed across the hall.
Moving fast, the rubber soles of his tennis shoes squeaking, he dashed across the hall, hitting the door hard and shoving it open. The bed was rumpled, but empty. He ran to the bathroom, but the door was open, the light off. He flipped it on, illuminating the dull, sparse space. He checked the two storage cabinets, on either side of the room. She’d slipped out past him while he was taking care of the cop.
He rushed out of the room. Spying another nurse coming down the hall, he raised the gun, and she darted into the closest room. He hit the stairwell at a run and caught the snick of a door closing somewhere down below. He followed the sound, then paused on the platform to the second floor to listen. He’d never find them.
Every instinct screamed for him to get out.
He’d been so close. Rage made him sweat profusely. A rash of pinpricks flared up the back of his neck. Swearing, he tucked the Beretta into the waistband of his pants and pulled his T-shirt down over it. It wouldn’t hide it well, but it might get him out of the hospital unnoticed.
He hurried down the stairs. At the last minute, he jerked his hat off, peeled off the stocking, and stuffed it into his pocket. Hat back in place, he yanked the door open and loped his way down the hall and out the emergency room door.
Sirens wailed in the distance. He sauntered down the sidewalk, pausing long enough to throw the Beretta down a storm drain. When he reached the perimeter of the hospital property, he took the same route through the yards and back alleys to the small market and jumped into his truck, peeling the rubber gloves off and tossing them on the seat.
Five minutes later he was halfway across town and on his way back to the cabin.
Police cars raced past him toward the hospital.