“Good,” Jessie muttered.

  “I have some legitimately happy news if you want to hear it,” he offered.

  “Please.”

  “Susannah is doing better,” he said. “You were right. In addition to a cracked rib, she did have internal bleeding. Apparently, the impact from the force of that explosion last night was greater than she realized. But the doctors tell me that she's been stabilized."

  “Where is she now?”

  “Sleeping a few floors down from us,” he said. “I checked on her while you were unconscious, and she was completely zonked out.”

  “I’m glad she’s doing better,” Jessie said, pleased that there was at least some good news to share.

  “That’s not all,” he told her. “I was able to visit Nettles too. He’s in a lot of pain, as you might expect. That will happen when your face hits a wall full speed and parts of it break. But other than having his head more bandaged up than yours, he’s okay. He even wanted to visit you later, when you’re up for it.”

  “That would be nice,” Jessie told him.

  "Karen Bray and Sam Goodwin want to do the same thing," he added. "They were both released this afternoon. When I filled them in on your situation, they wanted to come back right away, but I told them to rest tonight and stop in tomorrow."

  “So two HSS people leave the hospital, only to be replaced by two more,” Jessie replied, trying to keep things light. “It’s a revolving door around here.”

  “That’s for sure,” he said. “It seems like I’m the only one still standing. Good thing I’m such a good multi-tasker that I can run the unit on my own.”

  He smiled goofily to let her know he was kidding.

  “Good thing,” she agreed. “But with everyone out of commission, who is left to call Jack Dolan for updates on the other cases of interest?”

  Ryan's expression darkened, and she knew she'd touched a nerve.

  “What is it?” she asked cautiously.

  “I was hoping I’d be able to only share good news with you,” he said quietly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dolan told me that they haven’t made any progress at all on either Haddonfield or Pierce. He’s afraid they’ve both left town for good.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second,” she insisted. “Do you?”

  “I’m dubious,” he said. “But it’s not our case anymore.”

  She stared at him long and hard before replying.

  “Maybe we should get it back.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  Mark Haddonfield tried not to look suspicious.

  It had been a challenge just to get in the hospital and he didn’t want to do anything that would draw attention now that he was here.

  A few hours ago, everything seemed so hopeless. But all it took was one Nixle alert about the arrest of a serial killer suspect in Beverly Hills after a car accident to change everything. Using the desktop computer in the home of Steve Odom, the elderly neighbor of Jessie’s that he’d killed, he did a deep dive on the incident.

  It became pretty clear that the serial killer, an inheritor of a snack food fortune, was an ideal suspect for an HSS case. The reference to an “intended victim” in a since-deleted LAPD press release, along with a mention of the hospital they were taken to, told him that it was time to come out of hiding. This might be his last, best chance to get to Jessie Hunt. But how to get to her? It was Jessie who came up with the solution.

  "You know what you need to do," she baited. "There's only way into that hospital tonight. The question is: do you have the guts to do it, or are you too much of a coward?"

  He knew the answer to that question. He was willing to do whatever it took to complete the plan he put in place all those months ago. So he grabbed a box cutter from Odom’s junk drawer, disinfected it as best he could, got in the man’s car and drove to Cedars-Sinai.

  After parking, he put on his black wig. Then he used the box cutter to slice a long gash in his left leg, just above his injured knee. Next he hobbled to the emergency room entrance, where his bloody leg, his real limp, and his moderately credible attempt to seem disoriented got him taken right back.

  He let them stitch him up, then snuck out before getting formally discharged, grabbing a set of orderly scrubs along the way. He waited in the stall of a staff restroom until a guy in the same scrubs came in, then stepped out of the stall while the man was washing his hands, grabbed the back of his head, and slammed it down onto the edge of the sink.

  “Move quick,” Jessie hissed at him. “If someone finds you now, it’s all over.”

  After hurriedly dragging the unconscious man over to the janitorial closet and dumping him behind a bucket of mops, he took the man’s ID badge and keys and left. That made it much easier to move about the hospital. He wasn’t able to access any computers because he didn’t have a passcode. But it turned out there was a much simpler way to find out if Jessie was here. He simply followed the cops.

  “Don’t freak out,” Jessie warned. “You belong here too. Just act normal.”

  He got in an elevator with two of them, watched which button they pushed—the sixth floor—and subsequently hit the button for the fifth. He got out at his appointed floor, took the stairs one level up, opened the door, and peeked down the hallway.

  Sure enough, there were two officers by the waiting area elevators and another one standing by the nurses station. That didn’t guarantee that he was on the right floor. They might be here to guard the serial killer. But it was worth investigating.

  He stepped out into the hall and grabbed hold of a gurney resting along the wall. With his head down, he methodically moved along, trying to glance in every room he passed. But the actual heads of the beds were impossible to see from his angle, and getting closer to the doors to look would surely get him noticed.

  Frustrated, he wondered if he’d made a mistake. He had walked into the lion’s den: a hospital full of cops, not to mention cameras everywhere. He’d left an unconscious orderly in a closet six floors below who would inevitably be missed. And when he was found, the whole hospital would probably go on lockdown. He was short on time and out of ideas.

  “I knew you’d wuss out,” Jessie muttered with disgust. “You’ll use any excuse to fail, won’t you? Maybe look around for a half a second before giving up.”

  That’s when he saw her. Mark had already had a close encounter with the woman just yesterday, only hours before he set the bomb in his ratty, Skid Row studio apartment. In fact, it was likely because of her that the cops had found the place.

  Kat Gentry had nearly stumbled upon him on the street, and only his quick-thinking idea to pretend to be homeless had saved him from discovery. But now she was here, pacing in the sixth-floor waiting area. And if Kat Gentry was here, looking concerned, that meant Jessie Hunt was here too.

  He was close now. He could almost taste justice being served.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  Ash Pierce was working off a hunch.

  As she stood in the dark alley across from the staff parking lot entrance to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, she knew it might not pan out. Hannah could already be in the hospital by now. Or she might try to enter the place through the main entrance or the emergency room. But Ash doubted it.

  No matter how concerned she was for her sister’s welfare, the girl wasn’t dumb. She knew an assassin was hunting her. That’s why she’d been in hiding in the first place. And Hannah also knew that Ash had the ability to access all kinds of databases and video surveillance feeds, including those at hospitals.

  So, even in a panicky state, she would make some effort to get into the hospital via a route that would be harder to track. The staff entrance in the back of the hospital was still monitored by cameras, but Hannah might reasonably guess that her pursuer wouldn’t prioritize that feed. She’d be wrong.

  Ash didn’t have time to set up online surveillance of the place, but she could go a more basic route, which is why she was standing under the awning of closed flower shop five hundred feet away, using binoculars to watch everyone who entered the staff entrance.

  Twenty minutes and one very achy ankle later, she hit paydirt. A cab pulled up near the parking lot and a tall, young woman in a baseball cap clearly designed to hide her blonde hair got out. Unlike most of the other people who’d used the entrance at this ungodly hour, she wasn’t wearing scrubs.

  The woman moved quickly toward the entrance, and Ash understood why. Two other women were walking in the same direction, and it looked like the one in the baseball cap was timing her arrival so that she'd reach the door just after the other two had opened it and gone in. It made sense, as that entrance required a badge swipe for access.

  Sure enough, Cap Gal caught the door just before it closed. She gave one last glance behind her, then stepped inside. Luckily for Ash, that glance was all she needed. She already suspected she had her target, but now she was sure. Through the binoculars, there was no question who the woman was: Hannah Dorsey.

  Ash shoved the binoculars in her backpack, pulled down the brim of her own baseball cap, and stepped out from the protective darkness of the flower shop awning.

  She walked at first as she made her way across the street and then the parking lot. But eventually, her excitement got the better of her. Even though her ankle screamed with each step, she broke into a jog and then a full-on run. She was so close now. She could almost smell the metallic scent of Hannah's blood.

  Soon, she'd breathe it in for real.

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  Hannah had made a big mistake.

  The choices that had put her in this position seemed reasonable at the time. Just a few minutes ago, when she reached the main lobby of the hospital, with the big bank of elevators, she saw four police officers situated at various points. There was no way to get to an elevator without being questioned by one of them.

  Considering that by now, Rufus had likely figured out her intended destination and warned folks of her imminent arrival, she couldn’t just walk up and say hi. Whoever found her would almost certainly take her into custody until Rufus arrived. She had to find another way.

  And there was an additional problem: she didn’t even know what floor Jessie was on, much less what room. She figured her best bet was to take the stairs up and look through windows to see which floor had cops posted there. That would be a good tip-off.

  So she quickly turned back from the lobby and looked for signs directing her to the stairs. As she spun around, she slammed into someone. Her cap fell off her head as she grabbed the middle-aged woman, stopping her from hitting the ground.

  “Sorry,” Hannah said. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so,” the woman said. “Are you?”

  “Yeah,” said, noting that the woman’s ID badge, pinned to her top, read: information center volunteer. “Actually, you might be the exact person I need. Can you direct me to the stairs for the upper floors?”

  “They’re down the hall to the left,” the woman said, pointing her toward them before looking at her watch. “But it’s only 2:55 a.m. They’re off limits to non-hospital personnel until 8 a.m.. You’ll have to use the elevators.”

  “Oh, okay,” Hannah said. “Then can you please tell me where the restroom is?”

  “Those are down the same hall but to the right,” the woman told her before pointing to the ground. “Don’t forget your cap.”

  “Thank you,” Hannah said, putting it back on and heading down the hallway.

  She found the sign for the stairs and opened the door, which led down another long hallway, this one only minimally lit. She broke into a jog, noting a storage room before rounding a corner and passing the mechanical room, all before arriving at the door to the stairs. She pulled on the handle, but it was locked.

  She sighed in frustration, realizing that she didn’t have anything to pick it with. Then she remembered the storage room, which might have something that could do the job, and started back down the hall. She’d only taken a few steps when she heard the sound of a closing door, followed by footsteps.

  She wondered if it was the volunteer woman. Had she seen her go left to the stairs instead of right to the bathroom and decided to check up on her? Or maybe she said something to a cop who was doing his due diligence. Either way, getting discovered would upend all her efforts. She couldn't get to the storage room around the corner without being seen, so that left one option: the mechanical room.

  She grabbed the door handle and prayed this one wasn’t locked too. To her amazement, it opened. Without waiting to question her luck, she stepped inside. She was on a metal stairwell that led down a level to an area that seemed like it belonged in a steampunk novel. To her right was a giant circuit breaker box behind a panel that read “electrical.”

  She darted down the stairs and hurried along the gangplank. There were jets of steam shooting out from the tops of huge water heaters that extended up from the floor below, all of which had gauges she couldn’t understand. She had to be careful to avoid exposed pipes that she feared might burn her if she bumped into them.

  She was just looking around for an exit sign that might show her a different way out when she heard the distinct sound of the door at the top of the stairwell. Had the woman heard her come in here? Was she really following her? Was a cop? If so, would she get busted for trespassing? Obviously, that wasn’t her primary concern, but it wouldn’t help matters either.

  Suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted by what sounded like a gunshot, followed moments later by a second one. All at once, the lights flickered and went out. She was consumed by total darkness.

  After a couple of seconds, the emergency lighting kicked in, offering just enough dull illumination for her to see the general contours of the objects around her. And then she heard a voice cut through the hissing steam, clanking pipes, and shadowy half-light.

  “Oh Hannah! I bet you didn’t expect to hear from me again anytime soon. But it’s time for a little reunion. Did you miss me?”

  Hannah would recognize that voice anywhere. It was the one that haunted her dreams on the few occasions where she actually managed to fall asleep for a few hours.

  It was the voice of Ash Pierce.

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

  Jessie tried not to groan.

  She was waiting for Ryan to come back with the nurse, who would hopefully increase her dose of morphine. Just inhaling and exhaling was now making her back burn. He returned seconds later with the nurse, who immediately came over.

  “I understand you’re struggling a bit,” she said.

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “We’re supposed to wait until the top of the hour to administer your next dose,” the nurse said. “Do you think you can hold out?”

  “What time is it now?” Jessie asked.

  “2:57 a.m.”

  Jessie’s expression must have been answer enough because the nurse quickly changed her tune.

  “I guess three minutes isn’t that big a deal,” she said in a hushed voice, as if someone might tell on her.

  “Once that’s kicked in, do you mind if a few folks poke their heads in?” Ryan asked. “They’ve been wanting to see you for hours now.”

  “Who?” Jessie wanted to know.

  “Kat and Dr. Lemmon,” he said. “Grover’s been waiting out there too.”

  Jessie immediately felt guilty, imagining the group of them huddled anxiously outside her room.

  “You can let them in now,” she said. “I’ll muddle through.”

  He opened the door and beckoned for the three of them to enter. Janice Lemmon came in first. She was still using her cane for support in the aftermath of a herniated disc, but otherwise seemed to be recovering well from the injuries she sustained only a day and a half ago at the hands of a crazed man who’d gone on a psychiatrist killing spree. The bandages on her forearms were from cuts she’d sustained during the attack. But neither them nor the disc issue seemed to slow her down as she came over to the bed.

  Next to enter was Kat. Other than the concerned look on her face, she appeared to be in good shape, though her bleary eyes indicated just how tired she must be. Standing a few steps behind her was Gila Jabarin. Ryan hadn't mentioned that she'd be coming in, too, but it made sense. Her job was to go where Kat went, no matter what. Unlike her protectee, Gila’s eyes were fully alert.

  Last to come in was Grover, who paused a moment before entering. Jessie understood why when she caught a glimpse of a uniformed officer positioned just outside the door. The man must have been assigned to provide additional security. Apparently, Grover was giving him instructions.

  Once he was done he came in too, closed the door firmly, and walked over, moving past all three women. He had an unusual look on his face, one Jessie had never seen before and couldn’t quite place.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, looking down at her.

  Then she understood the expression. It was guilt.

  “What?” she said, confused.

  "I failed you completely," he told her. "My one job was to stick close to you and keep you safe in an inherently dangerous environment, and I did about as bad a job as possible."

  “Are you kidding?” she said. “You were assigned to protect a person who deliberately put herself in harm’s way repeatedly, including using herself as bait for a serial killer. No, Grover, I put you in a terrible position. I may be the worst client of all time.”

  "First of all," he said. "You are nowhere near the worst client I've had. Secondly, thank you for your generosity of spirit. I hope to justify it by doing a reputable job here at the hospital. In fact, I was about to go review procedures with the new officer outside who was just assigned to your room. There was just a shift change, and this one needs to be properly briefed. Do you mind if I step out?”

  “Of course not,” she said, “but before you do, have you had any word from Rufus?”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22