A Time to Protect (5 page)

Head downcast, the boy left the room, hopefully to apologize.

“Kyle’s nasty sometimes. He doesn’t really mean it, he’s just mad.” Madison began loading the dishwasher, her fingers quick as she slid the plates into place. “Our dad was supposed to pick him up after school today. They were going out for supper, but Dad didn’t show. I guess he forgot. Again.”

“It happens.” Brendan tried not to sound curious. It was none of his business what happened with this family, but he felt as badly for the mother who tried so hard as he did for the kids who clearly wanted a relationship with a man who couldn’t be bothered.

Madison filled the sink with hot soapy water. “You wash and I’ll dry.”

“Why do I get to wash the pots?” he asked, catching a twinkle in her eyes.

“Because you don’t have homework,” she shot back, giggling when he dabbed soapsuds on her nose.

They’d just finished when Chloe emerged looking fresh and ready for what could only be a grueling twelve-hour shift. He noticed two things: Kyle was not with her and her beautiful hair had been confined to a twist at the back of her head. What a shame to hide such beauty.

“You really didn’t have to do them all.” She glanced at the sparkling counters. “But thank you.”

“Our pleasure.” Brendan winked at Madison, who followed his cue perfectly and bowed at the waist. The doorbell rang. “That’s my reminder to get going. Thanks again for a wonderful meal, Mrs. Tanner.”

“It’s Chloe. And you’re welcome. Thank you for helping to coach Madison. As you might have noticed, she’s delighted to have you.” She opened the door and welcomed in the older woman who stood on the doorstep. “Hi, Mrs. Mills. This is Mr. Montgomery. He coaches Madison’s soccer team with Buddy Jeffers.”

“Hello.” Mrs. Mills gave him the once-over, hung up her coat and took off as if she’d been scalded.

“Something I said?” Brendan asked, a little surprised by her hostility.

“Mrs. Mills doesn’t care much for men,” Chloe told him, her mouth stretched into a wicked grin. “I don’t think it’s personal.”

“What about Mr. Mills?”

“I don’t know.” Chloe frowned. “I assumed he’s dead and gone. I’ve never met him anyway.”

“Probably a good thing, if he is gone. For him, I mean. All that sourness would be hard to take.” He liked it when she laughed. Her face transformed, lost the lines that worry put
there and made her look young and carefree. “I’ll probably see you at the hospital tonight. I want to check up on a few things about the mayor’s shooting—to do with the bullets.”

“Oh.” She blinked as if she were surprised. “Okay. Later.”

Brendan nodded, pulled the door closed behind him, shoved his hands in his pants pockets and walked toward his vehicle, slightly surprised by the chill of the now brisk wind. November in Colorado Springs was always tricky. Balmy in the morning, a raging blizzard by noon and a chinook the next day.

“Chinook weather would be good, Lord. We’ve got a chance at the finals and I’d sure like some sun for it.” He drove to his apartment, trying to decipher his thoughts about the Tanner family. The boy, Kyle, needed a little reining in. Brendan could understand his need for his father, but that didn’t excuse his attitude. Madison was a delight, easy-going, sweet and willing to try anything. Chloe stumped him.

She was gorgeous, of course. But she seemed reticent, restrained, as if she were afraid he might try to take advantage. No, that wasn’t quite right. She’d invited him into her home, made him welcome—so why did he feel she was holding him at arm’s length? Had he expected her to be as open as Madison?

Clearly there were things in the Tanner family that they were still working through, but that was true of any family. Yet he couldn’t help wondering about the kids’ father. Why hadn’t the guy shown up today? What kind of a father let his kid down like that and didn’t bother to phone and explain?

Brendan parked in his spot, rode the elevator to his apartment and grabbed his laptop. He had a lot of questions about the Tanners, but his job was to find out whatever he could about the mayor’s shooting. That subject should help keep his mind off a certain nurse.

Brendan perused the files he’d downloaded from headquarters for over an hour but couldn’t settle into it. Maybe if he checked the hospital records he’d find something else to go on. And he could make an excuse to see Chloe. In a flash he was
back on the road, soon pulling into the hospital parking lot. As he arrived at the parkade entrance, he had to wait while the attendant dealt with a customer leaving the lot.

His vehicle was higher, giving Brendan a good view of the other car and the man inside. He took a second look. Something about him seemed…familiar. He thought about the man who’d spoken to Owen Frost the other night—was this the same man? A moment later the vehicle was gone and Brendan shrugged off his impression. Probably just some guy leaving after visiting his wife. Maybe Brendan had even known him once. When he’d lived here, he’d known tons of people in Colorado Springs. Still, he’d been away a lot and people moved.

But as he waited at the office for the information he’d requested, the face swam back into his mind. Not so much the face, he decided. It was something in the eyes that seemed familiar. He thought he’d seen eyes like that before; eyes that held secrets too dark to expose to daylight. Dangerous eyes.

Brendan shrugged off his speculative thoughts and accepted the file of information he’d requested.

They were just eyes. Nothing malevolent about eyes.

C
hloe shifted on the vinyl chair, lifted her heels to rest them on the seat opposite her and checked the clock. Midnight.

She still had twenty minutes of her break left and she needed it. Tonight had been crazy.

“Hi.” Brendan Montgomery’s handsome face loomed above her, his dazzling smile wide.

“Hi, yourself. You’re out a little late, aren’t you?”

“I was working on a file and forgot the time.” He nudged his tray onto her small table. “Figured I’d have a snack before I go home.”

“You’re hungry again?” She clapped a hand over her mouth as soon as the words escaped. A flood of heat burned her cheeks. “Please excuse me.”

“Forget it,” he laughed, sitting down beside her. “I admit I eat a lot. High metabolism, I guess.”

“Lucky you.” She watched him munch on his BLT and fries while her brain unraveled in the relative silence of the coffee shop.

“You look tired. Busy night?”

“Very. A couple of cardiac arrests after drug overdoses. We’re monitoring both of them.” Chloe felt that sinking despair grab her insides. “Why do they do it? One of those kids isn’t
even sixteen, but her heart is almost ruined from using crack cocaine. It’s such a waste.”

“Crack?” Brendan frowned. “But I thought—hoped—crack was a thing of the past in Colorado Springs.”

“It should be.” Chloe shrugged. “But I don’t suppose a town’s ever rid of it altogether. This past week has been particularly rough. I think we’ve had the most drug cases since I moved here.” She rubbed the knot in the back of her neck. “It kills me to see kids throwing away their futures, damaging their minds and bodies. But to know that someone is profiting from their misery infuriates me even more.”

“Me, too.” Brendan’s face hardened. “You don’t happen to remember the names of the last two victims, do you?”

“You know I can’t release that information. You’ll have to check with the front office until someone tells me differently.” Chloe stretched her calves, welcoming the pull that drew out the tension. “I just hope they wise up.”

“You really take your patients’ problems to heart, don’t you?”

Brendan watched her like a hawk. It was discomfiting to be the subject of such intense scrutiny.

“You make it sound like it’s personal,” he added.

“Because it is! Drugs impact all of us. I hate it that someone is sitting out there waiting for my kid to make a bad decision. I hate it that one simple mistake can make such a difference to an entire life.” She cut off the past, told herself to get over it.

“Sounds like you’ve had some experience with mistakes.” If it hadn’t been before, his focus was now completely on her.

Should she tell him? Chloe couldn’t decide. It was personal, a private trial she’d gone through, and yet it had helped her relate to others.

“I know what it’s like to use pills to live through your days, to cover up the pain and heartache you don’t want to face.” She didn’t look away from his scrutiny. “I know what it’s like to need that pill so much that you feel lost and defenseless without it to block out the hurt. So yeah, you could say I take it personally.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that, Chloe.” His big hand reached out and covered hers, warm and comforting.

“Thanks.” She carefully drew her hand away. “It was hard and it was painful, but at least I got through. Some don’t.”

“That’s true,” he said, somewhat distractedly.

Chloe twisted around. “What are you looking at?”

“Who is that?” Brendan asked, his voice low.

She stared, shrugged. “I have no idea. Why?”

“I saw him when I came in. He was leaving then. Seems odd he’d be coming back to the hospital at this hour.”

“Maybe he was called back.” She turned her head to study the man who passed within ten feet of them, his face turned away. “Sometimes a physician will ask the hospital to notify the family if a patient takes a turn for the worse and they feel there’s a need for immediate visitation.” She watched Brendan rub a spot on the back of his neck and wondered why he seemed so interested in this particular man.

“He’s wearing black but he doesn’t look like a man who’s grieving. Look at those boots. They look like combat boots.”

Chloe almost laughed. It was the first time she’d been ignored for a man, and never for a pair of ugly boots, which made it perfectly clear that Brendan Montgomery had absolutely no interest in her. Good.

“I’m going back to work now,” she told him.

“Your break isn’t up yet.” He stared at her with a frown, attention momentarily diverted from the man who now entered an elevator.

“No, it isn’t. But we’re behind. Besides, I want to call Mrs. Mills and make sure everything is all right at home. Good night.” Chloe dumped the things off her tray into the garbage, set the tray on a rolling cart nearby and started toward the elevators, forcing herself not to look back at him.

Agent Brendan Montgomery was a very attractive man, and when he was around her blood pressure soared. But Chloe knew she couldn’t afford the distraction. Men
weren’t to be trusted. Hadn’t Steve taught her that lesson the hard way?

All seemed quiet on the floor. Chloe spent a few minutes talking to Mrs. Mills, who was not thrilled by the interruption to her nap.

“Sorry I woke you, Mrs. Mills. I just wanted to check in, make sure all was well. Good night.” Chloe hung up with a grimace. Sometimes she wished she could find someone else to stay with the kids, someone who wasn’t quite so…negative. But sitters weren’t easy at the best of times, and finding one who could stay all night was toughest of all.

“Did you check on the mayor lately?” she asked Theresa, who shook her head “no” and hurried away to answer another monitor’s bleep. “I’ll do it then.”

The mayor’s room was the farthest one away from the station. As Chloe hurried toward it, a noise startled her. The guard wasn’t in his place by the door but flickering shadows told her someone was inside the room.

Some inner caution slowed Chloe. She clamped her lips together before glancing around the corner. A man stood at the side of the bed. He wore scrubs and a surgical mask, which was perfectly normal. Doctors came and went through the mayor’s room, constantly checking on them. But something about this doctor didn’t seem quite right, so she opened her mouth to ask his name. But before any sound could come out, she closed it, her eyes on his feet.

He wore combat boots—just like the ones Brendan had commented on earlier. She could only see the eyes and a tuft of brown hair from under the cap, but Chloe was almost certain it was the man from downstairs, and he was talking to the mayor. Chloe inched around the corner and listened.

“You were warned,” he whispered, his voice carrying clearly to her. He slid a hypodermic needle out of his pocket and inserted it into the mayor’s IV line, his thumb pushing whatever was in the cylinder into the life-giving fluids.

Chloe glanced behind her but her coworker wasn’t to be seen. She’d have to handle this herself and hope the guard would show up soon.

“Hey!” She dashed into the room, knocked the needle away, then hit the IV pump switch marked off, at the same time thrusting her leg out and hitting the intruder with a dropkick. Chloe thought she’d had good pressure but the blow seemed to glance off as the attacker rose in one lithe movement.

The pump stayed silent for a moment then sent up its alarm. She ignored it, backing up as her brain mentally assessed and discarded options.

The man’s face was almost completely hidden. Only the eyes, beady and dark, glared at her. From behind the mask she heard a hissed warning.

“Mind your own business.”

“This patient
is
my business.” Chloe watched his hand stretch toward her, saw the black spider tattoo on his wrist creep out from the sleeve of the green scrubs. Options—she needed options. “What did you put in there?” she asked, trying to buy time as she inclined her head toward the needle now lying at her feet.

He swung at her. Chloe stepped backward, then realized that had been his intent as he swept up the needle and aimed it toward her. “Why don’t you try it and see?” he said with a sneer.

“I don’t think so. But thanks anyway.” Chloe waited for her opportunity, her eyes never leaving his as he swept the pointed tip in front of her once, twice. On the third sweep she slapped her knee against his wrist and the needle flew across the room and stabbed into the wall. If she could just get in a couple of solid hits, she might floor him long enough to call for help.

Suddenly the wail of the mayor’s heart monitor shattered her concentration. Chloe glanced at the bed. Cardiac arrest!

Looking away had been a mistake. Chloe felt the solid smack against her chest and reeled from the hit, striking her head on the metal bed as she went down. Like a shape-shifter,
the room bent double then turned upside down in one moment of excruciating pain. Chloe began to lose her ability to focus, but she kicked one last time and heard a grunt of pain.

“Stay out of my business,” a snarl hissed from behind her. Then he was gone.

She hung on to the bed, forcing herself to slide across the floor until she could reach the mayor’s IV. Every movement was agony, her head screamed for relief, but Chloe forced her body forward in spite of it. As much as possible she intended to prevent one more drop of the stuff from that needle from entering the mayor’s body.

The heart monitor was screaming more loudly than the IV machine. Someone would come soon. She drew herself up long enough to free the IV tubing from the shunt in the mayor’s vein. Using her thumb as pressure, she held on for as long as she could.

Then everything went black.

Even before the elevator doors opened, Brendan heard it. Cardiac arrest. That made three tonight, unless he’d missed something. Chloe was right—the night was busy. He walked toward the nursing station, hoping for her sake that it wasn’t another drug case.

Theresa emerged from one room, saw him and beckoned. “I need help.” She began running.

He needed no second bidding. Brendan followed her toward the end of the hall…toward the mayor’s room.
The mayor’s room!
Once that thought penetrated, the nerve at the back of his neck went crazy. He glanced around, saw the stairwell door whooshing closed, stopped by the leg of a man in a police uniform. He started for that door, heard a yell.

“Get in here!”

Brendan stepped into Mayor Max’s room, caught his breath at the sight of Chloe slumped against the bed, fingers still wrapped in IV tubing.

“She’s pulled out his IV tube. I’ve got to get it back in so the doctors can use it for a push. Move her.”

Brendan gently eased Chloe’s fingers from the mayor’s arm, carried her to the side of the room. She blinked a couple of times, stared at him.

“IV’s contaminated,” she murmured, then closed her eyes.

“Wait,” he yelled as Theresa struggled to reinsert the tube. “Chloe said it’s been contaminated. Get another bag.”

“I hooked this one up while she was on break. There’s nothing wrong with it.” Theresa ignored him.

Brendan chewed his lip as the crash team came rushing down the hall. Maybe Chloe was confused?

What do I do, Lord?

He glanced around, saw the needle still dangling from the plastered wall and moved to close his hand over the nurse’s.

“Get a fresh bag,” he ordered. “There’s a needle in the wall and I’m betting you didn’t put it there.”

She saw it, blinked, then went racing out of the room for fresh supplies.

“I’d like that empty bag,” he told her when she came back with a fresh bag and tubing. “For testing.”

“The hospital will want it, too,” she warned but handed it over.

Once it was safely tucked into his coat pocket, Brendan gathered up Chloe and carried her out of the crowded room.

“What’s wrong with her?” Dr. Robert Fletcher asked, pausing on his way into the room and motioning the other doctor ahead.

“I’m not sure but I think she was attacked. She came to a minute ago then faded out.” There was a stretcher sitting by the wall and Brendan gently laid Chloe on it, then stood to one side as the doctor did a swift check.

“Skin’s starting to bruise at the back of her neck and she’s got a large contusion on the top of her head. She’s going to have a headache. Vitals seem okay.”

A picture of that hypodermic needle flickered through Brendan’s mind.

“You don’t think she was given something, do you?” he asked.

“Given something? Like what?” Dr. Fletcher checked her pupils. “Everything’s returning to normal. I think she’ll be fine.”

“Can you stay with her a second?” Brendan raced back into the mayor’s room and grabbed one of the plastic gloves that lay on the crash cart. He removed the needle from the wall, checked the vial. Still fluid inside. Good. He grabbed his phone and dialed. “Somebody attacked the mayor. He’s gone into cardiac arrest. They got his nurse, too, but I think she’ll be okay. There was a needle left at the scene. The nurse Tanner came to long enough to tell me the mayor’s IV bag was contaminated. Her getting it undone probably saved his life. The mayor’s guard is down, too. I need some help. Now.”

He listened to his instructions then returned to Chloe.

“She’s coming out of it.” Fletcher checked her pulse once more, nodded, then jerked a thumb toward the mayor’s room. “Mind if I join them? You can yell if you need me.”

“Before you do, check the stairwell. There’s a cop there who might need you.”

“Okay. Sounds like someone wanted to get to Max. It’s a good thing she was working tonight.” Dr. Fletcher measured Chloe’s pulse again while staring at the auburn glory of her hair spilling around her shoulders like a silken shawl. “She’s beautiful. I envy you, Brendan.” He smiled, then moved to assist the injured cop.

Brendan realized he should have made it clear that there was nothing between him and the nurse, but Fletcher was busy in the stairwell so he let it go for now, choosing instead to keep his attention on Chloe, who had begun to utter soft sibilant moans.

“It’s okay. You’re safe. Whoever it was is gone.” He repeated the words, squeezing her hand as her irises began to clear and she focused on him.