Blind Run (22 page)

Her words shattered the last of his restraint, and he framed her face with his hands. “That’s the one thing I never lied about, not even to myself.” This time, he controlled the kiss, drawing her in and opening her mouth with his. Wanting her. Needing her to dissolve the years, the hate, the anguish over losing their son. He’d been a fool to leave her. In time, this woman had the power to heal him, to fill all the dry places within him and make them bloom again. Now time was the one thing they didn’t have.

“Sydney . . .” He pulled away. “God, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but—”

“I know.” She barely breathed the words. “This isn’t the right time.”

“There’s Danny and Callie, and that damn island, we—”

Again she pressed her fingers to his lips. “It’s okay. I understand.”

He turned his face into her hand, kissed her palm, and felt her tremble.

“Sooner or later we need to settle this, Ethan. There are things that must be said, questions I need answered. Promise me you won’t leave again until we have time to talk.” She pulled her hand from his face and sat straighter. “I can deal with anything if I know the truth.”

“You have my word, Sydney.”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath, but it was several minutes before either of them spoke again. Then she said, “Tell me about your conversation with Ramirez.”

He did, both sorry and grateful for the change of subject, hesitating only when he got to his team’s mission to bring in the assassin, and how they’d failed. But he went ahead, knowing he risked losing her for good, and told her about the child who’d died in the raid on Ramirez’s cabin.

Sydney glanced back at the room where Danny and Callie slept, her expression grim, fearful. “So Ramirez believes the Agency sent you to silence him about the Haven.”

“Yes, but there’s a hole in his theory.” Or was there? “I wasn’t ordered to terminate Ramirez,” Ethan said. “That’s not what my team was about, we didn’t do ghost work. I was told he’d gone renegade and to bring him in. Nothing more.” He shoved his hands through his hair, the memory of that hellish night haunting him still. “And we knew nothing about the girl.

“I don’t know what happened.” Though he had his suspicions, devised and churned over during the desert nights. “My team surrounded the cabin, taking up position before moving in. Then the word came down the line that Ramirez was getting away.” He remembered the dark, moonless sky and the smell of the damp earth. The voices, a child’s among them. Then the sharp staccato of gunfire. And her screams.

“Someone fired, and before I could stop it, all hell broke loose.” He stopped speaking as the memories crowded in around him. So much blood. Who knew one small body could spill so much of it? “At the time, I thought it was an accident. Now, I’m not so sure.”

He met Sydney’s gaze, afraid of what he’d see in her eyes. Disgust? Loathing? Instead, he saw sympathy. “And Ramirez blames you?”

“It was my team.”

“But Ethan—”

“Maybe he was supposed to die.” And the girl with him. “One of my team sold us out.” Ethan didn’t want to believe it, but he couldn’t ignore the evidence. They hadn’t been a bunch of raw recruits who’d open fire in a panic or without provocation. “One of them must have had different orders.” Orders Ethan would have refused.

Anna? They’d had their differences, but Ethan had a hard time picturing her as an Agency plant. Except somehow she’d survived, been protected, when the rest of Ethan’s team had paid with their lives. For that reason alone he couldn’t dismiss her as a candidate. There was another possibility, however, one that made a lot more sense.

“I had an extra man that night.” He settled back in his chair. “He’d been assigned to me temporarily a couple of months earlier, supposedly to gain field experience. But he could have been placed on my team for any number of reasons, including sabotaging our mission.” Unfortunately, there was only one way to be sure. “I have to go to Haven Island.”

“No.”

“It’s the only way.”

“What about our plans? We were going to do research on the Internet. You were going to check out your informants on the streets. What about James Cooley? And I can call Charles—”

“And make him a target as well? Is that what you want?” When she didn’t respond, he went on, “The answers are on that island. Anna knew it, Ramirez knows it.” He took her hand again. “And now, so do I.”

“Anna brought Danny and Callie to you.”

“For protection only.” Even though she hadn’t been willing to go along with whatever the Keepers were doing. That had been the line she wouldn’t cross. “She may have even planned to locate Mulligan, but she was running from that island, not trying to expose it.”

He watched Sydney struggle with the idea, trying to accept that this was the only way. “Okay, but I’m going with you. We’ll find someplace safe—”

“No, I want you and the children out of this.” He squeezed her fingers, trying to reassure her. “I have contacts, people who will help. Tomorrow I’ll make some calls and arrange protection for the three of you.”

She’d opened her mouth to argue, when the door behind them flew open.

“Ethan!”

He sprang to his feet, his hand already on the Glock.

“It’s Callie.” Danny sounded scared. “Come quick.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE DRIVE TO WEST METRO HOSPITAL
was the longest fifteen minutes of Ethan’s life. In the backseat, Sydney cradled Callie in her arms and pressed cold compresses to her forehead and cheeks. Danny hovered beside them, an ice bucket of tepid water on his lap, refreshing washcloths and passing them to Sydney.

Back at the motel, Danny’s frantic call for help had sent Ethan and Sydney racing for the room, where Callie had thrashed on the bed, mumbling incoherently.

“She’s burning up,” Sydney had said as she felt Callie’s forehead. “We need to get her to a hospital. Danny, fill a bucket with cool water and grab a handful of those washcloths. Ethan, get her into the car. I’m going to check with the front desk for the nearest emergency room.” Sydney’s voice had been strong and steady, and neither of them had questioned her orders. Minutes later, they’d been on their way.

Ethan glanced at the backseat. “How is she?”

“She’ll be fine,” Sydney answered. “Just get us to the hospital in one piece.”

Ethan refocused on the road, resisting the urge to push the stodgy Volvo to its limit. He couldn’t risk getting stopped for speeding. By now even the Chicago cops would be on the lookout for him, and if he were arrested, he wouldn’t give Sydney and the kids more than a few hours before whoever killed Mulligan picked them up. But damn if Ethan wasn’t tempted to take the chance and push the speed limit anyway.

And where had all these other cars come from?

It was two in the morning. These drivers should all be home in bed, instead of getting in his way, the slowest seeking him out.

Finally, they reached a large sprawling hospital on the outskirts of Chicago. The parking lot alone took up an entire block, but Ethan pulled straight to the emergency room door, threw the car in park, and was out of the vehicle before the engine stopped rumbling.

“Let me have her.” He lifted Callie from Sydney’s arms and carried her inside, Danny and Sydney right behind him.

Sydney went straight to the triage desk. “I’m Dr. Branning,” she said, using her maiden name. “I have a seven-year-old girl here. Her fever is spiking and she’s delirious.”

The woman took one look at Callie’s pale, sweaty face and hurried from behind the counter. “This way,” she said and led them through swinging doors into the heart of the treatment center. “Dianne,” she called as they swept past the nurses’ station, “bed one, stat.”

She hustled them into a glass-fronted room close to the desk, and the second nurse rushed in, pushing past Ethan as he placed Callie on the bed. “Okay, what do we have here?” Without waiting for an answer, she briskly started her exam.

“High fever, delirium.” The triage nurse glanced at Sydney. “Mom’s a doctor.”

Sydney didn’t bother to correct her. “She’s had a cough for the last couple of days. Tonight she started complaining about a sore throat and headache. I’ve been giving her Liquid Tylenol, but her fever spiked about twenty to twenty-five minutes ago.”

“Get Dr. White in here and someone to start an IV and help with a rectal temp.” She lifted Callie’s eyelids, then probed her neck. “And I need a cooling blanket.”

The first nurse left, and the second said, “You gentlemen want to step out into the hall, so we can tend this young lady.”

Beneath Ethan’s hand, Danny tensed. Ethan squeezed his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get out of their way.”

They backed out of the room as another woman in royal blue scrubs went in and snapped the curtain closed around the bed.

“Have a seat.” Ethan motioned toward the row of plastic chairs along the wall and sank into one himself. As he did, an impossibly young man, looking tired and harried, strode toward them, nodding as he passed and entered Callie’s room.

Ethan felt less than useless. It wasn’t something he was used to, or liked. He had a feeling Danny didn’t care for it either. “Tell me how you and Callie got to Champaign.”

Danny looked at him like he was nuts.

“It will help pass the time.”

So Danny told him about the hours between when they’d run from the park and arrived at Mulligan’s house. He spoke in short, abrupt sentences, taking all of about five minutes to tell his story. Even with Danny’s unimaginative narrative, Ethan found it pretty amazing. The kid’s ingenuity never ceased to amaze him. Once he’d finished, though, they returned to their antiseptic silence.

After a few minutes, Ethan could no longer sit. He managed to refrain from pacing, but just barely. Patience was an attribute he’d once possessed in abundance. It was one of the abilities that had set him apart, first in Special Ops, then in the Agency. He’d waited out targets while half buried in the muck of a forest and stretched out beneath layers of hot desert sand. He’d perfected the art of stillness that often meant the difference between life and death. But never had his patience been so sorely tested as it was in that sterile hospital corridor, waiting for word about a little girl he’d known less than a week.

When Sydney finally joined them, Danny leapt to his feet. “Is Callie—”

“She’s holding her own.” Sydney gave him a tight smile. “Her fever is down, but it was up to one-oh-five.” Ethan took her arm and drew her into a chair between them. “That’s too high for a simple flu bug. So they’re running some tests to find out what kind of infection she’s fighting.”

“But she
will
be okay?” Danny said, his voice shaky.

Sydney brushed a strand of hair from his forehead. “As soon as we know what’s causing the fever, we can fix it.”

Danny didn’t seem convinced. Then one of the nurses stepped out of the room, and all three looked up.

“It’s going to be a while,” she said kindly. “So if you want to go get some coffee or something, now would be a good time. Plus, there’s some paperwork you need to fill out up front.”

Ethan stood. “Thank you. I’ll take care of it.” Once she was out of earshot, he said, “I want to have a look around.”

“Do you think they can find us here?” Danny said, voicing the question Ethan saw in Sydney’s eyes as well.

“It’s probably nothing.” Just the sense that he should be doing something. He slipped his hands in his pockets. “Stay here with Sydney and your sister.” An unnecessary command, since he suspected it would take force to get Danny more than a few feet from Callie’s side.

Ethan started down the hall, dropping his shoulders and keeping his head lowered. A posture that might raise suspicion elsewhere, it worked in a hospital, where life and death balanced on a razor’s edge. He looked like one more worried relative.

He bought a cup of coffee from a vending machine and stepped into the waiting room. While sipping the hot liquid, he slid his gaze over the room’s occupants. It was the standard mix of broken bones and swollen jaws—the results of late-night fun or fear.

No one looked suspicious.

He wandered out the sliding doors, where he’d left the Volvo earlier. The damp air slithered beneath his skin, chilling him. All was quiet. If he were going to slip into a hospital unnoticed in the middle of the night, it wouldn’t be through the main doors of the emergency room. Where would he enter? A service door or loading dock? Somewhere away from the regular flow of hospital traffic.

Maybe he was being overly cautious, paranoid even. But he couldn’t shake the feeling he’d exposed Sydney and the kids by bringing them here.

As he reentered the emergency room, he sensed a heightened level of activity. Those in the waiting room felt it, too, sitting straighter and more alert, even though nothing obvious had changed. A dozen or so people still waited their turn, the television still chattered nonsensically from the corner, and the triage nurse still sat behind her desk. She smiled at him as he approached and opened her mouth to speak—no doubt to ask for insurance information or a credit card. He walked by without stopping, his hand already inside his jacket, unsnapping the safety strap on his shoulder holster.

He slowed as he approached the inner doors, all his senses on alert. He wasn’t wrong. In the few minutes he’d spent looking around, something had changed. An older couple pushed out through the doors, and Ethan stepped in behind them, slipping into the closest room. He flattened himself against the wall and cracked the door to watch the commotion around the nurses’ station.

He recognized Cox immediately.

He hadn’t changed much, a bit heavier and less hair maybe, but he still favored the custom-made suits. He was a deceptively small, squirrelish man, whom people often underestimated. It was a mistake they only made once. He was sharp, well informed, and well connected. And he understood how to make the system work for him. He’d scraped his way to power within the Agency, and more than one rival had broken his own career trying to bring Cox down. Within the Agency, Cox was one of the most dangerous men Ethan knew.

The man beside him was different but equally deadly. John Morrow. Seeing him with Cox answered Ethan’s questions about the betrayal within his team three years ago. Morrow had been the temporary member of his team, firing the first shot that sent everything spinning out of control.

Beside Cox and Morrow, four guns in suits had taken up positions in the hallway. Sydney stood with her hand on Danny’s shoulder.

“What’s this all about?” she demanded.

“Let’s not kid each other, Dr. Decker. You know perfectly well what this is about. You kidnapped a very sick child.” Cox handed her a piece of paper from the desk. “All area hospitals were notified that she would probably turn up in one of them.”

“Kidnapped!” Danny said.

“Hush, Danny.” Sydney read the paper, then tossed it down. “This is ridiculous.” She looked up, first at Cox then at the ER doctor standing off to the side. “Why not ask one of these children for the truth?”

“Sydney’s helping us find our parents,” Danny said.

Cox ignored him. “Where’s your husband, Dr. Decker?”

“Even if we knew,” Danny said, more snarl than answer, “we wouldn’t tell you.”

Cox frowned. “What an unpleasant child. Reminds me of his friend Adam.”

Danny lunged forward. “What’d you do to Adam?”

Morrow caught his arm and jerked him back. “Your friend had a similar attitude problem, which needed adjusting.”

Danny yanked furiously at Morrow’s hold.

Sydney took his hand and drew him away, wrapping her arms protectively around his shoulders.”We don’t know where Ethan went,” she said.

“You expect me to believe that?”

Before she could answer, two orderlies wheeled Callie’s bed out of the room.

Sydney moved toward them. “You can’t—”

Morrow grabbed her arm. “Get the boy,” he snapped, and one of the other men took hold of Danny.

“Wait just a minute . . .” The ER doctor stepped forward.

“This woman is under arrest,” Cox said. “Do you need to see my identification again?”

“No, I know who you are, but that doesn’t give you the right to take the girl. She’s very sick.”

“Her personal physician is familiar with her condition and medical history. He’ll take care of her.”

“But where—”

“Don’t waste your breath, Dr. White,” Sydney said. “These children are prisoners.”

“I think you’re confused, Dr. Decker.” Cox smiled indulgently. “You’re the one under arrest. These children are simply going home. Now, it’s time for us to leave. Thank you, Dr. White, for informing us of Callie’s location.”

Ethan faded back into the room until the hospital hush had reclaimed the hallway beyond the door. Then he inched it open and stepped out. The ER doctor looked up from the desk, his eyes widening. Ethan lifted the Glock, pressing the barrel to his lips. Fear tightened the other man’s features but he kept silent.

From down the hall came a soft ding.

Ethan followed the sound, stopping and checking the corner just as the doors slid shut on the service elevator. A few moments later, he knew Cox’s destination. The basement.

He took the stairs and ended up outside the morgue. Backing into the shadows of a nearby hallway, he assessed the situation. The loading dock doors stood open, while Cox’s people lifted Callie into a large white van. Another man held Danny’s arm, but it was Morrow’s gun that kept Sydney in place.

Ethan weighed his options. He could take Cox and probably Morrow, but the other four were a crapshoot. Once bullets started flying, Sydney and the kids could as easily get in their way as anyone else. He couldn’t risk it.

“Decker? I know you can hear me,” Cox said, as the rear door closed behind Callie. “Come on out where we can talk.” Cox motioned toward Morrow, who raised his gun to Sydney’s head. “Your wife is nothing to me. And I
will
kill her.”

Ethan ignored the fear sickening his stomach, but it wasn’t as easy to deny the rush of anger following right on its heels. He couldn’t afford either. Not if he wanted to get Sydney out of this alive.

He stepped into the light, hands and gun pointed skyward. “I’m here.”

“I knew you’d be reasonable.” Cox shifted closer to Sydney, claiming her arm. “Morrow, take his gun.”

“What do you want?” Ethan said as Morrow relieved him of his weapons.

Cox laughed abruptly. “You haven’t changed, Ethan. Still all business.”

“Let Sydney and the kids go, they’re no threat to you.”

“Can’t do that. I’m taking these children back to their rightful guardian.”

“You mean warden,” Sydney said.

“Not at all. These children are cared for and educated. I’m sure you noticed how bright they are.”

“I don’t give a damn what you’re doing on that island,” Ethan said. “Just let me take Sydney and the kids out of here, and you’ll never hear from us again.”

Cox tsked. “If only I could believe that, Ethan.”

“Believe it.”

“But I know you too well. You’d make some kind of mission out of this, and these children are far too valuable. Besides, there’s something I want from you.” Cox paused. “Ramirez.

“I want you to finish the job you botched three years ago.” For the first time, a shade of anger tinged Cox’s voice. “That shouldn’t be too difficult, I wouldn’t think.”

Ethan crossed his arms. “And if I agree?”