Hide My Light: A Romantic Suspense Thriller Novel (Hide Me Series Book 3) (2 page)

West glanced at Katerina and knew at once that she was nervous. They were in his truck again, heading to the ambulance bay at the Westwood Harbor Fire Department for their first day back to work since they’d discovered a second killer had been after her. She was wearing her black gloves already.

He hoped the day was easy on her. He still hadn’t told Lieutenant Masterson that they were dating, but at this point did it even matter? Katerina didn’t need an evaluator, but she did need to be working with him, no matter what. He grimaced at the weight of his protective feelings. She was so strong, but what she had been through was enough to mess with anyone. He wanted to be there for her. She needed him to be there for her.

It wasn’t in his nature to worry excessively, but he found himself grimly thinking of things that could go wrong today, and hoping none of them did. He knew Katerina wanted a normal life. He knew she hated this power in her hands. He knew she wished it gone, wished she had never had it in the first place. He was fascinated by her power though, and wondered exactly what its limits were. He thought she was destined to be one of the greatest healers history ever knew, and he hoped he could be by her side as she discovered that. She was everything he had ever wanted in a woman; sweet, smart, competent, gorgeous, sexy, affectionate and emotionally compelling. Over the last few weeks, during the infrequent times when Stephanie, his former wife who had taken her own life, came to his mind, the pain was lessened each time. He had Katerina to thank for that, he knew. There was nothing like a new love to heal the pains of prior, lost love. And love her he did. Desperately, madly, with his entire being. He hated to see her suffer in any way, and he hoped there would be none of that for her today.

They reached the parking lot and walked inside, heading for the time clock. Paramedics rushed around, gathering supplies and checking out ambulances. A tall woman passed them at a run, throwing a glance at him over her shoulder and waving and smiling. He waved back and then told Katerina who she was. “That’s Beth Cox. She’s been a paramedic for thirty years now. She saved the last mayor’s life when he had his heart attack.” Katerina smiled and nodded, looking after her.

From across the bay someone else yelled out to them. West yelled back and waved. “That’s Jerry Mansko. He used to be Lieutenant Masterson’s partner before she got promoted. His girlfriend is the woman who saved the marine and the reporter last year when they got captured in the Middle East."

“Really? I remember that. I watched the news about it every night on TV.” Katerina stared across the bay at the man as he worked on his ambulance. West smiled, wondering if a steady stream of personal facts about their coworkers (he refused to call it gossip) would make her feel more at ease on her first day back. She wasn’t the only one with a story. She wasn’t the only person worth talking about. Luckily, he knew more. Lots more.

“That marine? He's Lieutenant Masterson’s brother."

Katerina turned to him, eyes wide. “No way!”

He nodded solemnly. “Yep. They were triplets separated at birth and they never even knew it till last year.”

Katerina’s eyebrows drew together and West had to laugh. “I swear it’s true. I’m not making this up. I couldn’t make something like that up. Touch me, you’ll see.”

Katerina shook her head. “No, I believe you. It’s just … wow.”

“Yeah, it’s a long story. I doubt I even know all of it, but Jerry told me some of it one night when we worked together.”

They punched in, checked the duty roster, and headed to their ambulance. Several more paramedics said
hi
and some of them came up to shake his hand. He introduced Katerina to all of the ones she didn’t know already, and was happy to see her manner remain fairly relaxed. No one asked about her gloves, which also made him happy.

They performed the pre-shift checklist on the ambulance quickly and efficiently, and then climbed in, ready to go.

“Want to get some coffee?” he said, calling them into service on the radio and relishing everything about returning to work. He was thrilled to be back, thrilled to have Katerina beside him.

***

Eight hours later, Katerina walked out of the hospital feeling tired. The day had been just busy enough to keep her on her toes, but not so busy that she was exhausted. West was still inside, talking to one of the doctors about their last patient, whom they had just dropped off. She looked at the time, 11:05, and hoped that had been their last call of the night. She climbed into the passenger seat and waited for West, who arrived in just a few minutes, jumping into the driver's seat with his usual energy.

He picked up the radio and talked to dispatch. “Medic twelve, clear the hospital, returning to base.”

“Are we done?” Katerina asked hopefully.

“It’s that time. As long as we don’t get any more calls we should be,” he said, backing the ambulance out into the parking lot and heading towards the road.

“Well that was a great day. It wasn’t too busy and no one died on us.”

West looked at her, his face incredulous. “You shouldn’t ever say something like that until you’re in the parking lot - no until you are in your car and driving away! All hell could still break loose at any moment.”

Katerina looked at him curiously. Was he joking? Messing with her?

She stripped off one of her gloves and placed a finger on his arm.

He laughed. “Are you checking to see if I’m lying?”

“No, joking, there’s a difference.”

“Am I?”

She looked at him dubiously. “Well you believe it, but isn’t that no more than superstition? How can something I say here in the ambulance affect the world out there,” she said waving an arm at the windshield.

He shook his head and gave her a grin that said she was being foolish. With just that look, Katerina was struck by his handsomeness and by the sheer force of her love for him. How he made every day brighter, every moment sweeter. She just wanted him to be happy. To be himself. To always be there with her. “Whoops," she said with a returning grin. "So what do I say at the end of a good day?"

West opened his mouth to reply, but the radio crackled, cutting him off. “Medic twelve, respond to CPR in progress, 1427 Ocean Breeze Drive.”

West flipped on the lights and siren and did a U-turn, heading to the address they had been given, then raised his eyebrows at Katerina and gave her his best
told-you-so
look.

“You can’t possibly believe I caused that,” she said smiling.

West shook his head, a mischievous grin on his face. “You’ll learn,” he said. He picked up the radio. “Central, you got a gate code?”

“They will have someone waiting for you at the gate.”

“Ocean breeze drive is in a gated community - millionaire row,” West explained.

“Millionaire row?”

“You’ll see. Million-dollar houses, all of them. Justin Beiber has a house up there. Adam Sandler too, I think.”

West drove in silence for a few moments, then turned onto a street that Katerina didn’t even know existed, hidden behind a park and a cemetery. Katerina watched the yellow strobe lights flash against the trees and the gravestones of the cemetery, then they swung onto another, smaller street. A man, dressed in a dark uniform of some sort, stood on the other side of a gate across the road, waiting for them. He punched in a code and the gate swung open, but the man’s car, a small blue sedan, was on the other side, blocking them. He jumped in his car and motioned for them to follow him.

“Who else lives up here?” Katerina said, watching the houses roll past them on huge, ten-acre lawns set on rolling hills lining both sides of the road.

West was silent for a moment. “I don’t know anyone else really – oh, remember the senator who shot himself about a year ago, after the FBI discovered he was bringing illegal guns in the country?”

Katerina groped for his name. “Senator Oberlin?”

“Yeah, him, his place is coming up on the right. That next gate up there is it.”

Katerina could see the yellow reflective police tape across the gate from where she was. High trees lined the driveway, obscuring the view of the house itself. “It’s still closed off?” she asked.

“That’s what it looks like.”

“Where’s the house?” Katerina asked, leaning forward in her seat to try to see better.

“It’s coming up. Keep watching between those trees, you’ll see it.”

The road curved to the left. The ambulance was going fairly slow, following the blue sedan. The road was too windy to go any faster.

West laughed softly.

“What?” Katerina asked.

“You’re not going to believe me when I tell you this, but guess who is Senator Oberlin’s daughter? It was never in the papers.”

“Lieutenant Masterson,” Katerina said dryly, remembering all the things West had told her about the lieutenant earlier.

“Ding, ding, ding, you got it on the first guess.”

Katerina looked at him, incredulously. “Now you’re just messing with me.”

“I’m not. Jay and I responded that night to the gunshot call and that’s the only reason I …” West trailed off, looking intently at the house, finally visible through the trees. His face contracted with suspicion. “Is that a flashlight in the upstairs window?”

Katerina looked. It did look like a flashlight, a round bobbing light moving throughout the room beyond.

“Could be.”

West picked up the radio again. “Medic twelve calling Central, inform police there is someone using a flashlight at the old Oberlin mansion on the top floor in the far right room as seen from the road. Gate still has police tape covering it. I don’t think anyone is supposed to be in there.”

“10-4.”

They rounded another bend in the road, and the small blue sedan pulled into a driveway on the left hand side. They followed it down the winding lane, gaping as a massive mansion slowly came into view. This was the biggest one that Katerina had seen yet. Six great pillars stood in front in an arc, framing the house. The massive driveway was lined with expensive cars, like there was a party. Katerina counted windows, stopping at eighteen windows upstairs and just as many downstairs. A third-floor with gabled towers jutted up above the house spookily.

“Someone’s got money,” Katerina breathed, taking off her black leather gloves and pulling on the blue latex gloves that all the paramedics wore. They worked as well as the leather gloves to help deflect transmission of anything she didn’t want to know about her patients.

“Stupid money,” West agreed, looking just as impressed as she was.

He stopped the ambulance and the two of them jumped out, Katerina grabbing the aid bag and West carrying the heart defibrillator. The man who had waved them through the gate climbed slowly out of his car and waited for them to get to him. His uniform had no name tag on it. He looked like private security to Katerina. “This way,” he said, his voice deep and thick, and with a slight accent. He walked placidly to the front door.

Katerina could tell West wanted to move faster. He overtook the man, trying to speed up his pace.

“Isn’t CPR in progress?” West asked.

“Yeah,” the guy said dully.

“Then shouldn’t we be moving faster?”

“Yeah,” the guy said in that same dull manner, walking slightly faster. He opened the front door and beckoned them into a large front room where sounds of people laughing drifted in from an unknown room towards the back of the house. The man turned left and led them down a long hallway.

“Who are you?” West asked him.

“Security.”

West shook his head at the one-word answers. “What happened?”

The man didn’t answer for a second, as if he was collecting his thoughts, then he spit out a short speech. “Mister Ronan was sick. He went to the bathroom. He was in the bathroom for thirty minutes. We went to check on him. He wasn’t there anymore. We found him in a bedroom, collapsed. We started CPR and called 911.”

West looked at Katerina, eyebrows raised and she shook her head softly. That was a weird speech all right. It sounded almost like he had rehearsed it.

West spoke again. “So, it’s been about forty minutes since-”

The man in front of them cut West off. He yelled down the hallway, “I have the paramedics with me!”

From ahead of them, Katerina heard heavy boots slam on the floor. In five more steps they were at the room and walked inside to find two men, both dressed in the same nondescript uniform, bent over another man laying supine on the floor.

Katerina’s vision zeroed in on her patient. She stepped around him to get to the other side and the two men scrambled to get out of her way.

Katerina pressed a gloved finger to the unconscious man’s neck, while bending over his head. Her eyes noted his tuxedo, then searched for any obvious injuries, though she saw none. “No pulse, no breathing,” she told West. She turned to the three men who were standing near the door, looking nervous. She pointed at one. “You, go outside and wait for the fire department to get here and lead them back to this room.” She pointed to another man. “You, come do chest compressions until they get here,” she said and bent to the aid bag. She pulled out the bag valve mask and pressed it over the man’s mouth and nose, squeezing the bag to get oxygen into his lungs.

She looked up again and saw West starting chest compressions, but behind him the room was empty. “Where did they go?” she said, shaking her head.

West looked over his shoulder and then turned back to what he was doing. “I don’t know, but they weren’t doing CPR when we got here.”

Katerina looked at him, thinking he was probably right. West stopped chest compressions to give her time to breathe for the man, then he ripped the guy's dress shirt open and pulled out the scissors, slicing the undershirt underneath into two pieces, and swiftly putting leads for the heart monitor onto the man’s chest.

They heard the sound of heavy boots in the hallway. West looked up as the firefighters filed in. “Hey Marco, Jeb, come help us with CPR.”

The firefighters knelt down and took over even as they greeted West. “West, good to see you man,”

“You too,” West murmured as he moved aside.

West put the leads for the heart monitor on the unconscious man’s chest and Katerina prepared the endotracheal tube. She motioned to the firefighter to move aside, then, lifting the man’s tongue and jaw with a special tool, inserted the tube into his trachea in one smooth motion. She removed the mask from the bag and attached the bag to the tube, then gave the bag back to the firefighter, indicating he should continue.

“Tube’s in,” she told West.

West already had his stethoscope out. Katerina allowed herself a millisecond to marvel at how well they worked together. He listened to both lungs and then the stomach to make sure he could hear air rushing into the lungs but not into the stomach with each squeeze of the bag. He gave Katerina a quick smile. “Perfect placement.”

West draped his stethoscope back around his neck and turned to the heart monitor. A flat line greeted them. “Asystole,” he said. “How old would you say this guy is?” he asked looking at the man’s face.

“Fifty?” The firefighter at the man’s head responded.

Katerina was already preparing the IV but saw West nod out of the corner of her eye. “Awfully young and in good shape to just collapse,” West said, then turned around to look at the doorway again. “Where’s the rest of your crew?”

“Frankie is coming,” the firefighter West had called Marco said. “He’s parking the truck.”

“Call him on the radio and tell him to get one of the security guards back down here. We need to talk to them.”

The firefighter did as West asked, while still performing CPR. Katerina could feel West looking at her even as she inserted the IV needle into a vein in the dead man’s arm.

“Everything is off about this,” he said to Katerina. “What do you think?”

“It does feel strange,” she agreed.

“Should we get the cops out here?”

“Maybe. It’s up to you.” Katerina did think the situation felt strange, but she deferred to West in a decision like this. He was the one with the experience. He was the one who knew how to handle things like this.

West stood up as Frankie tromped into the room. Katerina glanced at him. He was a tall, thick man, like a football player, with dark curly hair and stunning, Irish, green eyes. He and West shook hands quickly.

“I couldn’t find one security guard,” Frankie said. “But it sounds like there’s quite a party going on somewhere in the back. Want me to crash it and bring someone in here?”

West considered this. “No,” he finally said. “They may not even know this has happened. We don’t need them all in here wailing.”

He turned to Katerina. “Let’s just start the protocol and get to the hospital. IV in yet?” Katerina taped down the last plastic tube and nodded. “I just finished.”

She pulled the mini sharps container out of a bag and dropped the needle into it. As she was pushing the container back into the a bag, her glove caught on a sharp plastic corner and tore.

She stripped off the glove and grabbed another one, pausing just before she pulled it over her fingers. She looked down at the patient and flexed her hand experimentally as she looked up and met West's gaze questioningly. He shrugged one shoulder.
Up to you.

Katerina gingerly placed two fingers on the man’s bare abdomen.
A flash of black twisted through with red and terror. A man with a gun, pointed at her head. Pills. Dread. Drowsiness.

Katerina gasped and pulled her hand away. She turned to the aid bag and fumbled in it, her mind racing. She found what she was looking for and lifted it out of the bag. “What’s our time frame supposed to be again?” she asked West, preparing the orogastric tube frantically. She couldn't seem to get her own thoughts back. The image and what it meant overshadowed everything, not allowing her to think, to reason.

He dropped to his knees, catching her urgency. “What, what is it?”

Katerina looked at the three firefighters in turn, but knew it couldn’t be helped. She leaned closer to West. “A guy wearing one of those uniforms held a gun to his head and forced him to take a bottle of pills. He didn’t know what they were but the gunman was confident they would interact with medications he was already taking and kill him within an hour, and by then it would be too late for us to do anything, especially if we just treated him as a heart attack. They waited thirty minutes after he went unconscious to call us. They didn’t want to wait any longer because they were trying to make it look like an intentional overdose, but someone found him. The pills are small and green. That’s all I know.”

West grimaced and looked down at the patient. Both firefighters had stopped CPR and were staring at her, mouths open. West elbowed the one next to him in the ribs. “CPR,” he hissed and they both started again, stealing accusing glances at Katerina.

“Wait,” Katerina said softly, putting two fingers on the man again. She concentrated hard.
Flash.

She fumbled with his tuxedo jacket and pulled out a bottle. She handed it to West, her hand shaking. He looked for a label, and finding none, opened the bottle. He pulled out a small green pill with letters on it that Katerina couldn’t read.

“Amitriptyline,” he whispered, looking at the tube in her hands. “Put that in and push activated charcoal. I’ll give him sodium bicarbonate.