My Baby, My Love

CHAPTER THREE

Noah gripped the receiver. “Sydney’s in the bathroom drying her hair. Why don’t we come downstairs? Give us about five—better make it ten minutes.”

“Let’s make it five, Major.”

Noah disconnected and found Sydney watching him warily from the doorway.

“I gather Agent Wickowski wants to ask more questions.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

Her chin lifted. “How much more complicated?”

Noah explained.

Her mouth opened, then closed silently.

“Are you okay?”

“Wonderful.” She walked back into the bathroom and the hair dryer started up again. He shouldn’t have told her so bluntly. She’d had one shock after another for the past several days. But then, so had he, and she seemed to be handling things just fine.

She came out a few minutes later reinserting her arm into its sling. Her soft brown hair was still damp, but swinging neatly around her shoulders.

Noah stepped past her and added his shaving gear to his duffel bag.

“Better bring the plant,” he told her.

“We’re leaving?”

“Changing hotels. With the FBI and the police downstairs, I don’t think we’re going to be anonymous anymore.” He didn’t add that he’d planned to make the switch even before they arrived. He was operating on instinct here. And his instincts were on full alert. Someone was coming after Sydney.

SITTING INSIDE an empty conference room the hotel had lent them, Agent Wickowski showed them a picture of a man whom Sydney immediately identified as the orderly.

“Could he have been one of the men inside that bank, Mrs. Inglewood?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I just don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“He had this in his pocket.” Wickowski smoothed out a crumpled, torn copy of her wedding picture. Jerome’s half had been ripped away, leaving only the smiling bride.

Noah made a noise that sounded like a growl.

“Your fake orderly has a long police record, but unless he recently moved into the big time, bank robbery and murder are out of his league. He’s always stuck with petty larceny until now.”

“Then he was only in my room to steal?” Sydney asked.

“We’re operating on the assumption he was hired to identify your location,” Wickowski said. “Several of the local hospitals, including yours, have had a rash of small thefts in the past few days. We recovered most of the stolen items from his apartment, but this picture makes us think you were a specific target. Unless you were carrying this in your purse and he took it for some reason?”

Sydney shook her head, trying to control the fear welling inside her.

“That’s what we thought. Since the medical examiner puts his time of death around one this morning, he wasn’t your attacker. But he could have been killed right after he met with your attacker, who then went to the hospital.”

“Pleasant thought,” she said, trying to sound cool and in control. She felt pathetically grateful when Noah touched her arm in silent support.

“You said he was shot?” she asked.

Wickowski inclined his head apologetically. “At close range. Ballistics will tell us if it was one of the guns used in the bank robbery, but I’d say the odds are pretty good. We’d like to take you to a safe house, Mrs. Inglewood.”

Sydney had seen a television program about people who had been in police protection and she quickly shook her head. “No. I don’t want to be locked up somewhere surrounded by strangers.” They would keep her a virtual prisoner.

“We’ll assign a female operative—”

“Police protection didn’t do me any good at the hospital.”

“This time we’ll use FBI personnel.”

“No.” Sydney shook her head, thinking hard. “You said you think my attacker paid this man to find out where I was and then shot him. But my attacker didn’t have a gun.”

Wickowski frowned at her abrupt change in direction. “How do you know that?”

“Because he didn’t shoot me. If he wanted me dead, why didn’t he shoot me?”