Classified Baby

“As a matter of fact, no,” Dr. Eballa said, surprising her. “Medically, I’m willing to discharge you. But ethically, I need to be sure you’ll be safe.”

“I don’t know—” Nic began, but broke off when a small group appeared in the doorway of her hospital room, with Ethan in the lead.

He announced, “Miss Benedict will be under the protection of Prescott Personal Securities until her attacker has been apprehended.”

Nic narrowed her eyes at him. “I appreciate it, but I’m not a client.”

When Ethan didn’t answer, a fit-looking man in his late fifties stepped forward. His tattered clothes said he’d been in the PPS offices when the missile hit, and his air of authority indicated that he ranked. “I’m Robert Prescott, founder of PPS,” he said confirming her guess in a voice that held a faint English accent. He nodded to a blond woman in her late thirties, maybe early forties, who was wearing a sling and a faintly sulky expression. “My wife, Evangeline. You already know Ethan, and these other two are Detectives Riske and Montenegro.”

Nic wasn’t sure which detective was which: one was a dark-haired woman who walked with an aggressive swagger, the other an older black man with wise eyes and white-frosted hair beneath a Colorado Rockies baseball cap.

“Don’t worry, Miss Benedict,” Robert Prescott continued. “We’ll take care of everything. There’s no reason you should suffer because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.” His eyes searched her face. “We’re pretty sure that man grabbed you because you were in the elevator at the time of the attack. We’re hoping you might remember something that could lead us to the perpetrators.”

“I told Ethan before that I don’t remember anything about the first attack. I don’t even remember being in an elevator,” she said slowly. “But I can certainly describe the man who took me out of my room.”

Robert nodded. “Then we’ll start there.”

He stood so the female detective could have his chair. She sat and pulled out a small PDA, which she flipped open and activated with a few touches of a plastic stylus. Then she said, “Detective Shelia Riske, recording an interview with Miss Nicole Benedict.” She reeled off the date and location before she focused on Nic. “Miss Benedict, could you please walk us through what happened earlier today?”

Nic thought for a second, trying to line up her memories in some sort of coherent order. “Ethan had just left my room, and all I wanted to do was go home. I figured if I could make it to the bathroom on my own, I’d be able to convince the doc to spring me. I was halfway across the room when the door opened and a stranger came in…”

ONLY A sheer effort of willpower kept Ethan leaning against the wall as she described what had happened. He wanted to pace and growl, wanted to be out of the hospital, tracking the bastards who’d set their sights on PPS.

Before, he’d been only peripherally involved in the TCM matter. He’d been off on a string of bodyguard assignments during the first stages of the investigation, when Jack Sanders, Mike Lawson and Cameron Morgan, three of the best operatives PPS had in the field, had connected a string of murders to TCM, a mega company run by billionaire Stephen Turner. With Stephen married to Robert Prescott’s first wife, Olivia, and Robert’s estranged son, Kyle, working high up in the company, the ties between the conglomerate and Robert—who’d been presumed dead at the time—had seemed too strong for coincidence.

Still, it hadn’t really been Ethan’s problem. He worked for PPS because Evangeline had recruited him and the lifestyle was a good fit, but he was more of an independent contractor than part of the team. He’d stayed on the edges of the investigation, moving even further into the background when veteran PPS agent John Pinto and rookie Lily Clark brought Robert back from Cuerva Island, where he’d been hiding out and investigating his own death.

Robert returned with solid evidence that his ex-mentor and former business partner, Clive Fuentes, had tried to kill him because he’d gotten too close to one of the lucrative but highly illegal schemes Clive was running under the legitimate business operations at PPS. Robert’s investigation had also uncovered a link between Clive and the shell company used to broker the TCM oil-rights-leasing scheme that had led to the murders being investigated at PPS. Clive, however, had disappeared, leaving them unsure of whether he was involved in the attacks, or whether he’d been killed along with a half-dozen of the original oil-rights investors and Lenny, a PPS computer tech.

Lenny’s death had hit close to home, but even then Ethan had held himself apart, thinking it wasn’t his fight. Rationally, he knew it still wasn’t his fight, except that Nicole had been coming to see him when she’d gotten caught up in the danger. That made him responsible.

The child she carried made him doubly responsible, whether he liked it or not.

“Thanks,” Detective Riske said, warning him that he’d missed most of Nicole’s report. “I think we have what we need.” She saved her notes on her handheld and stood. “We’ll be in touch to schedule you with our sketch artist, and I’ll match your description to some head shots we’ve got on file. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Judging from her tone, she wasn’t holding out too much hope on that, which Ethan had to second. So far, the PPS investigators hadn’t gotten any lucky breaks on this investigation. Each time it seemed like they were starting to make headway, things took a turn for the worse.

Detectives Riske and Montenegro exited, talking in the clipped shorthand of longtime partners. That left Ethan, Robert and Evangeline, along with the question of how to keep Nicole safe when every last PPS operative was needed in the field.

“We have a safe house,” Robert said, his thoughts clearly paralleling Ethan’s. “You can take Miss Benedict there for a few days. Maybe she’ll remember something we can use.”

“Call me Nicole, please,” Nicole said from the hospital bed. With deep purple shadows beneath her eyes and the faint smudge of a bruise on one cheek, she looked too lovely, too vulnerable to be caught up in something as ugly as the TCM mess.

Ethan was tempted to agree to the plan, tempted to hide her away in the safe house and stand guard. But that was emotion talking, not logic.

“You need me on the investigation, not holed up in the safe house,” he said flatly. He turned to Evangeline. “Take Nicole to the Vault with you. That way she’s safe, and you can run things underground while Robert and I—”

“Don’t even finish that statement,” Evangeline interrupted, eyes blazing. “And don’t think for one second that I’m staying in the Vault while you big, strong men fix everything. Two years ago, Clive Fuentes took the man I loved. I didn’t go after him then because I didn’t know who was behind it, since somebody—” her eyes flicked to Robert “—wanted to protect me by keeping me in the dark like some idiot child. But not this time. Not ever again. I’m going to be on the front lines of this one, and you two can go to hell.”