Race Against Time

Could this possibly be the mother of the little boy Quinn O’Meara had found?

There was more shuffling in the room next door, and then he overheard Anton Baba introduce himself. He held his breath as he leaned close to the wall separating him from one of the most wanted criminals he’d ever known, not wanting to miss a word of what was being said. He didn’t dare make a phone call and take the chance of being overheard. He inhaled slowly but grabbed his phone and sent Lieutenant Summers a quick text.

Get word to the Feds. Anton Baba is in ER. I’m not certain, but I think the woman getting treated in the room next to mine might be the Feds’ missing witness. She said her name was Star.

Then he hit Send.

An answer came quickly.

Do nothing. They’ve been informed. Go home.

Nick sent back a final text, Will do, then slid off the table, slipped his handgun back into the shoulder holster and put on his jacket.

The moment he stood up, the room began to spin. Damn it. Most likely he had a concussion to go with that bullet wound, but after knowing Baba was so close, he didn’t care about orders or his injury. He wasn’t leaving the O’Meara woman alone when the man who wanted her dead was in the same hospital.

He tentatively fingered the bandage on his head and then slipped out of the exam room, stopping at the nurses’ desk long enough to tell them he would be on the fourth floor if anyone needed him, then walked out despite their protests that he had not been released.

The ER staff didn’t want him to leave, but his boss told him to go home. Since he couldn’t do two things at once, he decided to do his own thing. He’d stay with Quinn O’Meara until real backup arrived. Just in case.

* * *

Nick got back to the fourth floor, but was stopped at the elevator by a Las Vegas cop. After showing his badge, they let him pass. He made his way down the hall in his bloody clothes, fielding comments about his welfare until he got to Quinn’s room. Another cop was outside her door. He recognized Nick, eyed the bandage on his head and the blood all over his shirt and jacket, but stepped aside to let him in.

The room was quiet but for the machines hooked up to the woman’s body. The nurse stood up as Nick walked in.

“How’s she doing?” Nick asked.

“She’s doing well. Resting comfortably. Are you all right, sir?” the nurse asked.

“I will be,” Nick said. “I’ll be staying here with her.”

The nurse frowned, then scooted an overstuffed chair close to the bed for him to use.

“It reclines. If either of you need anything, press this red button,” she said, pointing to the call button fastened to the side of Quinn’s bed.

“I hate to ask, but if there is a clean scrub shirt in an extra-large anywhere around, I sure could use it. And...could someone bring me a cup of coffee? My head is killing me. Oh, and if any ER doctor comes looking for me, tell him where I am.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” she said and left.

Nick moved to Quinn’s bedside, still trying to figure out why she looked so familiar. She was pretty in a wild, unharnessed kind of way. Long red hair, with slightly darker eyebrows that framed her deep-set eyes, which he remembered as being a vivid shade of green. He turned her hand palm up, felt some calluses and wondered if it was from riding the Harley or something else that she did.

He brushed a flyaway strand of her hair from her forehead and then eased himself down into the recliner. From where he was sitting he had a clear view of her and the door. He patted the shoulder holster, making sure his phone and gun were in place, and then leaned back.

A few minutes later the nurse returned with a clean blue scrub shirt, his doctor-ordered meds, a cup of coffee and a sweet roll.

“From the break room,” she said and handed them over with a sympathetic smile.

“Thank you so much,” he said softly.

She nodded, then checked Quinn’s IV and heart monitor again before she left.

Nick changed into the clean shirt, and by the time he had finished the food and coffee, the sick feeling was gone from his stomach. His head wasn’t throbbing as much as it had been. He got up to throw his garbage into the trash can, and as he was washing up, he heard Quinn’s voice.

He hurried back to the bed, but she wasn’t awake, just talking in her sleep—and crying.

“Where is he? Where’s my Nicks?” she mumbled, then turned her head and slipped into a deeper sleep.

His heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t heard that name in nearly twenty years.

He backed up and sat down in the recliner again, and sent a text to one of the other detectives in Homicide.

Run a background check on Quinn O’Meara. Get license tag info off her Harley. It’s in police impound. Send it to my phone.

Then he put the shoulder holster back on over the scrub shirt and leaned back in the chair to wait. Thirty minutes turned into an hour as he drifted in and out of sleep, awakened occasionally by the sound of Quinn’s mumbling and crying.

When his phone finally signaled a text, he scrolled through the information quickly. He couldn’t believe what he was reading. He leaped to his feet, looking down at Quinn in disbelief.

“Oh, my God! Queenie!”

She was crying in her sleep again.

He stroked her cheek, then wiped the tears.

“Queenie?”

She sobbed, still caught in whatever nightmare she was having.

“Nicks is gone,” she murmured.

“Oh, my God, my little Queenie. What happened to you after they took me away?”

Four (#uff7fe1cd-e1d2-5e62-86e8-dd1b93512c2b)

Induced by pain and drugs, Quinn was caught up in a very vivid dream of her past. He was cursing her with every breath, beating her on the back with one fist while he pushed her head under water with the other.

Quinn was kicking and thrashing, needing to breathe, trying desperately to get away, but the hand on the back of her head kept pushing her down, farther and farther into the water.

Help me, God. If you’re real, make this stop.

She woke abruptly, trembling and gasping for air. She heard the heart monitor before she saw it, and when she opened her eyes, she was shocked that it was hooked to her.

My things! Where are my things?

Everything she owned was on her Harley. Then she noticed the man sleeping in the recliner beside her bed, recognizing him as the cop from Homicide. Why was there a bandage on his head and why was he—

Her pulse jumped.

The elevator. The shooting! Blood all over the side of his face as they rushed her past him. Shouldn’t he be in a bed somewhere, too? Why was he still here?