Race Against Time

“You were my guardian angel...my touchstone in that house. Where did you go when you left our foster family?” Quinn asked.

“I didn’t know I had any other family until my mother’s sister and her husband found me. They adopted me and brought me to Nevada. Didn’t they explain why I left?”

Quinn sighed.

“All our foster mother said was that your family took you home. I was little. I didn’t understand. I just felt...abandoned.” She shook her head. “It was my fault for getting attached. After you, I didn’t let anyone get close to me again.”

Nick felt a pang of regret for the little girl she’d been.

“So no adoptive parents?” he asked.

He saw her expression go blank and her eyes narrow.

“It didn’t work out,” she finally said.

He sensed something dark behind those words but decided this wasn’t the time or place to press it.

“Where do you live now?” he asked.

“Nowhere.”

He frowned. “What do you mean, nowhere? Are you wanted somewhere? Are you on the run from someone?”

She didn’t much like what he’d asked, but she understood the reason why he’d asked. He was, after all, a cop.

“I’m legal. I work for a while and then I move on. No ties or traces of me left behind.”

Nick felt sick. Something bad had happened to her.

“Then I guess it was fate that our paths crossed once more,” he said.

She wanted to know everything about him but was afraid to find out he already belonged to someone else, so she shifted the conversation from their briefly shared history to the present hell she’d brought down upon herself.

“Whose path did I cross before I stumbled into Las Vegas Homicide?” she asked.

“The Feds were helping a woman and her baby escape in return for her testimony against the man she was being held by.”

“And? Where are they now? It didn’t look like anyone other than the baby survived that crash.”

Nick shrugged.

“The way we figure it, you rode up on the aftermath of the murder of two federal agents. They didn’t survive the accident. The baby’s mother was in the car, but she and the baby survived. We don’t know how. We have nothing but guesses as to why she was with the Feds except that he’s someone they’ve been after for years. Maybe she was going to testify against him...maybe not. I can’t say. The main thing is that the baby is safe, thanks to you. What you did—that was amazing.”

Quinn’s stomach knotted.

“Who is this man? What’s his name?”

“Maybe it’s best you—”

Quinn jammed her finger into his chest.

“I have the right to know who wants me dead,” she snapped.

Nick took her hand. She was right.

“Anton Baba.”

All the color went out of Quinn’s face, her anger turning to shock and then fear.

“Oh, my God. He’s notorious.”

“And yet has never been convicted of anything,” Nick added.

“I’m dead,” Quinn said and closed her eyes.

* * *

Star woke up in a hospital room and never remembered coming out of surgery. The first face she saw was Anton standing at the foot of her bed talking to a doctor. She felt instant despair. Her life was a joke. Her future was doubtful.

Then Anton saw she was awake and rushed to her. Even though he was smiling, there was a flash of anger in his eyes.

“My darling, the worst of that terrible wreck is over. Now all you have to do is heal. I will leave a guard on the door outside...for your protection, of course.” He brushed a thumb across the softness of her lower lip, then pressed it inward against her teeth just enough to remind her she’d displeased him greatly. “Dream of me as you sleep,” he whispered, then leaned over and kissed her forehead before he left.

There was nothing she could do as she watched him leave. She was helpless to defend herself, and her life—and the life of her baby boy, wherever he was—was in the hands of fate.

The pillows wedged against her back kept her from rolling over onto the bandages, but it still felt like someone was holding a torch to her back. When a nurse came in to inject meds into her IV, she was shaking from the pain.

“Bless your heart, honey,” the nurse said. “This medicine will give you some relief. Don’t fight it. Just close your eyes and sleep.”

“Thank you,” Star said and closed her eyes.

The nurse was right. She could immediately feel a heaviness sliding through her body, limb by limb, pulling her conscious self back into the darkness. The last thing she remembered as she was going under was the look in Anton’s eyes and the tone in his voice. It was a warning: don’t run from me again.

* * *

Star was dreaming about home—something she hadn’t done in years. Maybe it was because she was separated from her baby and now understood the loss her mother surely must have felt when she disappeared. She woke up in tears and rang for the nurse, then waited for her arrival. She needed to go to the bathroom and was dreading making a move.

The nurse came in, turning on lights as she moved toward the bed.

“Good morning, Star. How’re you feeling this morning? What would you rate your pain level on a scale of one to ten?”

“Probably a seven or eight,” Star said, as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, then moaned. “Oh, my God, my back! Is it time for my pain meds?”

“I’ll find out,” the nurse said, helping Star to the bathroom and then back to bed. As soon as the nurse got her settled down, she left to check on Star’s request for pain meds.

Star looked for a phone and noticed it was gone and then rolled her eyes. Who would she call? There was no way to know who Anton had in his pocket, but she knew he had snitches everywhere...in every facet of the government. She looked at the closed door, imagining what it would be like to have the freedom to just walk out and never look back. She was crying quiet tears when the nurse came back, injected pain meds into the IV and adjusted her covers.

The dreams faded.