The black sedan rattled and came to a halt. Steam escaped from the hood. Joey put it in neutral.
“I’m going to need you to steer as I push.”
Ericka moved to the front seat and maneuvered the car off the road as Joey pushed from outside. Mary had leaned her head back and fallen asleep.
Ericka reached for her cell but realized she had no one to call. Calling a cop buddy would blow her cover. Joey was too close for her to risk it.
Joey leaned against the car and pulled out his phone. “Frankie, I have an emergency.”
He paused, probably so Frankie could answer. Ericka wondered if he was in the dark or if he knew the stunt Joey had pulled.
Showing up at the hospital and rescuing them from a fire fight was kind of a risky move. And exactly how had he known to come?
Hopefully he saw something on the news. If he had a camera in the room…
“Yes, we will.” He hung up the phone and climbed into the back seat. “Frankie is on his way.” He paused. “Sorry about the car. I must have been parked too close to the building and it was hit as we were running away.”
“Don’t apologize for that. I’m just glad you showed up when you did. I honestly didn’t know how I was going to get your mother out of there unharmed.”
“Um, how did you know that you needed to get my mother out?”
She needed to be careful how she answered. “I remembered how worried you and Frankie were about her going to a hospital. I just assumed it wasn’t a good idea to wait around and find out if those people could be after her.”
Joey looked out the window.
“Were they after her?”
Joey faced Ericka. “Honestly?”
“Of course.”
“I have no idea.”
“Oh.”
“After seeing them shoot toward her, I guess it is possible, but maybe they were after you.”
“Excuse me?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know that much about you. Ex-military medic and now nurse that loves tragedy. Maybe you orchestrated the entire scenario to get your kicks.”
Heat flushed her face. Ericka was seeing red. “I would never do something like that.”
“So you say.”
“I let you take me against my will to treat your mother, and I offered to care for her in the hospital to keep your family safe. Why would you accuse me of such a thing?”
“Precisely. You didn’t report us, why? Most people would have run to the authorities. Instead, you keep helping my mother and my family.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. She was running out of ways to explain her actions. Obviously, there was no logical reason for what she’d done. In fact, what she’d done by helping his family was just foolish. No rational sane person would have done it. They would have called the police just like Joey said.
Mary turned her head and moaned. Ericka reached over and grabbed the oxygen container from the back seat and hurriedly placed it over Mary’s mouth.
“I’d love to take more time to explain why I saved your mother, but we need to get some place where we can treat her.”
Joey sighed and looked down the road behind the car. “I know.”
“So, um, where are we going?” She pulled out her cell phone, lowered her hand so he couldn’t see, and dialed the office. She hoped she’d hit the mute button so they could hear her but not the other way around.
If he was already suspicious of her, she had to risk calling in. If they didn’t have a clue where she was, then Joey and the family could dispose of her dead body, and no one would be the wiser.
“Safe house.”
A car pulled up. Two barrel-chested guys with dark sunglasses stepped out. They helped put Mary in the back of the vehicle and looked at Ericka until she stepped out and climbed into the front of the car. Joey slid into the driver’s seat.
The barrel-chested men stayed with the stalled vehicle. Ericka looked back only once then she focused on Joey. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and he kept glancing in the rearview mirror at his mother and frowning.
“It’s going to take more than me to take care of your mother. She needs medicine I wasn’t able to grab before the raid.”
“We’ve got it covered.”
Ericka didn’t like the sound of that.
A quick glance at her phone showed a dying battery. She turned it off before it started beeping and gave her away. If anything, maybe Quinn managed to get a fix on her location and they could figure out where they were headed. And maybe Joey would let her call home.
And pigs would fly.
They drove through tree-lined two-lane roads. By the time they reached the safe house the sun had gone down and she’d fallen asleep. The car screeched as Joey braked and placed it in park.
Ericka rubbed her eyes. They were at a two story log cabin in the middle of the woods, and they weren’t alone.
Several cars filled the gravel area before the house. A lone figure could be seen in front of the door.
She rubbed her eyes because she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Thomas stood on the porch in a pair of tweed pants and a collared shirt. His brows were drawn downward.
They’d kidnapped Thomas?
He wasn’t going to forgive her for this one.
“Joey, um, why is my friend here?”
“You said you needed help.” Joey walked past them and returned with a wheelchair. He opened the passenger side door. “Come on, Mamma, let’s get you comfortable.”
Joey lifted his mother and placed her in the chair. He wheeled her up a ramp that looked freshly built. The wood was still pale and hadn’t been stained.
Once inside and the door closed, Ericka made her way to the porch. Thomas was staring out at the woods surrounding the house.
“He’s been planning this awhile. He has a hospital bed as well as quite a few supplies. Even the necessary medicine.” Thomas said the words with zero emotion.
“I’m sorry.”
“I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
She hoped so too.
****
Greg returned to the office. Members of his team were running this way and that as though they were in a frenzy. They had been helping to coordinate the emergency response to the bomb as well as taking care of the prisoners and checking on patients that remained in the hospital.
Greg went to his office and took a seat in the high-back chair. He massaged his hand. Firing his gun had started hurting a few months ago. He’d been meaning to check it out, but there never seemed to be enough time. Now there definitely wasn’t enough time.
A television was on in the other room. Through the frosted glass he could just make out the headlines about the bomb.
Breaking into the hospital with a bomb seemed like overkill. If they’d just wanted to get Mary, then why not go in with stealth and a sneak attack. It made no sense.
He grabbed a bottled water from his mini-fridge and unscrewed the top as he walked back into the command room. Ericka was not there. Only Quinn and Maggie from his personal team were available.
He approached their quad. “Quinn, what do we got?”
Quinn pulled up footage from the building opposite the hospital. “We’ve been analyzing this footage. And they didn’t blow the hospital open. It was the warehouse and the loading dock. It holds extra supplies for the hospital.”
“It makes no sense. Why would you blow a place so close to the hospital if you were trying to get into the hospital to kidnap Mary Demarco?”
“Maggie and I were working on that. We have a theory.”
“Which is?”
“Incompetence.”
Greg cocked his brow. “Really?”
“Not much else makes sense.” Quinn shrugged.
Greg massaged his chin. Some hairs were poking through. He needed to shave but he wasn’t going home until he figured out where Ericka had gone and who was after Mary. “Scour the other buildings for more camera footage. See if you can find their approach. Maybe they dropped the explosive too early or something” He paused. “Were any of the guys brought in alive?”
“Yeah. Maggie’s questioning one now.”
Quinn flashed the interrogation room on his computer screen.
“Now Miguel, I need to know who hired you.”
“Wasn’t supposed to be shooting. No shooting.”
“Miguel, Miguel, look at me.” Maggie snapped her fingers.
“No shooting! No shooting!”
“You guys blew a hole in the hospital, entered with long guns and enough ammo for an army. What do you mean no shooting?”
The guy started rocking back and forth and mumbling. Maggie plopped in the chair and waited.
Greg had seen enough. Miguel wasn’t going to be any help. He apparently thought going into a place armed meant something entirely different than what had happened.
The guys that he’d met in the stairwell had looked completely comfortable with the idea of shooting.
Were there two factions or maybe more?
Greg’s phone rang.
“I’ll keep you posted.”
Greg thanked Quinn before he walked away. He answered his phone. There was noise on the other end. It sounded like Ericka, but he couldn’t be sure. He had programmed her number in his phone.
The phone went mute. He tried to hit buttons for sound, but it was no use. The called dropped. He tried to call back, but it wouldn’t go through.
He massaged his eye sockets as he walked to his office and settled behind the desk. He stared at the coffee maker. It had been brought in by Ericka after her second day. Apparently, she didn’t like drinking the coffee from the break room, so she’d asked to store a coffee pot in his office. Now it was staring at him.
Where was she?
If that was her who called maybe she was trying to give him a hint, but it hadn’t been a very good one.
He punched in Quinn’s extension and put the phone to his ear. “I just got a call that hung up on me. Do a trace if you can and see if it was Ericka.”
“Yes, sir.”
The line went dead and he replaced the receiver. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on what he could remember from the hospital. He’d seen someone roll Mary out the door and put her in a sedan. Ericka had followed. She hadn’t put up a fight because she was trying to get in good with the Demarco family. Because he’d ordered her to.
If they didn’t find some information soon about who was after Mary, then Ericka could be in bigger trouble than any of them thought.
He didn’t like it. Not one bit.