Chapter 26

Nickie thrummed the heel of her boot against the floor of Duncan's SUV. Patience was not her specialty.

"Top floor." She pointed up as he turned into the hospital parking garage.

"The ADA is with Detective Lynx," he repeated in a low voice as calm as if they were having scones with his aunt on Sunday morning. His driving was a direct contrast, the tires of his SUV squealing around each corner.

"Not with him, with him. Lynx wasn't satisfied with just the one fed assigned to guard Parker's hospital room, the backstabbing mole. Miranda wasn't satisfied with Lynx there seeing as he still isn't healed himself." She rubbed her hands over her face. "I know, I know. It makes my brain hurt, too."

"The suspect is male?"

"Yep," she said as Duncan made the last corner to the top of the garage.

"How much time is Lynx giving you before he calls Captain Nolan?"

"However much time I want." She turned to read the expression on his expressionless face, then lowered her brows at him. "That was a reverse psychology question."

He nodded as he tore into the closest spot. "Something like that, you could say," he answered.

She would have double-parked in front of the doors, but it was close enough.

She slid from the car and shut the door running. "The feds probably already have backup on the way. Hospitalized or not, I'm going to use the breach as an excuse to step in and interrogate the bastard."

"That's my detective."

She would never admit how much she liked it when he called her that.

"I'm giving Parker about ten minutes to give me something I can use before I—" she said as she turned her back to the door, pushing it open with her butt as she used her fingers to make quotation marks in the air. "—lose my job for not notifying the feds that the hospital room has been compromised." She took the stairs two at a time, letting the burn in her thighs distract her from that possibility.

The top floor was quiet, worse than hospital quiet. A few nurses stood huddled at the nurse's station. Three doctors stood against the far wall, whispering as she and Duncan strolled out-of-breath toward the corner room that held Parker, Eddy and the ADA. The chair outside the traitor's room that should be holding the federal guard sat empty. It made her check her surroundings thoroughly for possible Fu Haizi.

The sound of a whimpering female came from inside the room. She could hear it before she had a chance to breach the doorway. Pulling her gun from her holster, she held it down at her side. Without causing a top floor hospital panic, she peered around the doorway. The whimpering turned out to be more of a hyperventilating, but the thing she checked for first was the end of the hospital bed and feet she assumed were Parker's under the white sheets.

As soon as she breached the entrance, she held out her gun and let it lead her deeper inside. It was then that she spotted an extra set of feet, lying on the hospital floor next to the bed. Feet wearing shiny black shoes and pressed black pants.

It was the guard. The federal agent. Although in disbelief, she made her feet continue. The ADA stood on one side of Parker, gasping with tears falling down her cheeks. Eddy Lynx stood on the other side of the bed, like a guard over the body.

Eddy shot a federal agent? "You shot a federal agent?"

"He, he, he," Miranda stuttered. "He tried to kill me. Shoot me."

"So, I shot him." Eddy shrugged.

"I'm not telling you anything," Parker said loudly around the bandages that covered his broken nose.

Shoulders shaking, Miranda continued. "He waited until Eddy left to get us all coffee. He even placed an order for three creams and two sugars. Then, he came in and started putting this into Parker's IV." She held up a tissue between her thumb and forefinger she used to lift a syringe. "I asked him what he was doing and, and, and he said he was supposed to. That he knew what he was doing. As if I could be that dense. I told him to stop or I was..." She clamped her free hand over her mouth. "He put the syringe in the port anyway. We struggled. I don't know when he pulled out his gun, but he aimed it at me. I heard a click, but it was—" She started sucking air in short gasps.

"It was me," Eddy finished for her. "I put a bullet in his back."

"He saved my life." The syringe shook in her hand.

Duncan gingerly took it from her and held the end to his nose.

"It's okay now," Nickie said. "We're here."

"You hear me," Parker yelled like she wasn't standing two feet from him. "I'm not telling you shit."

Nickie craned her chin back. "I didn't ask, you backstabbing mole."

Duncan wore gloves and held the syringe to the light. "Odorless. Likely potassium chloride." Where did he get gloves?

"But, since I'm not looking to inject you with anything lethal," Nickie added to Parker. "I'm the best friend you've got, asshole. You know how this works. I can't help save your worthless life unless you give me something good."

Duncan held up a finger. Nickie glanced at his eyes and read what he was trying to say. He knew something. His eyes traveled from Eddy to Miranda to the door.

"Listen, Lynx," Nickie said. "I need you to get Miranda to the station before she passes out." Miranda didn't even argue with her.

Eddy's expression was priceless. "Me?" Yep. Chivalry was dead. She tried to give him a do-it-for-me look.

He threw his head back. "Aww, hell. Come on, woman," he said and stepped over the dead body like he was stepping over a sleeping dog. He may have spoken like an ass, but he slid an arm around her shoulder and guided her out with his other hand on her elbow.

Duncan put a finger to his lips. Parker's eyes grew wide, and he shook his head back and forth violently. Stepping to the television set that hung from the ceiling, Duncan took hold of a knob at a bottom corner and yanked. Not a knob. He examined both sides as he made his way to the bathroom.

A quick plop was followed by a flush. He called from the bathroom. "It has GPS as well as audio. I'm going to flush another time or two. Let them try and trace that."

But she wasn't paying attention to what he was saying. She was more concerned with Special Agent Goodrich, who stepped into the room with his gun drawn. Everything crawled to slow motion.

Goodrich didn't look down at his dead fellow agent. He didn't even look at Parker, who was trembling so hard the bed shook. He stared down the barrel of his Glock that was aimed between Nickie's eyes.

She refused to hold up her hands or even close her lids. She wondered if Duncan would get out of this alive. What he would feel when he saw her lying with a bullet in her head. How they never got to have the family they'd finally decided on.

The single pop was loud, firecracker loud. Her eyes grew wide. So did Goodrich's. He looked down at his chest, but nothing was there. The hole would be in his back. Just like the stiff on the floor. He grabbed his shirt anyway and fell forward like a tall tree chopped down in the woods.

Standing behind Goodrich was his partner. Special Agent Hurst stood with his elbows still locked, eyes staring down the barrel of his Glock. His chest expanded and contracted like he'd just run a mile. Maybe he had.

"What. The. Fuck. Have you done?" It was Parker who asked, breaking the silence.

"I followed him here," Hurst said, gun still extended. "I had my suspicions. Is everyone okay?"

Nickie answered, "Everyone except two federal special agents."

Duncan spun out of the bathroom and dodged around Hurst. "I heard a gunsho—" His eyes traveled to Goodrich who lay facedown on the floor.

Hurst spoke before Duncan had a chance to. "We need to get moving, Detective."

"How deep does this rabbit hole go?" she asked him.

Hurst shook his head and eyed Parker as he lay in his bed. "I'm not sure, but I bet I know someone who does."

With the bug flushed, Parker didn't seem as anxious to loudly declare his code of silence. "Can you walk?" Nickie asked him.

He didn't answer, but didn't argue either.

"This was all about killing you, dude. We're all you've got."

Parker nodded. "All right. Get this shit off me," he said and lifted the arm with the IV and blood pressure cuff.

Nickie's cell rang. Duncan and Special Agent Hurst whispered as she answered while pulling stuff from Parker's arm.

"Ow," Parker yelled.

"Nick. We've got trouble." It was Eddy.

Blood dripped down Parker's arm. Duncan's hand came around her with some gauze.

"Eddy," she said into the phone as she stepped out of Duncan's way.

"There was a car down here. I think it was Fu Haizi people. They took off when I approached."

"They've got friends and family," she said to Duncan and Hurst.

Parker said, "Fuck," and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

"Do you have clothes?" she asked.

"Do I have what?" came from the phone.

"Not you, Eddy. I'm hanging up. Stay by your phone."

Parker scanned the room.

"No time," she said. "Move." She gave him a push in the middle of his back toward the door.

"I've got him, Nickie." Duncan grabbed the back of Parker's arm. "You ride with Special Agent Hurst. We're meeting up with Abigail."

His horse? Oh. The farm. "Good idea." No one would find them there.

She followed behind with Hurst at her side. He shut the door, then shook it to make sure it latched. "Let's discuss the rabbit hole, Detective."

She inhaled, then blew out a breath. So, Hurst was the real deal. And she'd been sneaking around behind his back. "You," she barked at the charge nurse, ignoring the huddle of doctors. "He's coming with us."

The nurse opened her mouth like she was going to argue.

"Anyone opens that door and they face a felony indictment," she yelled and swept a pointed finger over all of them. "Backup is on the way."

She could see Duncan's cheek expanding into a smile as he escorted a barefoot Parker into the elevator. Never before had she been more thankful for hospital robes that covered the backs of gowns.

Hurst stepped in last. They turned around and the doors shut in front of them.

"Am I going to get some clothes?"

"Shut up," they said in unison.