It was a few minutes after ten and Brad was ready to call it another failure of a day. Styler was still out there. Rob Garner was still bitching and moaning about Jared now being questioned without him present and about everything else concerning the case against his son. And Brad hadn’t seen or spoken to Simone in two days.
As it should be, he reminded himself. He’d read over the notes she’d given to him and marveled at her insights. If the notes were any indication of how she taught, then he could understand why her classes were so popular. She had a way of laying out information that made it easy to understand, yet her intelligence in the subject matter shone through.
However, at this point there was nothing more she could do to help and the two of them had absolutely no reason to get together again. In fact, as far as he was concerned, it would be utter foolishness for him to pursue anything with Simone Colton.
He had just undressed and crawled into bed when a knock sounded at his door. He jumped up, hoping it was somebody telling him they’d finally caught Leo.
He yanked on a pair of jeans, grabbed his gun and then answered the door. It was Russ. “Hey, I just got word from a Chicago PD friend of mine that your girl has been taken by ambulance to Chicago University Hospital.”
His girl? Simone? “What? Did he know why?” Every muscle in Brad’s body tensed as his mind went wild with worry.
“He didn’t have any real details, but he thought it was something about a carjacking.” Russ frowned. “I figured you’d want to know. Do you want me to go with you?”
“No... I’m fine to go.” Brad grabbed the shirt that he’d worn that day and pulled it on. “You get some sleep and I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”
When Russ left the room, Brad quickly got on his socks and shoes. A carjacking? She had to have been hurt to be taken to the hospital. Oh God, had she been badly hurt? All kinds of crazy thoughts rushed through his head, only making him more anxious and eager to get to her as soon as possible.
A few minutes later he left the hotel room and headed for the police-issued unmarked car that had been at his disposal since he had arrived in Chicago. Rain fell at a moderate pace, as it had all evening long.
As he drove to the hospital, his brain continued to go wild with suppositions. Had a gun been involved? Had she been shot? Or had this been something much more dangerous...much more insidious than a carjacking?
Rob Garner. A vision of the man angrily threatening Simone filled his head. Did he have something to do with Simone being in the hospital? Or was Brad overthinking things? There was plenty of crime on the Chicago streets without Rob Garner being in the mix.
Right now he didn’t care so much about answering these questions. All he really cared about was her condition. It seemed like it took him forever to reach the hospital. Traffic was slow and people drove like they had never driven in the rain before. He found a parking space in the hospital lot and then raced for the emergency room.
The waiting area was half filled with people. A little boy fussed and cried in his mother’s arms and an old man had one hand wrapped in a makeshift bandage. A young couple sat side by side, her head resting on his shoulder. Two young women paced the floor, looking sick and strung out.
A hospital was definitely not Brad’s favorite place to be. His mother had lingered three long days before succumbing to the wounds from her killer. Brad’s father had brought him to visit every day.
He’d been convinced that Brad’s mother would rally, that she would somehow be okay, but Brad had smelled the death in the room, had seen the shadow of death on his mother’s face and had known even at twelve years old that she wasn’t going to have a miraculous healing.
He now went to the desk, where a harried-looking nurse sat behind a glass partition. He flashed his credentials and she opened the window. “Can I help you?”
“A woman named Simone Colton was brought in here by ambulance about an hour ago. I need to speak to the doctor in charge of her case.”
“Please, have a seat and I’ll see what I can do,” she replied.
With a sigh of frustration, he sank down in a chair near the window. He waited ten minutes and then finally the nurse waved at him and opened the door that separated the waiting room from the curtained-off emergency beds.
Brad hurried through the door and was met by a young doctor who wore the name tag of Dr. McCoy. Once again, Brad showed his credentials and then enquired about Simone.
“Miss Colton was brought in after having suffered a head trauma that rendered her unconscious. She regained consciousness soon after arriving. We’ve now run the appropriate tests to make sure she didn’t have a fracture or any brain bleed. Both tests came back negative, but I’ve had her transferred to a bed upstairs for a night of observation.”
“What room has she been transferred to and can I see her?” Brad asked, his emotions flying all over the place. He needed to know how she had ended up here with head trauma.
“She’s in room 605. I’ll tell you what I told the officers that came in with her. I don’t want her stressed by too many questions. The main thing she needs right now is rest.”
“Got it,” Brad replied and hurried back to the exit of the waiting room. Once there he went down a long hallway and came to the elevators that would take him up to the sixth floor.
His heart thundered in his chest. She’d suffered a head trauma... What did that even mean? Had somebody tried to jack her car and hit her over the head with the butt of a gun? With a crowbar? Where had this happened? He didn’t even know what kind of a car she drove.
Once the elevator doors whooshed open, he quickly stepped out, checked the sign on the wall and then raced in the direction of her room. The halls were quiet and the lights were dimmed at this time of the night.
He was vaguely surprised when he reached her room to find nobody else there with her. She lay in the bed, a lamp just above her head casting light on her pale face. Her eyes were closed and she looked small and achingly vulnerable in the big hospital bed.
He needed to contact somebody. He needed answers as to what had happened to her, but at the moment he just needed to stand in the doorway and watch the steady rise and fall of her chest beneath her blue-flowered hospital gown. He needed to gaze at her beautiful face and assure himself that, at least for now, she seemed to be safe and resting peacefully.
Suddenly he was gazing into her bright blue eyes. “Simone,” he whispered softly.
Her eyes widened. She looked around the room and then back at him and then a deep sob escaped her and she raised her hands to hide her face.
“Simone...” In four long strides he was at her bedside. “Please don’t cry,” he said.
“I...I can’t h-help it, Brad. I was so...so scared and m-my head is k-killing me.”
He sank down next to her in a chair. “Simone, crying is only going to make your head hurt more. You’re safe now.” He reached out and pulled one of her hands away from her face. He held on tight and slowly she lowered her other hand and gazed at him through tear-filled eyes.
He continued to hold her hand as she drew in a few deep breaths in an obvious effort to calm herself. For several moments they were silent. Although there were a hundred questions he wanted to ask her, he also wanted to give her enough time to gather herself together.
Finally, her tears stopped and her eyes were more clear. “Simone, I don’t want to upset you, but I need to know what happened tonight.”
She reached for a water cup on a small tray on the opposite side of the bed. She took a swallow, then set down the foam cup. “I...I had my last lecture tonight. It all went great and afterward I headed for my car in the staff parking lot.” She paused and a whisper of fear darkened her eyes.
“It was raining and I...I was almost to my car,” she continued, “when I heard a couple of footsteps behind me. I started to turn and then I was shoved hard and my hair was yanked. Somehow, I managed to push my car alarm before I fell backward and hit the concrete with my head. I woke up here. The doctor told me the two police officers who followed the ambulance believed it was a carjacking gone awry.”
She winced slightly and then pulled the thin hospital blanket up closer around her neck. “To be honest, I don’t know what to believe. It all happened so fast. I suppose it might have been a carjacking. I can’t imagine what else it would have been.”
“Were there other cars in that parking lot?” he asked.
She nodded and then winced again, her headache obviously causing her pain. “There were a few.”
He asked her several more questions and he could tell she grew more and more weary.
She drew in a deep, heavy sigh. “Brad, I don’t want any of my family knowing about this. I’ll be out of the hospital tomorrow and there’s no need to worry any of them.”
“I will do my best not to tell anyone,” he replied. “Now, the best thing you can do is get a good night’s sleep.” He rose from the chair.
The instinct...the need to lean down and kiss her on the forehead or on her cheek shocked him. Instead, he quickly stepped back from the bed. “I’ll be back in the morning, Simone.”
“Thank you, Brad.” Her eyes slowly drifted closed and he stepped outside of the room. He hurried down the hallway a little ways and then pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He was far enough away that she wouldn’t be able to hear his conversation, but close enough that he still had his eye on her room.
He needed to speak to the officers who had responded to the scene, but first he needed to call the lieutenant who was the liaison between the FBI agents and the Chicago PD. He wanted to arrange for a guard on Simone’s door.
Even though the police had believed it was a carjacking, Brad’s gut instincts told him that there was a real possibility it might be something different. It was just too coincidental that Rob had threatened her and then she was attacked in a staff parking lot.
There was no way to be sure his instincts were right or wrong, but he wasn’t taking any chances with Simone’s safety. It took forty-five minutes for a police officer to show up for the guard duty. He settled into a chair in the doorway of her room and told Brad he would be there until Brad returned the next morning.
The next place Brad went was to the police station to see if he could hunt down the two officers who had responded to the 911 call made by a security guard at the college. He got lucky and found both of them together at their desks.
They agreed to meet with him in one of the interrogation rooms that currently wasn’t in use. “I just want to get the rundown on what happened when you arrived at the call on the campus earlier.”
Mike Walker was a young patrolman. He frowned. “When my partner and I arrived on scene, Miss Colton was unconscious on the ground. Her car alarm was going off, which had alerted the security guard who called it in.”
“I immediately checked the area for a perp, but I didn’t see anyone around.” Paul Winthrop appeared to be the older, the more seasoned of the two.
“Where were her car keys?” Brad asked.
“In her hand,” Mike replied. “Although her computer case and an umbrella were on the ground near her. It looked like an open-and-shut case to me.”
“If she was unconscious with her keys in her hand, then why wasn’t her car stolen?” Brad asked.
“It would be my speculation that the alarm scared the carjacker off,” Paul said.
“Do you know how long the alarm rang before the security guard responded?” Brad asked.
“He wasn’t sure. He only heard it when he stepped outside to have a smoke. Do you know how she’s doing? She was still unconscious when we were with her earlier,” Mike said.
“I just left the hospital and she’s going to be okay. She’s being held overnight for observation, but she should be out of the hospital sometime tomorrow,” Brad explained.
“That’s good to hear,” Paul replied.
“Can you email me your reports when you get them written up?” Brad asked.
“I’ve already written mine up,” Paul replied. “Just give me your email and it will be done.”
Brad gave the two men his email address and then thanked them. When they parted ways, Brad’s impulse was to rush back to the hospital, but he knew he had other things to do in order to assure Simone’s safety going forward.
He went back to his office and read Paul’s report and then just sat for several minutes trying to clear his mind. He needed to think rationally and not emotionally.
It was evident that everyone he had spoken to believed it had been a carjacking gone awry, but all his instincts screamed it had been Rob or somebody close to Rob who had attacked her.
He’d seen the hatred in the man’s eyes both times he’d encountered Simone. Worse than the hatred had been the whisper of fear he’d seen in Rob’s eyes.
Brad believed Rob saw Simone as a viable threat to Jared’s freedom, and if that was the case, then he was a clear and present danger to her. If what Brad believed was true, then tonight Rob had attacked her. The car alarm very well might have saved her life.
If Rob’s intention had been to take her out permanently, then tonight he had failed. What scared Brad was that meant another attack was possible, and the next time Rob just might succeed.
Simone awakened with the morning light drifting in through the blinds at the window. For a moment she was disoriented. Then the memories of the night before slammed into her.
Her headache had finally abated, but she now felt more aches and pains in her back from hitting the concrete. As she thought of the sudden, violent attack, a chill swept through her. Everything had happened so fast and she desperately wished she had seen her attacker so that the police would have a physical description of whoever it had been.
Unfortunately, because it had all happened so fast and she’d been attacked from behind, she hadn’t seen the person. The police had been certain that it had been a carjacking. For as long as she had worked at the college, she’d never heard of any carjackings occurring there. But she supposed it was possible that was what it had been. There was really no other scenario that made any sense.
A vision of an enraged Rob Garner filled her head. She still didn’t believe she needed to take his threats seriously, and she didn’t think he had anything to do with what had happened to her the night before. But what if she was wrong? She didn’t want to believe that it was anything other than a random act of violence. To believe that Rob Garner had been behind the attack was just too frightening to consider.
Her thoughts turned to Brad. Thoughts of him always made her heart flutter just a bit. There was no question that she felt a strong physical attraction toward him, but what woman wouldn’t? He was definitely easy on the eyes. While she had found him easy to talk to, there was no way there would be anything between them except the murder that had temporarily brought them together.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a nurse, who took her vitals and pronounced all of them good. “The doctor will be in soon,” she said and then left the room.
It wasn’t the doctor who came in next, though. It was breakfast. She ate the toast and drank both the orange juice and coffee but didn’t have the appetite for the scrambled eggs or the limp bacon. She pushed the tray away and then settled back into her pillow.
She didn’t realize she’d fallen back asleep, but when she opened her eyes, Brad was seated in the chair next to her bed. “Oh my gosh, how long have you been there?” she asked and raised up the head of her bed.
“Not too long. How are you feeling?”
He looked great in a pair of jeans and a navy polo shirt. As usual, a shoulder holster with his gun was his only accessory. Her hand self-consciously went up to her hair and then dropped back to her lap. She had no idea what she looked like at the moment, but in the end it really didn’t matter.
“My headache is better, but I’ve definitely discovered some new body aches and pains today,” she replied.
“I’m not surprised. You took a hard fall last night.” His gaze was warm and intense as it lingered on her. “When I got the call that you’d been taken to the hospital, it scared the hell out of me.”
“I have to confess, when I woke up in the hospital, I was pretty scared myself. I just wish I could have given the police officers a description of the person or persons so they could get him...or them off the streets.”
“There’s no question things would be different if you had seen who attacked you. However, I’m not convinced what happened to you was a carjacking.”
She stared at him. “You think it was Rob Garner?”
“I do.” A muscle throbbed in his lower jaw. “I warned you to stay away from him.”
She picked up on a bit of frustrated anger in his voice and it stirred a touch of defensive anger in her. “I’ll admit I made a mistake when I approached him in the restaurant, but it wasn’t my fault that we ran into each other in the police station when I brought you my notes.”
For a long moment their gazes remained locked. Finally, he raked a hand through his short hair and released a deep sigh. “Sorry, I’m not angry with you. I’m just angered by this whole situation.”
“I’m not exactly happy about it, either,” she replied drily.
At that moment a doctor entered the room. He introduced himself as Dr. Matt Jacobs. “How are you feeling this morning, Miss Colton?”
“Make it Simone and I’m feeling much better. Please tell me I can go home.”
“Only if you promise that if your headache returns or if you suffer any dizziness or unusual drowsiness, you’ll either follow up with your doctor or return to the emergency room,” he replied.
“I promise,” she said.
“Then I’ll have the nurse work up your discharge papers.”
“Thank you, Dr. Jacobs.”
“Would you please step out so I can get dressed?” Simone asked Brad once the doctor left the room.
“Of course,” Brad replied. He immediately stood and headed for the doorway.
Simone got up and checked the closet, where she found the clothes she’d had on the night before hanging there. Her purse and her computer case were also there. She assumed one of the officers had sent them along with her in the ambulance. She dressed quickly and then went to the door to let Brad know he could come back in.
She was surprised to see him speaking to a police officer who was seated in a chair just outside her room. She stepped back before either man saw her and instead she sat on the edge of her bed to wait for Brad and her discharge papers.
He knocked on the door and she told him to come in. When he entered the room again, she looked at him curiously. “Who is the officer in the chair?”
“His name is Officer Eric Mendez. I had him sit on guard duty outside your room all night long.”
“Did you really think that was necessary?” she asked. Her heart began to beat a little bit faster. She suddenly felt as if her orderly life was spinning out of control and she didn’t like the feeling at all.
“I would prefer to err on the side of safety,” he replied. “And with that in mind, I hope you don’t mind but I’ve called your sisters to meet me and you at your place at two o’clock this afternoon.” He once again sat in the chair next to the bed.
She stared at him for a long moment. “Did you tell them what happened to me?”
He hesitated a moment and then looked away. “Yeah, I did.”
Another edge of anger rose up inside her. “I asked you not to tell them.”
He looked back at her and there was a hard glint in his eyes. “Simone, I am first and foremost an FBI agent, and I thought it was in everyone’s best interest to know what happened to you last night.”
“But why? It could only have been one of two things. Either it was a random act or it was Rob Garner. In either case, why did they have to know anything?”
“I’ll explain more about it when we’re all together with your sisters,” he replied. “I’ll take you home and we’ll wait for them there.”
“Where is my car? Is it still at the college?” She was trying not to be upset, but once again she felt as if her carefully structured world was turning upside down.
“I arranged for your car to be taken back to your condo parking spot.” He stood and reached into his pocket. He pulled out her key fob and held it out to her. She took it from him and dropped it into her purse.
An awkward silence ensued. She knew Brad wasn’t telling her something and that worried her. What was going on that he felt the need to involve her family at all? She refused to beg him for the answers right now, but she couldn’t help the nerves that jangled inside her.
Thankfully the nurse walked in at that moment with her discharge paperwork, breaking the sudden tension that had risen up between them.
Once Simone was free to go, she and Brad left the hospital and he led her to his car. Since he’d flown into Chicago, she knew the car wasn’t his personal one, but rather one the Chicago PD had loaned him for the duration of his time here.
The brief sunshine of the morning was gone and rain had moved in again. Unfortunately, her umbrella hadn’t been with her clothes and purse, so they raced to get to the car. Once there, Brad quickly opened the car door for her and she slid inside.
The car interior smelled like Brad’s cologne, and even with everything that was going on, her stomach tightened with what only could be described as a faint hint of sexual tension. Or was it simply anxiety? Because she knew something was about to happen and she had no idea if that something was going to be good or very, very bad.