“No matter what happens, you will not leave this van.” Joshua Richards accentuated every word, his steel-blue eyes like lasers on Jessie’s face. “Are we perfectly clear about that?”
“We are.” Jessie settled into the captain’s chair in the back of what looked like a panel truck. “I didn’t come all this way to mess anything up, believe me.”
“I appreciate that. And I’m grateful for the information you were able to pass on after the incident last night with Cassidy. We have a team going through the offices in your institution’s history department to try and learn all that we can about her.”
Jessie narrowed her eyes. “Does this mean she’s not dead after all? Earlier on the plane I saw a look from you that made me wonder if she’d been shot.”
“We think she was shot, but not fatally. She ditched your car after a chase and it was found with blood in the front seat, but not enough to make anyone think she was dead.”
Jessie shuddered. “Am I supposed to drive that car again?”
Joshua grimaced. “Probably not. At the least I’ll make sure that the bureau pays for taking out the seats and replacing them, not just a thorough cleaning. Besides, we need to go over those front seats with a fine-tooth comb anyway. She wasn’t in this alone and her partner’s still out there somewhere.”
Jessie finally asked something that had been on her mind for hours. “How do we know that there will be anybody at the clinic anyway? With as much time as she had to warn people, won’t they have taken Laura and Adrian to another location?”
“They would have if they’d gotten any messages. Reception from cell phones and Internet service providers is so bad in this area surrounding the clinic that no one would think it odd to go twelve hours without messages from those sources. Naturally we made the extra effort to assure that any messages that might have gotten in were blocked or the normal frequencies were jammed.”
Jessie thought that was a brilliant idea and said so. Meanwhile the team assembling to rush the clinic was loading up weapons, checking each other’s bulletproof gear and double-checking everything. Still, if she were the one putting on body armor and running up to a place as remote as this one, defended by known gangsters, maybe she’d try to convince herself it was safe, too. It was bad enough to be left behind here knowing Steve would be going into this dangerous situation.
Then he was in front of her, and she shivered a little to see him in all the protective gear, carrying weapons like the rest. She had known all along that his job was dangerous and he carried a gun any time he was on duty, but this brought it all home in a different way. “Be careful out there,” she said softly, putting her hands on his shoulders. “Don’t get too heroic for your own good, okay?”
“I won’t. I’ve got too much to lose to try foolish heroics. Keep praying for me while we’re doing this. And say a few for Joshua and the rest of the crew.”
“For everyone,” she said softly. Reaching up on tiptoe, she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you back here soon.” Watching him head off with the others, the lump in her throat felt like an orange. Laura wondered what this growing awareness of faith would be like once all the excitement was over. Could she sustain this belief when there wasn’t anything to worry about? Right now hope was a life preserver in the tossing sea of emotions all around her. When the waves calmed down, where would that leave her? It wasn’t a question she could answer.
Four in the morning had never been Steve’s favorite time of day. Too late to be night, too early to feel like morning, it was disjointed and more eerie than peaceful. The darkness that had been velvety black a few hours before now thinned out to a deep gray. Adding this discomfort to the hot, chafing body armor and the unaccustomed weight of the weapons he carried made him hyperaware of the situation they all faced. There weren’t enough prayers available to keep him truly calm as he faced this task.
The tiny radio unit in his right ear came to life with Joshua’s voice. “All positions set. Ram team in place to move in ninety seconds. Alpha unit, you call the shots from here on out.”
“Roger that” came another deep voice Steve knew belonged to Rick, the coordinator of the RCMP special tactical squad with the battering ram and the five-person team that would rush the medical facility right behind the ram. Normally their expertise was in getting into drug labs, but this operation had enough similarity to a drug raid that Rick was in charge.
The ninety seconds until the final rush dragged by interminably. Even though Steve could see team members slip into place with precision it still felt as if it was all taking forever. Then finally the woods exploded with noise from flash grenades and the sound of the ram on the heavy door of the clinic. Alarms sounded from inside as the team rushed the building, with the American contingent only seconds behind them.
Incredibly they reached the heart of the clinic with little, if any bloodshed. The shocked medical personnel were whisked outside except for a few key people needed to open doors and direct the teams to the patients they sought. By now the building’s power had been cut and what lights were left came from a generator, dimming the corridors and the nurses’ station at their hub.
Steve raced along behind Rick and the rest of a four-person team navigating the corridors until they came to a large room hung with sterile drapes pulled back from the glass wall that made up the front of the room. Framed by the yellow drapes was a figure on a bed, her breathing so shallow she looked like an animated Sleeping Beauty. Blond hair poured over the pillow and one thin wrist and delicate hand drooped from the confines of the railed hospital bed. “Is that her?” Rick asked. Steve nodded, recognizing Laura from the pictures he’d seen and the memory of the bedside vigil at another hospital.
“That’s her.” He understood now why even Jessie had been fooled into thinking that the person they’d watched dying was Laura. The bone structure, the hair and even the way she lay on the bed were the same as her mother. This woman, however had not been ravaged by fire and violence so her porcelain skin was unnaturally pale but otherwise untouched.
“There’s one other confirmation…can I go in there to check something out, or will it harm her?”
Rick shrugged. “We’re going to need to take her out of the room eventually. The guy next door, too. How we’re supposed to get somebody from special ops germ-free enough to do that is beyond me.”
To be as safe as he possibly could, Steve went to a nearby station and scrubbed his hands, put on one of the masks there and sterile gloves. Then he opened the door and went into the small room where Laura lay on the bed. She appeared to be dressed in hospital scrubs and Steve lifted the sheet covering her feet and legs. There on her ankle was the one thing that he was looking for; a tiny tattoo of a bluebird. “Jessie is going to be so happy,” he said to her, even though he doubted she could hear him. He settled the sheet back in position and walked out of the room, not wanting to risk contaminating her anymore with his outside germs.
Personnel still milled around the main rooms of the clinic. “Looks like we got an added bonus,” Rick crowed, pointing to the entrance where three team members clustered around a dark-haired man in khaki pants and a silk sweater. “The man himself was paying a little visit to the clinic. It seems that the last message that made it through was one from somebody with the information that they’d gotten hold of Jessie so there was fresh blood available.”
Jake Brandino seemed unruffled by everything. He probably thought that like most other situations, some high-priced lawyer he had on retainer would get him out of this one. From all the setup work Richards had done, even Steve knew that wasn’t going to be the case. He wished he could stick around to see the fireworks when Brandino found out otherwise.
“Mission accomplished,” Richards said, coming up beside him. “Looks like you’re already set to be part of the crew that gets these two to the waiting rescue units.” He nodded toward Laura and the unseen figure in the room next to her.
“It would be my pleasure, provided that somewhere along the way Jessie gets to have a minute with her sister.”
“She kept her promise, and I’ll keep mine. I don’t know what kind of prep the medical staff will make her do, but no matter what they say I’m going to push for her to be there. In fact, if I can swing it she’ll go in the helicopter that takes Laura on the first leg of the journey to a clinic in the States.”
“I’m beginning to like you after all,” Steve said to Joshua, who finally cracked a smile.
“Great. And I didn’t even have to take a bullet to make that happen.”
Thursday. Seattle, Washington
Contrasting this hospital vigil with the one just a few weeks ago, Jessie was overwhelmed by the differences. The first time around death had been a foregone conclusion. Now it still hovered as a threat, but the doctors had tried to assure them all that Laura, at least, would be all right once her immune system got a little stronger.
Adrian’s outlook remained guarded, and Jessie wished there was some way closer than the communication port in the glass that made up the front of his “clean room” environment for her to communicate with him. They couldn’t pass photos back and forth, touch each other or share other mementos that couldn’t be sterilized. “We’ve got twenty-four years to catch up on, and who knows how much time to do it,” he complained. “I’m tempted to ignore them all and just walk out of here, Jessie. It’s my fault that Laura’s as bad off as she is, and I can’t think of a way to make it up to her.”
“You certainly wouldn’t do her any good if you came out of there,” Jessie snapped. “And your testimony is going to be the key to taking down the whole Brandino organization….” She trailed off when she thought about her brother’s feelings. “I’m sorry. That’s easy for me to say, but I imagine it’s difficult for you to think of your uncle as the enemy.”
“Not anymore. I always felt like there was something more than the life he groomed me to lead, something else I was supposed to be doing instead. And once I found out that I had another family someplace else that nobody ever bothered to tell me about, I lost the last respect I had for him.”
There was a look of longing and pain on his drawn young face, and Jessie put her hand up to the glass, the closest she could get to comforting him. His brow scrunched up and he blurted a question. “Do you think he ordered Mom’s death?”
Jessie weighed her reply for a moment. “Not anymore. Although he wouldn’t have been too heart-broken to get rid of her by that point, some of your neighbors in the town house complex recognized pictures of Cassidy as being somebody who slipped in and out of the building that day.” Jessie had filled Adrian in on all the things that happened in and around his apartment once he’d been taken away, and told him about her department secretary who turned out to be a totally different person than she claimed.
The former marshal had vanished again, leaving everyone to wonder where she and her partner might turn up next. Jessie knew that Joshua hoped the two were gone for good, spirited away someplace out of the country to live off their ill-gotten gains. Jessie wasn’t so sure she could believe that. Cassidy seemed to enjoy vengeance too much to let anything go. Still, there were now too many cases piling up against her and the mysterious Patrick to allow them to come out of hiding for long. One slip and they’d be on trial for federal crimes.
Jessie wasn’t sure how to give Adrian the one piece of news she had today. It wasn’t in her nature to beat around the bush, so she just came out with it. “I’m going to be out of commission for a few days starting on Monday. Maybe by then they’ll have the bugs worked out of that computer system they’ve been promising you. That way we could still talk, or at least e-mail and IM.”
He gave her a wary look. “This doesn’t have anything to do with that bright purple pressure wrap around your arm yesterday does it? You told me that was for donating platelets. For Laura.”
“Hey, I donated platelets and they did go to Laura. But I gave blood for some lab work too and it looks like I’m an even better match for you than Laura. It’s not like anybody could get me out of here anyway. Until the two of you are ready to walk out of here on your own, I’m staying, too. I might as well make myself useful.” She tried to sound braver than she felt about the whole process of having doctors harvest bone marrow and stem cells to give to Adrian.
His face clouded, changing the color of his blue-gray eyes to something stormier. “What if I told you not to do it?”
“I’d treat you the same way I would Laura if she was the one with a life-threatening illness. I’d thank you for your love and concern and go ahead and do exactly what I felt was right.” Just saying the words made Jessie sure they were the truth. She was beginning to understand what Steve meant when he said he’d been “led” to certain decisions by his faith. A sense of being drawn to the right and the good seemed to grow in her as she became more comfortable with being a Christian.
“Yeah, well, I still don’t like it.” Adrian looked down and his lower lip stuck out.
Jessie couldn’t help laughing a little. “Brother, dear, right now you look just like what you are…a kid the age of most of my students back in St. Charles. At least give me some credit for knowledge I might have picked up in the seven years or so I’ve got on you, huh?”
“Maybe. It still doesn’t sound right that you’d risk your life for me when you don’t even really know me yet. What kind of person does that?”
Jessie’s heart sang. “Have I got a story for you,” she said. Was it too soon to start telling him about the Friend she had just come to know? Maybe he knew a little bit already and this was her opportunity to tell him more. She took a deep breath and tried to figure out where to begin.
Steve stood by a nurses’ station where he could watch the interaction between Jessie and her brother. He’d never heard her laugh like that before, never seen her show so much lightheartedness. When she stretched her fingers out on the pane of glass and Adrian mirrored her, Steve nearly turned and walked away. He’d wondered before what would happen to his growing relationship with Jessie once they found Laura. Now he knew. The last few days he felt more and more removed from Jessie with each passing hour.
In a way it might even be worse now that Jessie had two siblings to be with, bond with and enjoy. Whatever they were talking about, both she and Adrian looked happy. Watching Jessie there Steve came to a decision he’d been mulling over for a day and a half. It was time to cut his losses and move on. He crossed the distance between them and put his hand on her shoulder. “We need to talk. I have to go back home.”
She looked at him, then back to her brother. Adrian waved her toward Steve. “Go talk to the man, Jessie. I’ll still be here when you’re done.”
“That’s true. For now I have a captive audience with you.” Jessie gave her brother a teasing smile and followed Steve into a small family conference room nearby. “Okay, tell me all about this. How long do you think you’ll be gone? And will you bring Maude back with you? I miss her something fierce.”
Great. Now he’d been demoted to dog courier. If Steve had felt left out before, this was a new low. What would she do with the dog anyway? There was no way they’d let her come to this specialized hospital setting. “What would you do with her all day?”
“She could stay in my apartment. There’s room.” Jessie had a studio at a nearby building that catered to the families of patients in this specialized cancer hospital. He’d seen the inside of the place once and even though it was a little Spartan, it looked okay. It didn’t strike him as the perfect place to leave a dog all day and he almost said so. Then he thought better of that and kept his mouth shut, hoping she’d say something else.
When instead she just smiled up at him expectantly, Steve pushed ahead with what he had to do. “No, you don’t understand, Jess. I have to go home for good. St. Charles is still where I belong and I’ve got to go back and do the job they pay me to do. The FBI isn’t offering me the kind of protective custody they’re giving you and Laura and Adrian.”
All the sparkle left Jessie’s eyes and her smile disappeared. “Oh. But I thought you’d stay here awhile. At least until I got all prepped and had my surgery.”
That was another issue he didn’t particularly want to get into with Jessie. He wasn’t sure of the wisdom of doing this for Adrian, who was still a total stranger in a lot of ways. He’d seen enough of Jessie’s determination to know not to argue with her so he didn’t try. “I can’t do that. Like I said, I have a job to do back there. I’ve already been away from the department long enough I’m probably out of the rotation on major crimes. There’s got to be mail waist high from the slot in the front door of my apartment, and I need to get back to my regular life.”
Tell me none of that matters, he willed her silently. Say you love me and you need me here. Say anything that would convince me to stay.
Instead her expression got somber and her chin stuck out with determination. “I’m sorry, Steve.” She kept an even, measured tone, not something you’d use with a guy you just couldn’t live without. “Right now I belong here.”
“I thought that’s what you’d say.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek, feeling the rose-petal softness of her skin in contrast to his, which hadn’t seen a razor for a day and a half. “I’ll be back in tomorrow before I take off for the airport.” If I can manage to walk out right now without making the world’s biggest fool of myself, he added silently before he turned and walked away. He strained his ears the length of the hospital corridor, but Jessie didn’t say anything that would have called him back to her or made him change his mind.