Keeping his back to the cameras, Franklin circulated through the group of fans. He held the box down by his side. In five minutes he’d pulled the information he needed from a fresh-faced twenty-something blonde who couldn’t gush enough about how much she loved Rayne’s music. Rayne O’Connor was on the third floor, she told him. She knew somebody who knew somebody whose mom was a nurse in the hospital. Had actually been in the rock star’s room.
“Can you imagine?” She spread her black-painted fingernails across her chest.
Franklin gave her a tight smile. “You try going up there to see her?”
The young woman tsked through her teeth. “Yeah, right. She’s got a private bodyguard posted outside that room.”
“Oh?”
“Yup. ’Round the clock.”
Franklin kept a poker face. Bodyguard at the door. Not surprising.
“Her daughter’s with her too,” the young woman added. “Shaley.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. She slept there.” The young woman focused over his shoulder, as if something had caught her attention. “Wouldn’t leave her mom.”
“Have you—”
“Hey, look at that.” Her eyebrows raised.
He looked around—and stilled. Five police cars were coming down the entrance road. They pulled over to the curb some distance away, one after the other, and cut their engines.
“Maybe something’s wrong with Rayne.” The young woman’s voice edged with worry.
Franklin gripped the bag, his thoughts swirling. He arrives … and the police show up. Did they know he was here?
Why would they even be paying attention to him? Unless they knew he was connected to Jerry Brand.
But the news stories had said nothing about the police looking for him. Nothing about connecting him to Brand.
Maybe the police had kept it quiet so he wouldn’t be alerted. That had to be it. Hard to believe this was a coincidence.
Franklin gritted his teeth. They’d arrest him. Question him in some dim little room. We know you sent Brand to the Rayne tour. How much did you pay him to kill those two people? To kidnap Shaley?
A buzz spread through the crowd as people nudged each other and pointed to the policemen approaching, now about twenty feet away. The area exploded with action. Every reporter around rushed the officers, yelling questions. TV cameras switched on.
“Why are you here?” one fan called out. “Is it Rayne?”
The policemen never even slowed.
Keeping his head down, Franklin eased toward the nearest hospital door and slipped inside.
A minute. He had no more time than that. If they were looking for him—and he knew they were—every officer would be carrying a copy of his picture.
Shaley was here. He couldn’t have asked for better news.
He forced himself to walk at a normal pace, chin up. Like he had nothing to hide. But his eyes cut right and left.
Franklin spotted signs for the elevators. Too much of a gamble to take one. Where else to go?
He turned down a long corridor, plans revving in his brain. The cops would focus their search on men in street clothes. If he could get to the laundry area of the hospital, locate where they kept uniforms for new employees …
An exit sign for a stairwell appeared some distance away. Franklin strode for the door and stepped through. He pounded down the stairs to the sub-ground levels. Somewhere in the guts of the hospital, he’d find what he needed.