Love Inspired Suspense April 2015 #1 (26 page)

“I'm sick of Julian having the upper hand,” she said.

“Me, too,” Rick agreed. “But you can't let him get inside your head. Otherwise he accomplished exactly what he set out to do. We've had some setbacks, but it is past time for the tide to turn in our favor.”

It was strangely peaceful holding Rick's hand and watching the floating boats bobbing in the water across the street. She wished they could get in one of those yachts and sail far, far away from the threat of Julian Hale and all of the fear and guilt he had brought into her life. Getting back to Africa had never sounded better to her. How far would Julian be willing to go before he gave up on her?

Something in the parking lot kitty-corner to where they stood pulled her attention. She squinted to clear her vision. A man stood at the far side of the lot, too far away from her to see him clearly. Hadn't the police already evacuated all of those buildings? He was probably just some looky-lou checking out all the excitement. But the more she stared at him, the more intrigued she became. Instead of looking at the spectacle around the hotel, he seemed to be staring at her instead. He stood abnormally still, with a perfect, erect posture she knew too well. He raised a hand in a wave and Stephanie's insides turned to ice.

“Rick, there he is.” Stephanie gasped out the words, scarcely believing he was really standing there and not a figment of her imagination. She dropped Rick's hand and pointed at the man's retreating figure. “Julian Hale is right there across the street.”

* * *

“Wait here for Shelton,” Rick shouted back to Stephanie.

Pistol in hand, he sprinted across the street and hurdled over low shrubbery into the parking lot on the other side. He wobbled some on his landing, but continued running. He struggled to keep his eye on Hale's head as he weaved between cars. Rick pushed his legs and pumped his arms harder, needing to increase his speed and decrease Hale's significant head start. Rick didn't know how he could ever catch up on foot.

“Stop! Police!” Rick yelled after Hale's retreating form. It was useless. Even if Hale could hear the command, he probably wouldn't obey it.

He needed backup, but he would have lost Hale if he hadn't immediately taken off after him. Rick kept running and grabbed at his cell phone on his belt. In the movies it always looked so easy for the hero to dial a phone, carry on a conversation and continue to pursue the bad guy. It wasn't easy. At all.

Desperate for air, he tried to spit out words to communicate the situation and his location to Shelton without losing sight of Hale.
Where'd he go?

“You've got to get me some backup,” Rick panted. “He had too big of a head start. I've lost sight of him. We've got to stop him before he disappears into the downtown crowd.”

Two seconds later, Rick heard the screams of pursuing patrol cars and the shouts of men on foot coming to his aid far behind him. They had to flush Hale out of hiding. Rick didn't think he could stand it if Hale escaped again.

When the parking lot ended, Rick came to a crossroads. He had to decide if Hale would turn into the city or go for the docks. Heading toward the lake was a dead end, but his backup was already searching the streets and no one was searching the boats yet. Rick's instinct sent him sprinting for the docks.

His lungs were on fire. He hadn't run this hard in a long time. All of the rehab he had done during the past year had left him stronger than ever, but his endurance still needed work. If only he hadn't let Randy Mitchell take Axle to his car. He needed his partner with him. Axle would have found Hale by now. Rick imagined the dog sprinting ahead of him, tackling Hale to the ground and ending this whole deal.

Adrenaline surged, pumping strength into his limbs. Visualizing himself capturing Hale and setting Stephanie free of this life of hiding drove Rick forward. He covered ground faster than he thought possible. He spotted a brief flash of movement. Rick's instinct had been right; Hale had gone toward the water instead of downtown. But why? It was a dead end unless he planned on swimming away.

Rick slowed and ducked behind a nearby sign. He raised his gun, his pounding heart contrasting with the serenity of his surroundings. Seagulls circled lazily overhead, chattering to one another as they searched for food. Water lapped a steady rhythm against the gently rocking boats. Then,
crack
.

The gunshot rang out, splintering the peace and sending the gulls squawking. Hale had a gun!

Rick ran down the dock, firing his own gun in response. The pungent scent of seawater and fish filled his nostrils. Images of the night he and Axle were stabbed assaulted his memory. The warehouse where it had happened was only three miles away from these docks, and the same salty smell had been in his nose that night as well. History could not repeat itself here. Rick had fought too hard. He would not allow Julian Hale to take him down again.

Hale dived onto the deck of the nearest yacht, glass shattering from the cabin door where Rick's bullet hit directly above him. Hale popped up and fired back at Rick, but he was an inexperienced shot, unable to hit a moving target.

Rick jumped onboard the boat nearest him and ripped his cell phone from his belt once again. He rolled to his back and dialed Gary Shelton. “Hale's firing at me, Gary. Where's that backup you promised me?”

“Where are you?”

“Last set of docks before the park. Do you have Stephanie?”

“Yes. Almost to you,” Gary shouted into the phone. “Don't lose him.”

“Not planning on it.” Rick hung up and called down the dock. “Give it up, Hale. You're trapped.”

But Hale didn't answer. The silence unsettled Rick as he rolled over and popped up to look again over the edge of the boat. He scanned the dock. Where was Hale hiding now? “My backup will be here any second,” Rick shouted. “This is a dead end. Turn yourself in before you make it worse.”

But his words flew out to sea, useless. No one was listening.

In his peripheral vision, Rick saw movement. He spun in time to watch Hale sprinting down an adjoining dock. He must have hopped across to a different boat when Rick dropped down on this other yacht. Rick leaped off the boat and ran, jumping from boat to boat until he clambered onto the same dock as the fleeing man. Rick could hear the distant squeal of Gary Shelton's tires as his car turned into the parking lot behind him, and the screaming sirens of the patrol cars he brought with him. He heard slamming doors, shouting men and stomping boots. He'd have help soon. Would it be soon enough?

Hale reached the end of the dock. “Dead end, Hale,” Rick yelled. They both raised their guns and fired at each other simultaneously. As the bullet left his gun, Rick wasn't sure where it struck, but he was certain he had hit Hale somewhere.

He tried to raise his gun to fire again, but his hadn't been the only bullet to find its target. One of Hale's bullets had sliced across Rick's shoulder. Searing white pain erupted across his brain. Rick heard the splash of Hale's body hitting the water. Had he killed him?

With his right arm hanging limp at his side, Rick launched himself forward, willing back the black edges of pain threatening to take him under. It wasn't until he was going down himself that Rick realized he had tripped on a knotted piece of rope. His injured arm refused to rise in his defense, and it was the smack of his forehead striking a metal tie-down on the dock that eventually broke his fall.

NINE

D
etective Shelton's last words to Stephanie before he rushed after Rick and Julian had been, “Stay in the car.”

At first she obeyed his command, but that had been before she saw Julian's bullet rip into Rick's shoulder, before she watched Rick stagger from the impact, and before the
pop, pop, pop
sounds confirmed what her eyes were telling her brain.

Any instructions the detective had given her disappeared the moment she knew Rick was hurt. Her hands flung open the door handle and she was already running when Julian's body toppled into the water. She watched Rick trip and fall, his forehead bouncing off something on the dock, and then he rolled over and remained completely still.

She found a trail of blood beginning where Rick had first taken the bullet and leading to where he had eventually fallen. Stephanie backpedaled a few steps. What would she see when she got to him? Was she prepared for the worst? Detective Shelton and another dark-haired officer were kneeling next to Rick. The rest of the officers had spread out, continuing the search.

Rick still wasn't moving. Stephanie forced herself back into a run. She needed to see with her own eyes that Rick was only injured. He couldn't be dead. She skidded to a stop next to Rick's motionless body, skinning her knees in the process.

“Is he okay?” she asked, her voice shrill.

“He's alive,” the detective said. “I've got to go after Hale. You two stay with him. Paramedics are on their way.”

Stephanie wanted to beg the detective not to leave them, but he had already run off the docks yelling into his cell phone. Rick would want Detective Shelton to go after Hale, but Stephanie was scared.

Laying trembling fingers on Rick's neck, she checked his pulse and leaned her cheek down to his mouth to see if he was still breathing. The thump of his pulse was strong under her fingers, and his breath warmed her cheek. Her head flopped back and she breathed a prayer of gratitude.

“He's breathing,” she told the young cop on the other side of Rick.

“Yes, but we need to stop the bleeding,” he said.

Her eyes took in all of the blood coming from Rick's shoulder and forehead. The smell of it made her stomach roll in waves that crested at the top of her throat. She fought against the wooziness. She couldn't pass out. Rick needed her. But she had never had much of a stomach for seeing other people's blood, and this was the most blood she had seen in her whole life.

Stephanie breathed in through her nose, counting to three with each inhale, then exhaling through her mouth, calming the nausea the best that she could. They had to stop the bleeding, but which wound was the most important to treat first? The forehead was bleeding the heaviest, but didn't all head wounds bleed profusely, even if they were minor? She had had some first-aid training in preparation for her mission trips, but gunshot wounds were way outside of her league.

Detective Shelton said the paramedics were coming; she could hear the sirens, but she didn't think Rick could wait that long for them to get to him.

The officer ripped a section off the bottom of Rick's T-shirt, revealing Rick's muscular stomach, as well as multiple jagged scars covering his abdomen and chest.

Stephanie sucked in a deep breath, stunned at the sight of all of those scars. She didn't want to imagine the pain they represented. She remembered feeling similar scars on Axle when she had petted him in the hotel. Intense admiration and compassion filled her for the unconscious man on the ground in front of her.

What kind of battle were you two in to get those?

“Here, use this and put gentle pressure on his forehead,” the officer said, handing her part of Rick's shirt. “I'll take a look at his shoulder.”

She gently applied the cloth to Rick's bleeding head. She watched as the officer examined Rick's shoulder. She could see where the bullet had entered and exited his shoulder. Not having the bullet still in there had to be a good thing, wasn't it?

At the sound of the paramedics' running steps, Stephanie rolled back onto her heels, relieved. The closer they got, the more the dock swayed under her. She popped up and got out of the way, allowing the professionals to take over.

“How is he?” a deep voice asked from behind her. She spun and found that Detective Shelton had returned.

“I don't know,” she answered in a voice barely above a whisper. “Did you catch Julian?”

“No sign of him. Every officer in the city is looking. We have helicopters in the air and a dive team prepping. I'm hoping Rick got him and we will find him on the bottom of the lake.”

Please let them catch him. Let this nightmare end.

It probably wasn't any of her business, but her curiosity couldn't be contained. “Do you know where Rick got those scars on his stomach?” she asked the detective.

“Ah, those. Those came from being in the wrong place at the wrong time and running into a nut job with a knife. You'll have to ask Rick about that story when he wakes up.”

Rick moaned, startling Stephanie. Was he waking up?

“Come on,” Shelton said. “We'll meet the ambulance at the hospital.” The detective sighed deeply and hung his head. “And I can guarantee that Rick is not going to be happy when he wakes up. He's already done enough time in that place.”

* * *

“Officer Powell. Wake up, please.”

Rick opened his eyes to a woman hovering over him. She was far too old for the hot-pink streak in her hair, and her raspy smoker's voice was far too chipper for 4:00 a.m. He was sick of her interrupting his sleep.

He squinted at the far wall. Under “Your Nurse's Name Is:” she had printed “Yvonne” in big slanted letters with a green dry-erase marker.

“And how are we feeling?” Yvonne asked as she checked his vitals. It was the same question she had just asked him an hour ago.

“Peachy,” he mumbled. The whiteboard said Yvonne's shift ended at 7:00 a.m. Not soon enough for his liking.
I'd be better if you people would quit waking me up.

Because of the concussion, the nurses had been waking him every hour to make sure he was still alive. It was annoying. The pain meds dripping through his IV made him want to sleep, but every time he closed his eyes, Yvonne's singsong voice dragged him back awake again.

The gown they had him wearing felt like a dress. His mind was groggy and his head and shoulder throbbed. It was probably time to ask Yvonne for more pain meds, but Rick preferred to feel the pain over the fog and fatigue brought on by the narcotics. He was done being weak and needy.

He hated everything about this place. The familiar muted sounds and smells of a hospital floor in the middle of the night seeped in from the hallway like a bad dream. He heard the squeak of a nurse's shoe and the swishing sounds and beeps of the multitude of medical equipment. He smelled the lingering odor of antibacterial soap Yvonne put on before examining him.

After they released him last year, he had promised himself that he would never return to this place. Yet here he was lying in the same hospital. No matter how hard he fought to make it line up with his desires, life kept going its own way, forging its own path. It made him want to push harder.

Light from the hallway broke through the semidarkness of the room, spotlighting the recliner next to his bed where Stephanie had curled up and fallen asleep. It looked uncomfortable, but at least the nurses had given her a blanket and a pillow.

His memory of what had happened since Hale's bullet hit him was fuzzy, but of what he could remember, Stephanie had been present the whole time.

Allie didn't stay. Allie didn't even make it through one night with me.
Apparently the last time he had been in the hospital, three hours of bedside vigil had been his former fiancée's limit.

The last real conversation he'd had with Allie had been in a hospital room like this one. It was even possible that this was the actual room where that conversation had taken place. This could be the same bed he had been lying in when Allie started weeping and told him, “I can't do this anymore, Rick. I love you, but we both know I am not cut out to be a cop's wife.”

The strain his job placed on their relationship had been building for a long time. There had been one too many night shifts, and one too many plans ruined when he was held over for mandatory overtime. Seeing him near death in a hospital bed had been her breaking point.

He saw again Allie's tearful face, heard again her apologies as she slipped off the engagement ring. She had left the ring beside his water cup before she walked out the door, leaving a gaping wound no doctor could stitch back up for him.

“Rick?” Stephanie's sleepy voice asked from the recliner. “Are you awake?”

Rick worked to bring his mind out of the past. Stephanie kicked off her blanket and padded in her socks to his bedside. “Do you need anything?”

He stared at the ceiling. “Nah, I'm fine. Just ready to get out of this place. You didn't have to stay.”

“Where was I supposed to go?” Stephanie sat on the edge of his bed. “You're my bodyguard, remember?”

He released bitter air between his lips. “Some bodyguard.”

“I'm still alive, aren't I?”

“No thanks to me.” He turned his head on the pillow to look at her. “Thanks for sticking around, though.”

She waved her hand out in front of her. “Look at these luxury accommodations. There's even an officer standing guard out there in the hallway. Where could I be that's any better than this?”

He gave her a thin smile. “I'm thankful for the company, but I wish you didn't have to be so uncomfortable. Hospitals are no fun.”

“What do you mean? Yvonne isn't enough fun for you?”

Rick snorted in response. “Oh, yeah. She is loads of fun.”

Stephanie placed a soft hand on top of his. He soaked up the comfort from it. Everything about her seemed soft in the dim light. Soft curls, soft pink lips. And although he couldn't see it, he knew her heart was soft, too. He couldn't help noticing again how very different she was from Allie.

Even in high school, Allie was sophisticated and high-maintenance. Moving into her twenties, she had become more and more polished, with a coolness that was alluring. But sitting next to him on the edge of his hospital bed in the middle of the night, Stephanie was all lightness and ease. The warmth radiating from the inside out was so comfortable and inviting.

He really did appreciate her company, although
appreciate
felt like the wrong word. It was more than that; he felt it much deeper. He turned his hand over and squeezed hers, thankful that she hadn't pulled it away.

She continued, “Seriously, don't worry about me being uncomfortable. I really don't mind.” Her voice light and teasing, she said, “I'm not the one with a bullet wound and a busted-open forehead.”

“What? This?” he asked, lifting the bandaged arm. “It's merely a flesh wound.”

He almost wished the bullet wound was more serious so he could blame it for being stuck in the hospital again. The bullet had entered and exited his shoulder without too much damage. They probably would have released him already if that was all that ailed him. It was the stupid bump on the head that had made the doctor insist that he stay overnight for observation. Taking a bullet was so much more heroic than tripping over his own feet.

Stephanie squirmed a little. “Can I ask you a question? It's kind of personal.”

He winced. “You saw the scars?”

“Yeah”

“Pretty ugly, huh?”

“More like badges of honor. I was pretty impressed, actually.”

She glanced down at their hands clasped together, and said in a quieter voice, “I felt the scars on Axle's belly, too, and I have been wondering about it, but you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to.” She tried to pull her hand away, but he grasped it tighter, unwilling to break the connection so soon.

Until now, he had not wanted to discuss that night. He had been too busy trying to recover, and he'd resented everyone wanting him to relive the nightmare. It had been important to put it all behind him and move on. But talking to Stephanie felt natural. He wanted her to know him.

“I was working a night shift, and I got an alarm call from the Industrial District. A security guard thought he saw suspicious activity going on at the warehouse across the street from his building.” Rick's mind took him back. “I wasn't too concerned. We had been slammed with a string of false alarms at businesses all year long. While I waited for my backup, Axle and I searched the perimeter. I had no idea that we had actually stumbled onto a holding site for a human trafficking ring. Several women and girls were being held prisoner inside that building until they could be moved to some other location along the I-5 corridor. We must have spooked their guards when we showed up. One of them jumped us with a knife.”

Stephanie's fingers squeezed his hand gently, encouraging him to keep going with the story. That night, Rick had been maybe fifteen feet back from rounding the building when a man flew around the corner at him wielding a knife. He had been trained to understand how fast and lethal a knife could be. He knew how within seconds fingers could be sliced off or tendons severed, or how within the span of those same seconds, a person could be lying on the ground with a knife sticking out of a vital organ. But no amount of training scenarios could have prepared him for the speed and intensity of the real thing.

Looking back, he was able to recall the man's face. In his dreams he still saw how those eyes were filled with both rage and fear simultaneously. But in the moments of the attack, Rick had had no time to observe. There had only been time to act. The scene replayed across his memory again now. He saw the flashes of movement in sync with his heartbeat, the glint of streetlight off the blade, slashing, slashing and then stabbing. He saw his gun rising, heard the bullets, as round after round fired from his gun. He saw his assailant crumple to the ground, dead. Rick had killed a man.