Deadly Ties (12 page)

Weaving through the people, she stepped off the dance floor and up to Mark. “What is it?”

He held up a wait-a-second finger. “I understand,” he said into the phone, letting his gaze slide past her to Joe, who immediately turned and summoned the others.

The tension built in Lisa so fast and tight she feared she’d explode.
God, please. Please
. She clenched her hands into fists at her sides.

“We’re on our way.” Mark closed the phone, tucked it away.

“What is it?” Lisa couldn’t stand not knowing another second.

A whisper rippled through the crowd, and the jovial tone dimmed. Ben and Kelly, Harvey and Mel, Nora and Clyde and Peggy all circled around.

“Will you please tell me what’s wrong? It’s my mother, isn’t it?”

“Yes. That was Detective Meyers on the phone.” Mark stiffened and clasped Lisa’s hands. “Annie was found on Highway 98. She was badly beaten, Lisa.”

Lisa sucked in a sharp, staggered breath. “Is she …?” Her voice faltered. She feared the answer but tried again. “Is she—?”

“She’s alive but critical.” Mark softened his tone. “Jeff says we need to get to the hospital right away … just in case.”

Dutch, what have you done?
Inside Lisa screamed,
What have you done?

Karl pulled into the hospital parking lot and cut the engine.

It was dark now, which annoyed him. He had planned on taking Annie to a more remote location, but Seagrove Village was a tourist town. People were there for fun and sun, to enjoy the deep-sea fishing and sugar-white beaches, not to witness crimes that would require them to return later to testify. Taking her down in full view wasn’t as risky as it might seem, and he could make up some time—or so he’d thought. An astounding number of cars passed before one stopped. Rather than the moments he’d expected, it had taken a solid twenty-six minutes for a good Samaritan to surface.

NINA would not be pleased. Raven wouldn’t be happy to have to report it to the powers that be, which meant Karl certainly would not be happy. Had their schedule been impacted? It couldn’t be that tight, could it? Not knowing for certain had him sweating bullets.

He stared up at the lighted hospital building, then again checked his watch. Just enough time to touch base with Dutch before phase two kicked in. Pulling out his phone, Karl dialed.

Before the first ring ended Dutch answered, clearly eager for a mission-status update. “Is it done?”

Karl frowned. “Have you lost your mind, answering the phone like that? Anyone could have been calling—and don’t give me that caller ID nonsense. What if I’d been compromised and someone was tracking the numbers in my phone?”

“Sorry. But now that it’s clear you are you and I am me, is it done?”

Karl choked the leather steering wheel. “Mostly. I’m at the hospital now, waiting.”

“Is Annie—?”

“She was alive when I left her. Whether or not she is now, I don’t have a clue.”

“Can you find out? She’s got a weak heart, you know.”

And you had her worked over?
“Nothing I can do at the moment. I’m not finished here, remember?” Karl plucked a piece of lint off his slacks, grateful kneeling on the concrete hadn’t ruined his suit. “And don’t you dare call the hospital and ask.” Dutch Hauk was arrogant enough to do it.

Until Mark Taylor had interceded, Hauk believed he could do anything. Well, except with NINA. Even he wasn’t arrogant enough to put Raven to the test, not that they had much, if any, direct contact. Hauk was an organizational peon.

“Where are you, anyway?” Karl asked.

“Near the state line.”

Great. Just great
. Karl sipped from a steaming cup of aromatic coffee. “You’re behind schedule.”

“I had a flat tire.”

Unavoidable, but any more bad breaks and the mission would be in a heap of trouble, which meant Raven would be gunning for Karl and his men. “Okay.” Karl went into damage-control mode. “I’ll handle your cover at the hotel. The room key will be near the closest fire alarm. Get there as fast as you can.” Karl watched a familiar blue SUV pull into the parking lot.
Taylor and Lisa Harper
. “I have to go. The target has arrived.”

“Lisa’s there? At the hospital?”

Dutch was beyond arrogant—and not half as untouchable as he thought he was. How he had survived this long was beyond Karl. Rather than answering, he hung up. If Karl wasn’t careful, Hauk would get them both killed—if not by cops then by NINA.

Putting his phone back into his pocket, Karl watched his targets walk inside. When the automatic door shut behind them, he flashed his headlights.

Across the lot appeared a responding flash.

Ah, right on time
.

9

R
ose.” Seeing the back of a nurse she had worked with often, Lisa rushed through the ER over to where she stood between a scale and a crash cart. “Where’s my mother?”

Tall and lean, Rose stilled. Her thin face pinched tight. “Oh, thank goodness. I’m so glad you’re here.” She paused to nod at Mark. “They’ve taken her up to ICU.”

“How is she?” Lisa hiked her purse strap on her shoulder. “What happened?”

“If I were you, I’d get up there right now. They barely got her through the door before she lapsed into a coma.” Pity flashed through Rose’s eyes. “I—I don’t know, Lisa. I just don’t know.”

Mark intervened. “Did she tell anyone who attacked her?”

Lisa opted to be blunt. “Was it Dutch?”

“When I saw her, she was already comatose. Detective Meyers rode in with her. Maybe he knows something. She was conscious on the ride in.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know, Mark.”

“Talk with him later.” Lisa moved down the hallway toward the elevator. “ICU first.”

“Definitely.” Rose glanced back over her shoulder at Lisa. “I’m sorry about your mom and your party.”

The party was nothing. But her mother … Lisa’s throat cinched tight. Swallowing hard, she rushed to the elevator, then staccato-punched the button three times. When the elevator failed to appear, she took off for the stairs.

“Slow down,” Mark warned her. “Breaking your neck to get up there isn’t going to help her. It’s one flight; it’ll just take a minute.”

“You don’t understand.” Lisa didn’t slow down. “She might not have a minute.”

Shoving against the stairwell door, Lisa pushed through, took the steps two at a time, and then hurried down the hallway to the nurses’ station. “Where’s my mother?” she asked the nurse whose back faced her.

The nurse turned around.

“Jessie, where’s my mother?”

“Calm down, Dr. Harper, and I’ll let you in to see her. She’s been through the initial battery of tests. Broken ribs, left arm, right leg. Her kneecap is shattered. Her face is banged up, but they’re bruises and breaks that will heal, okay?”

Lisa nodded, holding her silence for fear Jessie would stop talking.

“She took a bad blow to the head. The brain was swelling, so we followed normal protocol on that.”

“What does that mean?” Mark asked.

“They drilled a hole in her skull to relieve the pressure.” Lisa darted her gaze to Jessie. “Rose says she’s in a coma.”

“Yes.” That same pity she’d seen on Rose she now saw in Jessie. “It doesn’t look good, Lisa. Be prepared.”

“What do you mean?” She couldn’t wrap her mind around it.

“We’re still evaluating, but what isn’t broken is bruised and swollen, and we think there’s some internal bleeding. Waiting on lab results and scans for that now. Don’s running her labs—he’s new but really good.” A frown settled on Jessie’s face, wrinkling the skin between her eyebrows. “We don’t have all the results we need to prove it, but she’s definitely critical. We’ll know more when we hear from Don.”

Lisa absorbed the shocks one by one and locked her knees to stay upright.
Critical. Now? Now, when the end is in sight? Oh, God, why? We’ve waited so long and worked so hard
. “I want to see her.”

Jessie motioned across the hall. “Mark, the ICU waiting room is right there. You’re welcome to wait for Dr. Harper. It’s family only in with Annie.”

“He is her family. Put him on the list.”

“Lisa, I can’t—”

“Do it, Jessie. He’s been a son to her. When she regains consciousness, she’ll tell you so herself. Until then, I’m telling you. Put him on the list.”

“Okay. But you’re signing off on it.”

“No problem.” Lisa moved toward the heavy double doors to the unit.

“Is this the only door in?” Mark asked Jessie.

When she nodded, he ended the discussion on letting him inside. “I’ll find out what I can from Jeff Meyers. You go on, Lisa. Annie’s waiting.”

She sent him a searching look that said everything and nothing. “Mark?”

He lifted his chin, waited.

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m scared.”

“I know. Me too.” A lump in his throat bobbed. “Be strong now, and go see about your mom.”

Lisa turned and pushed through the heavy doors, then disappeared into the dark hollows of the Intensive Care Unit.

Mark watched her go, his whole body in revolt. If anything happened to Annie.

Why didn’t you watch her yourself?

Dutch was gone. In Georgia.

Maybe. That could be a lie. You knew it, or you wouldn’t have made the arrangements with Jeff Meyers. You didn’t watch over her yourself, and now she’s critical. She needed you and you weren’t there. You failed again, Mark, and now Lisa could be left devastated and Annie dead
.

Dutch couldn’t be in Georgia. He had to have done this. No one else would want to hurt Annie.

That made Mark sick. What manner of man would rather see his wife dead than away from him?

In the waiting room, he kept one eye on the heavy doors into the unit and called Jeff.

“Meyers.” He answered the phone sounding breathless. “Talk fast.”

“Jeff, it’s Mark. What happened?”

“Man, I am so sorry. I know we agreed I’d watch over Annie until she got to Three Gables, but I got an emergency call. There was a brawl down at the marina on the pier. I had to take it.”

Mark leaned against the door frame, punching his shoulder against the wood. “Why didn’t you let me know?”

“Totally my fault. I saw Dutch leave. Annie told me herself he was going to Georgia. I thought I’d just be a minute and she’d be okay. Now she’s … I’m so sorry.” The timbre of his voice crackled. “I don’t know what else to say.”

“It’s my fault.” Mark sighed, understanding exactly how responsible and guilty Jeff felt because he felt it too. “Done is done. We can’t change it. Let’s focus on what we can change.” Before Jeff could revert to wallowing in guilt, Mark went on. “Jessie says you rode in with Annie and she was conscious. What did she say? Did Dutch assault her?”

“Boy, I wish I knew. She was conscious, but I couldn’t get her to talk to me. She was in a lot of pain, Mark.”

“Did she say anything at all?”

“Yeah. Over and over she said, ‘God, don’t let him hurt Lisa. Don’t let her remember.’ ”

Mark waited for an orderly to roll a gurney down the hallway and get out of earshot. “Remember what?”

“I have no idea. I asked several times, but Annie didn’t answer. It was like she was in her own little world.”

“So all we know is her attacker was a man and she doesn’t want Lisa to remember something.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Mark stared at the blank television screen in the corner. “Her fearing he’d hurt Lisa sounds a lot like Dutch.”

“I thought the same thing, but she never said his name, so it’s supposition.”

“Tell me you’re looking for him, Jeff.”

“I am. He’s not home or at the store. I left word with his employees that Annie had been injured. They’re trying to find him too.”

“He was supposedly going out of town and his employees didn’t know it?” Odd behavior for a control freak, and Dutch was definitely a control freak.

“The clerk said he disappears without a word all the time, so they never know when he might drop by. He says it keeps them on their toes. So when I mentioned Georgia, they didn’t think a thing about it.”

That kind of logic fit the twisted way the man’s mind worked. Dutch owned a string of convenience stores all the way from Georgia down through Florida and across the south to the border between Texas and Mexico, and he did periodically check on each of them.

“He must be in a dead zone or have the battery out of his phone,” Jeff said. “I’m having no luck tracking his cell. We have no clue where he is right now.”

Convenient. Mark frowned at a man walking down the hall in a hospital gown, tugging at the back flap. “What about witnesses?” Highway 98 was a major thoroughfare. Someone had to have seen something.

“My guys are checking, knocking on doors, but so far no one saw a thing.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky.” Mark said it, but he didn’t store any faith in it. These days, people just didn’t want to get involved.

“I’m still trying to figure out why she was on Highway 98 on foot. Her car was in the garage at her home, and it started right up. So why was she walking?”

That mystery Mark could solve. “Dutch uses markers so she can’t leave the house without his knowledge. He puts them everywhere—on doors, drawers, windows, even on cabinets in the kitchen. If the tires on her car roll an inch on the garage floor, he knows it.”

“What about phones? We didn’t see a single one in the house. Just empty jacks.”

“When he leaves, he takes them with him so she can’t call anyone, and he empties her wallet so she can’t call a cab.”

“Good grief.”

“She keeps a private money stash, though. She’s always got cab fare.” Mark had made sure of that.

“I can’t believe she puts up with that and stays with him.” Jeff caught himself. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No need to apologize for saying what I’ve been thinking for years.” Mark checked the clock—nearly ten thirty—and then the heavy doors. The harsh light glinted off the metal push plate. “Annie has her reasons.”

“It’s her life,” Jeff said. “We have to respect her decisions.”

“Yeah, whether or not we like them.” Ben and Kelly walked into the ICU waiting room. Nora and Clyde came in behind them. Over their shoulders, Mark saw Harvey stop at the nurses’ station. “Listen.” Mark tipped the phone closer to his mouth and dropped his voice. “Keep me posted, and I’ll do the same with you. Remember that my old team is in town. They’ll help in any way they can.” He reeled off Joe’s and Tim’s cell phone numbers.

“You’re a step behind them. Joe’s already been in touch. They’ve been recruited to work in ways that won’t cost me my badge. With the budget cutbacks, we just don’t have the manpower we need to cast a wide net on finding witnesses.”

“You’re keeping my security team active at Three Gables, correct?” It wouldn’t surprise Mark to discover Dutch lurking in the woods on the reservation land adjacent to the property, looking for a way to wreck Lisa’s party. He would want to punish Lisa for Annie’s defying him and going over anyway. Hurting Lisa would most hurt Annie.

Twisted. Sick. Mark had been skeptical of this Georgia trip from the start and so was Jeff, which was why, when Peggy said Annie was coming to the party, Mark and Jeff agreed that since Jeff had the authority to make arrests, he would keep an eye on Annie until she got to Three Gables, and then Mark would take over.

“If Annie’s condition changes, let me know,” Jeff said. “Should I put a guard on her, or will you be there?”