Peril (33 page)

Lisa began to cry as she held on to the young girl. “I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

“Are we ready?” Scott yelled.

Lisa jumped and bit into her lip. “That Teagan died. I'm sorry that you're sick. Please, I can't bear the thought of Seth dying.”

“I know that—”

“I know you did save Seth's life and I'm thankful for it.”

With those words, she edged around Morgan to the front door, the squeak of the wheels the only sound in the silence.

The whole exchange seemed surreal. Each nurse carried a patient who could be moved, with the exception of Trudy, who carried Scarlett's tiny body. Perhaps, after firing that gun, she felt unworthy to carry an innocent out of the danger. Her once vibrant eyes were now dull with sadness and regret.

A moment later Tyler came through the door. He was dressed in his blue scrubs, with a black flak vest over his chest. His blue eyes were dark with intensity of a promise fulfilled, yet shadowed by the odds not being entirely in his favor. He walked with determination toward her, but Scott stepped between them.

“Are we going to have a heartfelt reunion?”

Tyler crossed his arms over his chest. “I'd like to assess the patients and figure out what their current treatment plan is.”

“Dr. Adams—you're not here to discuss things with me? To see if you can change my mind?”

“Of course. That is one of the reasons I'm here. But the better shape these remaining children are in, the better your leverage will be, don't you think?”

Scott tapped his weapon against his other hand. A moment of thought turned into an overt threat. “What I don't understand is your boss, Dr. Reeves. How holding children hostage doesn't seem to be a motivating factor for him. Can you explain that to me?”

“Dr. Reeves and I haven't been on the same page for a while. I can't speak to his motivations or lack thereof.”

“Well, I think it's time to force his hand a little bit.”

Scott drew another weapon. This one had a heavy black tube on the end.

A silencer.

Morgan's heart rate tripled in her chest. Without the noise, SWAT would have a hard time discerning that tensions inside the unit were escalating. Would they come in?

Dylan increased the volume on the television.

The movement to cover up the noise caused Morgan's knees to slump. She leaned against Seth's bed for support. From the corner of her eye she saw Dylan reach for his cell phone.

To record.

This is going to be bad. Very bad.

“Relationships are a funny thing, aren't they?” Scott asked, a distant, withdrawn look suffocating what little light remained in his eyes. A dark spirit took residence there.

Both Morgan and Tyler stood stock still. Tyler's blue eyes grabbed hers. He mouthed, “It's okay.” Followed by “I love you.”

Morgan tightened her hands into fists.

Scott continued. “The two of you have had a hard time. They say the death of a child usually kills a marriage, yet here you are.” Scott paced toward Morgan and pulled her against his body. “Choices are even funnier.”

“What is it you want from us?” Tyler asked.

He wielded the gun Tyler's direction. “From Reeves, I want the truth. I want to know why I have visions of my son's death playing in my mind like a relentless recorder. I wasn't there the day he died. Why do I see it?”

Tyler kept his hands low, nonthreatening. “I'm sorry, Scott. I didn't realize you had children.”

Scott's chest heaved against Morgan's back. “That's just the thing. Some say he wasn't alive. But I feel the fire of his life burn through my veins. I dream of limbs splitting from bodies and crazy, open-mouthed
water screams. I want the truth of what you think happened to me. I want everyone to know it.” He settled the steel against Morgan's temple. “Does this motivate you any?”

The blood drained from Tyler's face. He took a step in their direction. Morgan's heart raced and she shook her head quickly against any further movement. He settled back on his heels.

“I'm not entirely sure what's going on, Scott,” he said. “Dr. Reeves shut down my access to the data.”

“Then we'll need to convince him to release it.” Scott waved his gun in the direction of Seth's bedspace. “You two are related to this young man, correct?”

Morgan's stomach flipped violently inside her abdomen. What once had been the joyful feeling of Teagan growing inside her now was doom at something sinister brewing. She swallowed the saliva that funneled into her mouth.

Tyler nodded his head, his lips tight.

“Your nephew? Evidently there is some discord in the family. For a while I wasn't sure of their relationship. Morgan tried to protect your sister by not mentioning it.”

Tyler's teeth clenched so tight, his muscles quivered at the side of his face. “Morgan saved Seth's life. My sister doesn't have an issue with her.”

Scott waved the weapon like a finger tsking a young child. “That's not the vibe I got at all.” Scott wrapped his arms around Morgan's chest. “My, my, my—your heart is just racing like a rabbit. Since Dr. Reeves isn't taking me seriously, I'm going to offer Morgan a choice to force his hand. Who will die right here, right now, Morgan? Your husband or your nephew?”

Morgan closed her eyes against the humming vibration that scrambled her thoughts. Darkness enveloped her, and for a moment she could pretend she wasn't being asked to be someone's proxy executioner. Even if it wasn't her finger that put the weight against the trigger, her words would be the catalyst to put the events into place.

His lips drew close to her ear. “And you can't pick yourself. That's not an option.”

Against her will, her mind began to weigh through the cost of the decision. She settled her hand against her stomach to suppress the stabbing pain. Regardless of the promise she'd made to Lisa, in a sense, Seth's
death wouldn't hurt him. He was paralyzed and sedated, suspended in a requiem of opiate-induced euphoria. Unbeknownst to him, he'd simply be thrust into heaven in an instant, none the wiser of the choice Morgan had made.

Tyler, however, would know. He'd feel the full realization of her betrayal. More painful than the bullet piercing his skin and rupturing whatever vital organ Scott thought would cause the quickest demise, Tyler would comprehend her betrayal. When she had said “till death do us part,” she hadn't meant by her own words.

The iron ball and chain that people often referred to as the wife in a marriage would be her, pulling Tyler six feet under.

In her heart, she couldn't do it. She couldn't be responsible for another mother's pain. She wouldn't curse another woman with her same fate. With the overwhelming sadness. With the wanton desire to slip from the bounds of this physical body.

“Morgan!”

She jumped and opened her eyes. “I can't do what you're asking me to do!”

“If you don't choose, I'll kill them both.”

Tyler pulled at the Velcro that held the flak jacket in place, not in surrender to Scott's weapon but relinquishing his life to hers. “There's only one choice, Morgan. I don't hold you responsible. It's okay. I love you. I'll always be with you.”

The moan from her lips sounded like an animal. She hadn't realized any human could make such a painful noise from sheer emotional distress.

“I can get each of them in two seconds, Morgan. Two seconds for you to say which name. One . . .”

She tried to run Tyler's direction. Scott grabbed the back of her scrub top and held her steady. “Morgan—”

And as the words fell from her lips, she wanted the world to swallow her into its belly where caverns of fire burned.

It surprised her how quickly Scott could fire with such accuracy.

The next thing that surprised her was how silent the weapon was, yet how destructive a power it rendered. She gaped in horror as blood flowed freely from Tyler's chest.

As her husband crumpled to the ground, Dylan walked over, grinning.

He took a picture.

Chapter 37

1405, Saturday, August 11

L
ILLY
R
EEVES GRIPPED THE
nearest counter when she saw the news scroll about the hostage situation at Sacred Heart. Watching Morgan's tape on the same station caused the food in her stomach to curdle. Over the last few hours, she'd been involved in opening up beds in her own hospital to take in pediatric patients evacuated from Sacred Heart. Those who shouldn't be exposed to other people's germs came here; the rest were housed at a high school gymnasium.

There's a reason I didn't go into pediatric oncology.

Now, she was in a sea of bald-headed, mask-faced frenzy as she worked with the adult oncology nurses to place patients in their unit. Why did she ever volunteer to train as an incident commander? Natural disasters were one thing, but man-made were quite another. How had the possibility escaped her that Morgan could be involved? That the demands to release the hostages centered on her father?

The very thing the hostage takers wanted from Thomas Reeves, he would never willingly give up. Even if it led to another death in her family.

After the majority of the pediatric patients were settled, still with their nurses caring for them in their new home, she relinquished her duties to another ER attending. She didn't bother to clean up before heading straight for her father's medical complex.

Nothing like seeing your estranged father two days in a row.

Lilly found the door to his office cracked open. The medical unit seemed deserted. Only one nurse sat at the nurses' station, one patient's chart open beside her. She motioned her okay for Lilly to enter.

Reeves's normally organized office was a sea of open charts, notes, and one notebook. She recognized the notebook as one similar to what Tyler Adams had been scrawling in during her last visit. His hair was disheveled. An empty brandy bottle perched next to him on the desk. A new
glass container sat at the ready, with glass flames adorning the bottom of the bottle and the lid. The reddish cognac was reminiscent of true fire—the epitome of the state of her father's current life.

Enclosed in a glass bubble and going up in flames.

At the sound of the door swinging wide, he reached for it momentarily, his fingers lingering over the glass.

His eyes took in her arrival. He raced his hands over his cheeks, then crossed his arms over his chest. “What are you doing here?” he said. “Come to see my demise firsthand?”

Lilly leaned against the doorframe. His raised hackles at her presence weren't a surprise at all. Fingers of doubt burrowed into her chest, leaving tingling tunnels of apprehension for her heart to cave into. Her stomach knotted as she thought of what to say.

He stole the moment from her, like so many other things.

“I didn't get tested, yet.” He swept his arm at the door, his voice booming across the space. “You can sign me off and out of your life. I'm done hoping you'll forgive me so we can try to have a relationship.”

So many things she wanted to say would have lit and burned whatever thread still held them together. It was her nature to push back, particularly when she had every reason in the world to cut this man off from her life. The pressure in her chest intensified as waves of heat tempted her tongue to light a fuse to words that would undo the very tentative steps each had taken toward the other.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.

A lie.

For once, she held them back.

She swallowed hard. “That's not why I'm here.”

“Then why?” Reeves faced her squarely, chest heaving like a bull's, daring her to raise the red cape.

Why had she come? At the forefront of her mind was, of course, to save her sister's life. But considering their history, did she really expect him to have a change of heart?

She inhaled and held her breath, exhaling the words to diffuse the tension. “I came to help you.”

“Why?”

“To save Morgan's life.”

Start with the easiest, least controversial answer.

“I don't know if that's going to happen.”

“To me, it looks like you're trying to do as they ask.”

He sighed and surveyed the tornado-strewn paperwork around his desk. He slumped into his chair. “I am.”

Lilly pushed away from the doorframe and entered the room, easing the door closed behind her. “How can I help?”

“I guess I'd better first explain the protocol to you.”

She sat on the chair in front of his desk as he pushed a blank piece of paper toward her and began to draw. “We took doctored fetal neural cells and transplanted them into soldiers' brains.”