Now that she was involved, Mary had things under control. “We’re being especially careful with this patient,” she said to Ashley, sounding as certain and assured as could be.
“Through here,” he said, and looked at the cop as he waved Ashley into the room ahead of them. “If you want to give me a hand, pushing the bed around the corner there…”
He nodded at Mary. She drew a hypodermic needle from her pocket and stuck the cop in one quick fluid motion.
He was slumping over before Ashley even noticed. Just then she turned back, frowning. “I’m no doctor, but this isn’t—”
She broke off when she saw the cop lying on the hospital floor. But by then Mary was at her side, a second needle drawn from her pocket. Almost instantly, Ashley slumped down beside the cop.
“Good job, Mary. We’re halfway there. We’ve got to get her up on the gurney with him, then pull the sheet up over their faces.”
“Why do they have to be covered?” Mary asked.
“The best way out of here is through the morgue,” he told her.
Mary lowered her head. “Let’s move, then.”
At first she was in a fog. Reliving the events before the world had gone black. From the very beginning. Waking late, so late. She couldn’t believe it. She never slept that late. She’d showered quickly, hurried out to have a word with Nick, only to find that her uncle was gone and Katie was swamped. She’d helped Katie until the lunch crowd had thinned out.
Still no Nick. She was irritated. She couldn’t call him, because he loathed cell phones and refused to carry one. She’d tried Sharon’s number but only got her voice mail.
Then to the hospital. Seeing Stuart’s parents. Carnegie coming by, to warn her about David Wharton. She’d tried to get Jake, but had only been able to leave him a message. There had been a policeman on duty—whom she had then looked at suspiciously. Still, Stuart’s parents…happy, hopeful. Vigilant. They’d all been allowed in the room at once, and they had chatted quietly.
And then…
The technicians who had come to do the scan. Charming, answering questions, though their voices were muffled behind their masks, reading the chart and happy to have the cop accompany them.
And that, she realized, was what had done her in. She should have recognized David Wharton—especially after Carnegie’s warning. She had done so, but too late. She’d been an idiot. She should have recognized his eyes, even with the contacts and the fake eyebrows.
She was awake, she realized suddenly. Conscious. She didn’t dare open her eyes at first. She lifted her lids incredibly slowly.
“Ashley?”
She heard her name, as if from a distance. And the voice….
There was a face hovering over hers. She opened her eyes fully. Neither her mouth nor her brain wanted to work at first.
“Stuart?” she said incredulously.
“Yes, it’s me.”
He wasn’t more than five miles from the hospital when Carnegie called him. He listened in astonishment as he heard that Stuart Fresia had been kidnapped. He barked out questions like a drill sergeant then and knew he owed Carnegie an apology. But that would have to come later. Right then he listened to everything Carnegie knew. Everything had appeared to be in order. The technicians had come with a chart and a signed authorization, they had cleared everything through the nurses’ station. They had even invited the cop to accompany them.
The cop had been discovered in an old procedure room. He still hadn’t shaken off the anesthesia that had been shot into him. So far, they hadn’t found Ashley or Stuart. The hospital was, of course, crawling with police, who were conducting a nook-and-cranny search, but so far, they’d come up empty.
“If she’s here…if they’re here…we’ll find them,” Carnegie assured him.
“They aren’t there,” Jake said flatly. “Keep looking. Keep me informed.”
“Jake, the kidnappers were an older man and a woman of about thirty-five or forty. Mrs. Fresia described them for me. The nurses agree with the description. So it wasn’t John Mast.”
Jake doubted that, but he held his peace on the matter. There was still too much he had to sort out in his own mind.
“Are you still heading over here?” Carnegie asked.
“No.”
“Then—”
“I’m going to find them.”
“Jake, you keep me informed, you hear?”
She jerked back, suspicious as hell, and banged her head. She was lying next to Stuart. He was white as a ghost and looked like a refugee from a POW camp. But he offered her a wry smile and asked, “You all right?”
Staring at him, she shook her head. She tried to rise. Dizzy, she fell back. She realized that David Wharton—or John Mast—was standing at the foot of the gurney, along with a woman she’d never seen before. The woman had been the female tech, of course. She was slim, with huge, soulful eyes and brown hair.
“What the hell is going on?” she demanded sharply.