“Over to you,” he said. “I wouldn’t presume to make a suggestion after taking over the action at the island. It’s your turn.”
“How very kind.” She dipped her oar in the water. “Then we go back to Port of Spain, check into a hotel, you start getting your men down here and in position. We contact Dario and get his report on Dorgal’s destination and decide how we can use it. Then we talk about what comes next. Okay?”
“Absolutely.”
She smiled. “And you pretend that’s not exactly what you would have done anyway.”
He smiled back at her. “That’s harder to do.”
And in this moment, she didn’t care.
It was enough to have him here beside her, smiling.
It was enough that she wouldn’t be alone to face what was crashing toward her like a freight train.
Santos only miles from her, waiting.
Dorgal, who had to be stopped and eliminated before he could kill again.
If it was not already too late.
ST. JOSEPH’S HOSPITAL
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
11:05 A.M.
Move slowly, be casual, John Chalce told himself as he left the ICU. It was almost over, and everything had gone slick as glass. Now he had only to get down this hall to the elevator and take it to the parking deck.
“Hey, John, you’re done a little early.” Nancy Rodham at the nurse’s station looked up from her computer. “How’s your dad doing?”
“Great.” He grinned. “Thanks for asking. I’m taking him down to Florida this weekend and see if he can shake that cough.”
“You’re a good guy.” Nancy looked back at her computer. “I see that Basle has changed MacGuire’s medication.”
“Did he? I wouldn’t know. I’m just a humble orderly, and no one lets me even get close to meds. Fine with me. I’d hate the responsibility.” He punched the elevator button. Come quick, dammit. “She seemed a little groggy when I took the fresh blankets into her room.” And slipped the tasteless poison Dorgal had given him into the ice water that he’d helped her drink. It had worked as quickly as Dorgal had said it would.
“She did?” Nancy frowned. “She’s been doing so well…”
“Maybe it’s my imagination.” Eve Duncan and Joe Quinn were walking back from the waiting room toward the ICU. They were smiling. They wouldn’t be smiling for long. Where the hell was that elevator?
At least that bastard Caleb wasn’t with them at the moment. The doctor had called him away as John had entered ICU. Seth Caleb gave him the creeps. He was always at his shoulder, staring at him with those piercing dark eyes.
But not today. Today was John’s lucky day. Everything had gone just right.
But it might all be going downhill. Eve Duncan and Joe Quinn had reached the door of the ICU. He could see Eve’s forehead wrinkle in a frown as she looked at Jane MacGuire, lying in the bed across the room.
No. Too soon. Too soon.
The doors of the elevator slid open.
Yes.
He jumped into the elevator and punched the button.
As the doors started to close, he saw Eve Duncan stiffen. Her eyes widened. “Jane?”
And then she screamed.
*
“Dead.” Eve ran across the room, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Joe…” Her arms went around Jane’s slack body. “No, it can’t be true.”
“What’s wrong?” Nancy Rodham ran into the room. “The alarms just went off. Dead? You’ve got to be wrong. She was doing so well.” Her gaze went to the machine. “Shit.” She ran forward, picking up her phone she called the code. “You’ll have to leave,” she told Eve and Joe over her shoulder as she tore the cover off Jane. “We’ve got to try to save her.”
“It’s too late,” Eve said, as the doctor ran into the room. Seth Caleb was right behind him, his gaze on Jane’s face. “Leave her alone. Can’t you see? You can’t help her.” The tears were still flowing, and her voice broke. “My Jane’s dead.”
CHAPTER
14
He still had time, John Chalce thought. It was going to be pure chaos in that ICU for the next five to ten minutes, and by that time, he’d be out of this parking garage and on his way to the airport.
He unlocked his Ford Escort and threw open the driver’s side door.
“Hello, Chalce.” Seth Caleb was suddenly beside the door. “In a hurry? Too bad. Because I don’t think you’re going anywhere.”
“Oh, hi, Mr. Caleb. I’ve got to leave.” John moistened his lips. “I just received an emergency text from my dad. He’s not well, and he needs me.”
“No, I need you more.” He stared him in the eye. “And I want you to stick around.”
Those damn dark eyes were almost hypnotic, John thought. And with all the ferocity of a forest animal. He could feel the sweat begin to bead on the back of his neck. “Sorry.” He tried to get in the car. “Family, first.”
Caleb slammed him against the car. “I’m sure Eve Duncan would agree with you. But not about your dear old dad. She’s very concerned about her daughter. There’s a big furor going on in ICU about Jane MacGuire. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t believe you. You don’t know that they think she had a reaction to her medicine just when you left her room?” His eyes were blazing in his taut face. “She’s dead, Chalce.”
“I’m sorry.” He tried to sound sincere. It was hard, with this beast looking at him as if he wanted to devour him. “She seemed like a nice lady. You seemed devoted to her.”
“You have no idea.” His voice was soft, silky, but totally deadly. “I promised her that she wasn’t going to die, and here you come along and try to make a liar of me. That doesn’t please me, John Chalce.”
“You think I had something to do with it? Why would I do that?”
“Money. Drugs. A little of both? I don’t care about the reason. All I know is that Manuel Dorgal got to you.”
“I don’t know any Manuel Dorgal.”
“Yet I bet his name and number are on your cell phone.”