Page 40 of Final Exit

Her brows rose. “I see.”

He’d expected anger or condemnation. Surprisingly, he saw neither. She seemed to be thinking hard, as if trying to put the puzzle pieces together.

He glanced toward the doors that led to a parking garage.

“I must have taken a wrong turn,” he said. “I don’t think the lot where we left the Mustang is near the parking garage. But I can’t risk going back into the main part of the hospital if Porter, and potentially others, are inside looking for me. I’ll have to go outside and work my way around the building. But first I have to figure out what to do about you.”

“Come again?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”

He let out an impatient breath. “Porter is coming after me, because I found out about Sanchez. But no one knows that you’re here except for the police. I think you should hide down here in one of the storage rooms until it’s safe to leave.”

She put her hands on her hips. “If you think I’m going to cower somewhere while you’re running for your life, then you’re just as much of a jerk as I was when I said those hateful things to you upstairs. I didn’t mean any of them, by the way. Okay, maybe I did, in the heat of the moment. But I don’t now. I’m sorry, Kade. Really sorry. And I’m not letting you face this mess on your own. We do this together or not at all.”

“Don’t be stubborn, Bailey.”

“You haven’t begun to see stubborn. Trust me. You can’t win this argument. You’re just wasting time.”

“I could tie you up.”

“Promises, promises.”

He choked out a laugh. “You’re really something, you know that?”

She grinned. “And I’m nowhere near my best today. Imagine how awesome I would be if I’d actually had some sleep in the past forty-five hours or whatever the count is up to now.”

“If we manage to get out of here without getting killed, I’ll pull guard duty and you can sleep as long as you want.”

“Deal.”

They headed toward the doors again.

“I sure wish I had a gun,” she complained.

“You and me both.”

They’d left their weapons in the trunk, not wanting to risk that the hospital might have a metal detector. Or that the police might show up and catch them with any weapons inside.

He shoved open the door and they hurried outside.

They wound their way through the garage, around the outside of the hospital to the lot where they’d left their car. The strain of all the walking up and down stairs earlier, plus weaving through the garage and around the building, was starting to turn a good-leg day into a bad one. Sharp pain shot up the back of his thigh every time he took a step. And from the way Bailey kept glancing at him, her brow furrowed with worry, he must be limping. He focused on trying to walk without favoring his bad leg.

“I can see the car,” she said as they hurried into the parking lot and started up an aisle. “A few aisles away, on the far side.”

A few moments later, the hospital doors slid open. Kade looked back and saw a tall man in a suit step outside. In this heat, that alone made him seem suspicious. Kade often wore suit jackets when he needed to cover his gun. There was one in the back of the Mustang right now for just that purpose.

He pulled Bailey down behind an SUV a third of the way up the aisle and peered over the top.

A pale woman with blond hair stepped out through the same doors, also wearing a suit jacket over her white blouse and dress pants. She stopped to talk to the man, then they both looked toward the parking lot.

Kade ducked down beside Bailey. “There’s a man and a woman in suits near the entrance and I’m pretty damn sure they’re looking for us.”

She eased her way to the end of the vehicle and poked her head out, then ducked back. “No question. I can smell a Fed a mile away. And those two reek.”

“Gee, thanks.”

She grinned. “No offense.”

He rolled his eyes.