Page 15 of Nowhere to Hide

I pushed out of the cop car and took a deep lungful of night air. Had the guy gone back to finish the job that night?

The urge to go find the blond zipped like lightning up my spine. This guy wouldn’t be bold enough to go to the hospital tonight.

Surely not.

I strode toward the hospital. The sound of Stone’s door slamming propelled me forward.

He caught up with me. “I have an officer on her door.”

“Youdo?”

“My par—former partner said she’d put an officer on the door.”

“I hope so.”

We checked in at the visitor’s center. The lobby of the hospital was pretty quiet, and we were directed to the ICU, which made my belly tighten.

We both got off the elevator to find a skeleton overnight crew. The jarring sound of beeps and the compressor for oxygen took me reminded me of too many fallen soldiers and co-workers.

I shoved back those memories and fisted my hands into my pockets as Stone led me down the hall to where there was a guard outside a room. The tag on the outside of the door simply said Jane Doe.

The fact that there was a room at all made the muscles in my shoulders loosen slightly. She was alive.

For now.

Stone broke away to talk to his ex-partner. She was a stunning Latina with dark hair scraped back into a no-nonsense knot at the base of her neck. She was nearly as tall as Stone with a shield tucked into the belt of her caramel colored pants. Even at nearly one in the morning she was wearing a fitted navy jacket over a wine colored tank.

They were arguing in furious whispers. Suddenly the woman stalked off to talk to a doctor, leaving Stone staring at the ceiling.

“That went well.”

“Bringing a civilian with me didn’t help.”

Ignoring the slur, I shrugged. “I’m a concerned citizen who wanted to know how the victim was. Period.”

He gave me a dry look.

I shrugged. “Could happen.”

“After visiting hours?”

“Extenuating circumstances?”

He sighed. “I logged the evidence we found and updated Miranda on her name.”

“Any word on her status?”

“She’d only give me that she was alive.”

“Really pissed her off, hey?”

He tucked his thumb into his belt beside his service weapon. “She just needs to cool down.”

Turned out that her cooling down period took a bit longer than Stone was prepared for. We both broke our asses on the hard plastic chairs in the hallway. I was impressed that they didn’t change the name on the door and an officer stood sentry checking identifications of medical staff before they were allowed into the room.

Even if they didn’t believe Stone’s theory, they were being careful since she’d been assaulted in such an explicit way.

I paced between the hall and the vending nook. By two in the morning my gut burned from the shitty coffee I kept gulping down. I wasn’t sure caffeine was even helping at this point.