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Could this possibly be the mother of the little boy Quinn O’Meara had found?
There was more shuffling in the room next door, and then he overheard Anton Baba introduce himself. He held his breath as he leaned close to the wall separating him from one of the most wanted criminals he’d ever known, not wanting to miss a word of what was being said. He didn’t dare make a phone call and take the chance of being overheard. He inhaled slowly but grabbed his phone and sent Lieutenant Summers a quick text.
Get word to the Feds. Anton Baba is in ER. I’m not certain, but I think the woman getting treated in the room next to mine might be the Feds’ missing witness. She said her name was Star.
Then he hit Send.
An answer came quickly.
Do nothing. They’ve been informed. Go home.
Nick sent back a final text, Will do, then slid off the table, slipped his handgun back into the shoulder holster and put on his jacket.
The moment he stood up, the room began to spin. Damn it. Most likely he had a concussion to go with that bullet wound, but after knowing Baba was so close, he didn’t care about orders or his injury. He wasn’t leaving the O’Meara woman alone when the man who wanted her dead was in the same hospital.
He tentatively fingered the bandage on his head and then slipped out of the exam room, stopping at the nurses’ desk long enough to tell them he would be on the fourth floor if anyone needed him, then walked out despite their protests that he had not been released.
The ER staff didn’t want him to leave, but his boss told him to go home. Since he couldn’t do two things at once, he decided to do his own thing. He’d stay with Quinn O’Meara until real backup arrived. Just in case.
* * *
Nick got back to the fourth floor, but was stopped at the elevator by a Las Vegas cop. After showing his badge, they let him pass. He made his way down the hall in his bloody clothes, fielding comments about his welfare until he got to Quinn’s room. Another cop was outside her door. He recognized Nick, eyed the bandage on his head and the blood all over his shirt and jacket, but stepped aside to let him in.
The room was quiet but for the machines hooked up to the woman’s body. The nurse stood up as Nick walked in.
“How’s she doing?” Nick asked.
“She’s doing well. Resting comfortably. Are you all right, sir?” the nurse asked.
“I will be,” Nick said. “I’ll be staying here with her.”
The nurse frowned, then scooted an overstuffed chair close to the bed for him to use.
“It reclines. If either of you need anything, press this red button,” she said, pointing to the call button fastened to the side of Quinn’s bed.
“I hate to ask, but if there is a clean scrub shirt in an extra-large anywhere around, I sure could use it. And...could someone bring me a cup of coffee? My head is killing me. Oh, and if any ER doctor comes looking for me, tell him where I am.”
“I’ll see what I can find,” she said and left.
Nick moved to Quinn’s bedside, still trying to figure out why she looked so familiar. She was pretty in a wild, unharnessed kind of way. Long red hair, with slightly darker eyebrows that framed her deep-set eyes, which he remembered as being a vivid shade of green. He turned her hand palm up, felt some calluses and wondered if it was from riding the Harley or something else that she did.
He brushed a flyaway strand of her hair from her forehead and then eased himself down into the recliner. From where he was sitting he had a clear view of her and the door. He patted the shoulder holster, making sure his phone and gun were in place, and then leaned back.
A few minutes later the nurse returned with a clean blue scrub shirt, his doctor-ordered meds, a cup of coffee and a sweet roll.
“From the break room,” she said and handed them over with a sympathetic smile.
“Thank you so much,” he said softly.
She nodded, then checked Quinn’s IV and heart monitor again before she left.
Nick changed into the clean shirt, and by the time he had finished the food and coffee, the sick feeling was gone from his stomach. His head wasn’t throbbing as much as it had been. He got up to throw his garbage into the trash can, and as he was washing up, he heard Quinn’s voice.
He hurried back to the bed, but she wasn’t awake, just talking in her sleep—and crying.
“Where is he? Where’s my Nicks?” she mumbled, then turned her head and slipped into a deeper sleep.
His heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t heard that name in nearly twenty years.
He backed up and sat down in the recliner again, and sent a text to one of the other detectives in Homicide.
Run a background check on Quinn O’Meara. Get license tag info off her Harley. It’s in police impound. Send it to my phone.
Then he put the shoulder holster back on over the scrub shirt and leaned back in the chair to wait. Thirty minutes turned into an hour as he drifted in and out of sleep, awakened occasionally by the sound of Quinn’s mumbling and crying.
When his phone finally signaled a text, he scrolled through the information quickly. He couldn’t believe what he was reading. He leaped to his feet, looking down at Quinn in disbelief.
“Oh, my God! Queenie!”
She was crying in her sleep again.
He stroked her cheek, then wiped the tears.
“Queenie?”
She sobbed, still caught in whatever nightmare she was having.
“Nicks is gone,” she murmured.
“Oh, my God, my little Queenie. What happened to you after they took me away?”
Four (#uff7fe1cd-e1d2-5e62-86e8-dd1b93512c2b)
Induced by pain and drugs, Quinn was caught up in a very vivid dream of her past. He was cursing her with every breath, beating her on the back with one fist while he pushed her head under water with the other.
Quinn was kicking and thrashing, needing to breathe, trying desperately to get away, but the hand on the back of her head kept pushing her down, farther and farther into the water.
Help me, God. If you’re real, make this stop.
She woke abruptly, trembling and gasping for air. She heard the heart monitor before she saw it, and when she opened her eyes, she was shocked that it was hooked to her.
My things! Where are my things?
Everything she owned was on her Harley. Then she noticed the man sleeping in the recliner beside her bed, recognizing him as the cop from Homicide. Why was there a bandage on his head and why was he—
Her pulse jumped.
The elevator. The shooting! Blood all over the side of his face as they rushed her past him. Shouldn’t he be in a bed somewhere, too? Why was he still here?
She found the buzzer and rang for a nurse.
Nick sat up with a jerk and then grabbed his head as the room began to spin.
“Oh, crap,” he mumbled, then eased himself upright and moved to the side of her bed. “Are you okay?”
She pointed at the bandage on his head.
“Are you okay?”
Before he could answer, a nurse’s voice came over the intercom.
“Good morning, Quinn. What do you need?”
“To go to the bathroom,” she said.
“We’ll be right there,” the nurse said.
“I’ll step out of the room,” Nick said.
“No need,” Quinn said. “Sit back down before you fall down. Do you know what happened to my bike? Everything I own is on it.”
“Your Harley is in police impound. It’s safe and so are your things,” he said and eased back down in the recliner just as a nurse walked in, saw Nick and pointed toward the door.
“Detective, would you mind stepping out for—”
“No!” Quinn interrupted. “Please! I’ve been shot at twice in the last twelve hours. He and his gun stay.”
“Okay by me,” the nurse said with a smile, then lowered Quinn’s bed and let down the guardrail.
Quinn glanced over her shoulder, giving Nick an awkward smile.
“But, um...maybe you want to turn around so you don’t get flashed?”
Nick nodded, then winced as his head rang with pain.
“I’m closing my eyes,” he said.
Quinn groaned as she eased up from the bed, then grabbed the nurse’s arm to steady herself and headed for the bathroom.
“Call if you need help,” the nurse said, closing the bathroom door behind Quinn as she went inside.
Quinn eased herself down on the commode and then had to talk herself out of crying. Twenty-four hours ago she had been in Alamo, Nevada, doing a favor for a friend by filling in at her restaurant after her regular hostess took time off to get married.
If she had not just lived it, she wouldn’t believe all that had happened to her since leaving Alamo. Her shoulder was throbbing right along with her head. She was scared of what might happen next and still unsure of why any of this had happened to begin with. How had a simple trip to Vegas gone so wrong?
By the time she was through in the bathroom, she was shaking from the exertion and pain. She called for the nurse, then grabbed her arm to steady her steps, stopped at the sink long enough to wash up and didn’t relax until she was stretched back out in bed.
“They’ll be bringing breakfast soon,” the nurse said, with a wink at Nick. “We had them send a tray up for you, too.”
“Many thanks,” Nick said, following her to the door, then looking outside to make sure the guard was still there.
He recognized the officer, gave him a nod of recognition, then shut the door and walked back to her bedside. There was no use beating around the bush anymore.
“So, I guess we have a lot to talk about, don’t we, Queenie?”
Quinn’s heart skipped a beat.
“What did you just call me?”
Nick smiled and repeated, “Queenie.”
All of a sudden she was a child again, sitting up in bed and waiting for the boy who slept in the room across the hall to come read her a story—the only person who’d ever called her by that name. She stared at the man in front of her, trying to picture the boy’s face, but it had been too long.
“What’s your name?” she said.
“Detective Nick Saldano, Las Vegas Homicide, but you used to call me Nicks.”
Quinn’s eyes widened at that. Oblivious to the pain, she threw back her covers in excitement.
Nick got a flash of her long bare legs, and then her good arm was around his neck.
“I can’t believe this. I never thought I’d see you again,” she said and buried her face against his shoulder.
Nick was surprised by her reaction and then touched by it as he eased her down to the side of the bed and took her in his arms.
“Don’t cry, Queenie. You’re breaking my heart,” Nick said, his voice shaking from emotion.
Quinn leaned back, still searching his face for recognition.
“I never would have known it was you. How did you—”
“You talked in your sleep,” Nick said.
“I did?”
“You asked for Nicks. That was a name from the time I was in foster care, so I ran a background check.”
Quinn was trembling as she touched his face, then the bandage covering his forehead.
“That man you shot. He was shooting at me, wasn’t he?”
Nick nodded.
“He came close to killing you,” she said, taking his hand. “I would never have realized who you were. This is all so—Why is this happening? Who was that baby I found? What hell did I stumble into?”
“You’re shaking,” Nick said. “This has been a lot for one day. You need to lie down.”
Quinn let him tuck her back in, but refused to turn loose his hand.
