Retribution - By Denise Jeffries Page 0,3

to her heart pound in her chest. As soon as the elevator door slid close she raced down the hall in the opposite direction.

Damn-it.

Oh yeah, she recognized the man. It was her John Doe--Reed, her newly awakened sweetie. Her skin crawled with an uneasiness she’d never felt before. Now she knew why everything felt so out of sorts. These men were bad news, and if she didn’t get Reed out, they would finish the job they’d started. What the hell was going on? Just how badly did you want someone that you’d risk a scene at a hospital? Would they have killed him there? How many others would they kill to get their goal? The thought of it disgusted her.

Scanning the area and priming her ears to hear every little noise, she sprinted to his room, chastising herself for sedating him. This is not going to be easy. The only thing she hoped was that Doug, the night orderly stayed on his break for another thirty minutes. Any other night he bled the time clock. She hoped he stayed true to form, not wanting him to come back and meet up with her visitors, and by God, don’t let someone stop their trek and tell those men she lied. If they followed her instructions, it would take them a good twenty minutes to figure it out. The unit she sent them to was on the other side of the hospital and it was closed due to maintenance repairs and painting.

“Okay, Reed.” Denver stepped into the room with caution, her gaze raking across the bed. He wasn’t there. Her heart pounded in her chest, thinking the men snuck back, seized him, and killed him. No, she would have known, would have heard. A breath of relief slid from of her lungs when his grunt directed her attention toward him sitting on the floor near the bathroom.

She moved over to him and stroked a hand across his forehead. He was hot. Hot as a branding iron right before it struck the side of a cow to brand. Sweat dripped from his forehead in waves.

“Damn,” she mumbled between gritted teeth. Moving him might kill him, but which would be worst, her or those men?

She cupped his shoulder and shook him. “Time to wake up, Reed.” He didn’t move. His breathing was barely noticeable. Okay, maybe the drugs weren’t a good thing. Her body tensed when she heard a muffled sound resembling a scream, or was it the squeal of a cart being over turned. Her hand connected with the side of Reed’s face, sending a stinging sensation across her fingers. “I said wake the hell up!”

His eyes fluttered open, pain filled, and groggy from the meds.

“We’ve got to go.”

His eyes widened. “What’s going on?” He grunted with the motion. “They’re here, aren’t they?”

“How’d you know?”

“I smelled them.”

Wrapping her arm around his waist, she tugged him up to stand and moved out of the room and toward the door as she counted the minutes in her head before the men would return. She didn’t want to be there when they did and her heart wouldn’t let her leave without Reed, even if she didn’t know him or what the hell he was getting her into. Her gut told her she couldn’t turn him over to those men. She now knew the moment he opened his eyes her peaceful existence of a life dissipated into nothing.

Dragging him from the room, she scanned the hall and listened. If she’d thought about it, she would have cut the lights off. That would have given her the advantage.

Half dragging, half carrying, she pulled Reed toward another bank of elevators. It was further, but knowing they’d use the same one to come back, she didn’t want to step right into their path. She propped Reed up against the wall and jammed her finger into the button to summon the car. Her movements were too fast too hard. She felt it vibrate in her hand and tingle the muscles in her palm.

“Come on.” Denver cursed the slowness. Tilting her head, she could hear the elevator moving at a snail’s pace toward them. A subtle ding of the arrival alarm and she let out a breath of air she didn’t know she was holding.

Almost as if in slow motion, the elevator door opened just as the shuffling of feet penetrated the silence cloaking them. Their time had run out. She swore a barrage of eloquent words as she grabbed Reed around