Red Tide (Billy Knight Thrillers 2)

I went down onto one knee and felt for a pulse. It was there, slow and steady. I heard something behind me and looked up. Deacon was there with a radio in one hand, already calling it in.

“He’s alive,” I said.

I went quickly through the room, the bathroom, the connecting door to Nicky’s room, the bathroom in there. I knew what I would find, and I found it.

Nothing.

Anna was gone.

I went back into the other room with a dead lump forming in me. It felt like something huge and hot was sinking down my throat to my feet.

Deacon was bent over Nicky, the radio wedged between his shoulder and ear. He looked up at me. “I think we got lucky,” he said. “This one isn’t too bad.”

“Not so lucky,” I said. “There’s one missing.”

He looked at me for a long beat and then said a word I didn’t think he knew. “Give me a description,” he said.

I told Deacon what she looked like. Each detail hurt me. I could see her so clearly, almost feel the smoothness of her skin. Some small scent of her remained in the room.

An ambulance came. I stood in the shadows made by the blinking light and watched as they got Nicky inside. They moved him quickly, without seeming to hurry. I guess they had a lot of practice. It was less than three minutes before they slammed the doors and took off for Jackson Memorial Hospital.

I rode along behind with Deacon. We didn’t say much; he tried to cheer me up by complaining about the paperwork I was causing him, but when I didn’t say anything back he fell quiet.

They wouldn’t let me see Nicky at the hospital. It was against policy. They shuttled me off to a waiting room that smelled only a little better than the jail cell I’d been in a few hours earlier. They said it might take some time.

I spent the time doing some thinking. With all that was going on between my ears it wasn’t easy. It was like trying to hear somebody whispering in a room full of people shrieking at the top of their lungs.

Anna. God knows what was happening to her, but it wouldn’t be good. I had to find her. I had to get her back from them, before it was too late. She’d come so far from what had happened to her, and now this.

I had to find her.

But to figure out how to get Anna back, I had to know why they—or he—had taken her. The three main reasons I came up with were that she’d been taken as a warning, as punishment, or for profit.

If they took her for profit they would get in touch with me. So I didn’t need to think about that one yet.

If they took her to say, watch what you do; We have your girl and we can hurt her if you try to hurt us, then she was alive and well and all I had to do was find her before that changed.

But if they took her as punishment, to show the world what would happen to anybody dumb enough to mess with them—

I didn’t want to think about it. Anna had been through hell one time already. This time wouldn’t have the same happy ending.

It was possible that she was already dead, or so mutilated that death would be a blessing. I tried to shove that out of my mind. I tried to make myself believe that it made more sense for them to keep her alive so they had a hold on me, a way to keep me off them.

It all came down to the same thing anyway. I had to find her as fast as I could.

I blinked and found that there was a large blonde woman in a white coat standing in front of me, looking at me expectantly.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Did you say something?”

She shook her head. “Only a couple of paragraphs. It’s your friend.”

I felt a sick lurch in my gut. I’d watched this scene as a cop too many times. And now I was playing a big part in it, as the guy who let it happen. “Nicky? Is he—?”

The woman looked amused. “He’s fine, if the intern doesn’t kill him. He’d like to see you.”

“Nicky? Nicky’s awake?”

She smiled. “Apparently he regained consciousness in the ambulance. He’s got quite a hard head.”