Her Mistletoe Protector
How long did she have to stall here before the cabbie came looking for his money? Or would he simply give up and drive away? She tried not to think the worst. “I’m so glad you’re all right. We looked everywhere for you!”
“Yeah, right. You left me there to die, Rachel,” he sneered with obvious reproach. “Good thing I still had the distributer cap for the car, hmm?”
“What do you want, Karl?” she asked, fed up with pandering to his ego. “What more could you possibly want from me?”
“I need to finish what I started,” he said enigmatically. “I always finish the job.”
“Why?” she asked helplessly, tired of the games. “Haven’t you caused enough damage? You’ve ruined my company’s reputation, and for what? Love? You don’t have the faintest idea what true love is. Josie never would have accepted your love if she knew what you’ve done.”
She couldn’t help thinking of Nick. How she’d left him in the hospital without even giving him a chance to explain what he’d gone through. Maybe he had shut her out, believing the worst about the damage to his arm, but sooner or later, he would have come around. If she’d learned anything about faith, it was that leaning on God’s strength could help you through the darkest days. She was suddenly ashamed of her actions. She should have stayed. She should have given him a second chance.
Should have told him how she felt.
Now she could only hope and pray she wasn’t too late.
“Do you honestly think that Detective Butler won’t figure out that you’re the one who killed me?” she continued, since Karl hadn’t responded. “He’s not stupid, Karl. I promise Nick won’t rest until he finds you and makes sure that you spend the rest of your life behind bars.”
“I have protection. My boss will protect me.”
“Protection? From your boss? William Hanson, the CEO of Global? Or the Mafia?”
The way Karl reacted to William Hanson’s name let her know she’d nailed it correctly. For once she didn’t mind being wrong about the Mafia connection.
“You think William Hanson cares about you? I’m betting that as soon as you kill me, he’ll do whatever it takes to get rid of you.”
Karl scowled. “He won’t kill me—I helped him out. He’s already beaten you to market with a new diabetes drug. One that doesn’t cause blood clots.”
The thought of Karl purposefully ruining the new medication she’d put out to market made her seethe with anger. Not just because of her company’s reputation, but because of the innocent people he’d hurt.
“So why kill me if Global has the new medication out?”
“My boss doesn’t like loose ends. And since Ashton couldn’t manage to do my dirty work for me, I have no choice but to finish this on my own.”
Her heart leaped into her throat when he lifted the gun. “No matter what you do to me, Nick won’t stop searching for you. I’ve already told the police about you, too. You’ll never be safe, Karl.”
Karl didn’t answer; instead, he simply stared at her as if he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. She had no way of knowing if she’d even gotten through to him.
She tried not to panic. Facing a crazy man with a gun was much harder when she didn’t have Nick’s reassuring presence nearby. But she’d left Nick back at the hospital in Madison.
She and Joey were on their own.
SEVENTEEN
Nick dozed during the long ride back to Chicago. Even with Sean McCarthy using flashing red lights and sirens, the trip took longer than he wanted. The doctor back in Madison had been really angry about him leaving, but he couldn’t worry about his arm.
Rachel and Joey were far more important.
They swung by Rachel’s house, which thankfully wasn’t that far from her office building, but the place was locked up tight with no sign of anyone having been there. He told Sean to head over to the office building next, figuring that Rachel probably needed her keys.
When they reached the office complex, Sean parked behind a taxi with the “in service” light on. Nick managed to get out of the passenger seat under his own power, holding his left arm protectively against his body to minimize the pain as much as possible. Now that the numbing agent had worn off, he could feel his arm, but mostly all he felt was pain.
When they walked into the building there was a foreign taxi driver yelling at the security guard behind the desk. Nick couldn’t understand half of what the guy was saying, but it became apparent that the taxi driver had brought Rachel and Joey here and wanted his money.