Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jake fought against the sick feeling rising in his throat. They’d expended a lot of time and effort setting Frederick up to turn himself in. Apparently, his criminal instincts were too strong. As soon as he’d seen a cop on the street, he’d pulled a gun.
Leaving Jake and Rachel where?
Jake heard the sirens. Was it police cars, or maybe an ambulance? Maybe the bastard wasn’t dead, after all.
Jake ached to step out from behind the pillar and find out what was going on. Instead he linked his fingers with Rachel’s, leading her in the other direction.
“Where are we going?” she gasped out.
“To an apartment over one of my antique shops.”
“Do you have hiding places all over the city?”
“No. It’s just an empty rental unit.”
“Is that safe?”
“For a while.” I hope, he silently added.
They walked down the street at a normal pace, even though he wanted to get out of sight as soon as possible. As they turned down a side street, he felt safer. They wended their way toward the antique shop, then stopped short when he heard a radio blaring from an apartment.
“City police have shot an armed man in the French Quarter. According to authorities, the suspect drew a gun when he saw a patrol officer, and the officer opened fire. The injured man has been taken to Saint Luke’s Hospital in critical condition.”
Rachel gasped. “We have to go there.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. But I feel like it’s important.”
Jake clenched his teeth. “We can’t. We have to lie low until it’s safe, then get out of the city.”
“And then what?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t know!”
Rachel gave him a pleading look. “Please, let me go to the hospital. It’s important, but I can do it by myself.”
He grimaced. “We can’t,”
“I’m sorry, but it’s tugging at me. I have to or . . .”
“Or what?”
“I don’t know. I only know I have to.”
“One of your Tarot card reader hunches?”
“Yes.” She looked so frantic that his throat constricted.
He didn’t want to go anywhere near the hospital, but he felt Rachel’s urgency coming off of her in waves.
“Okay,” he muttered.
She clenched her hand on his arm. “Thank you. And don’t tell me it’s my funeral.”
The hospital was in walking distance, and they approached cautiously.
Now what? Jake asked, still wishing that they’d gone to the vacant apartment.
You know everything about the city. How do we get in?
Walk in the front door, like we’re there to visit a relative.
He felt her cringe.
Did you change your mind?
No. She took his arm, and they went through the oversized revolving door and into the main lobby.
Rachel moved along the wall, her gaze turned inward.
What are you doing?
I need to focus. Her urgency made him keep any further observations to himself as he watched people come and go. At least nobody was paying them any attention.
He was still taking in the busy lobby when she spoke again.
The woman at the front desk is busy. Pick up the two visitors’ passes that a man and woman just left on the counter.
Jake blinked, looking toward the desk as a man and a woman walked away. While the clerk’s back was turned, he picked up the passes and kept his body angled away from the desk as he returned to Rachel. She clipped on her badge, and he did the same as she led him toward the elevator.
They’d come here to find Carter Frederick. And Jake was thinking that if the man was alive, he was in the emergency room, or being operated on. So why were they going up to one of the wards?
But Rachel had a head start on psychic talents, and she must be operating on some knowledge that he didn’t possess.
He sensed her excitement but couldn’t catch her thoughts.
In the confines of the elevator, he tried unsuccessfully to read her expression, before he asked, Rachel?
Her mind gave away nothing. Cryptically she only told him, Let’s see if I’m right.
He went along with her.
They got out on the third floor, and he followed her around a corner and down a hallway. When he saw uniformed police officers stationed outside a door, he wanted to run in the other direction, the way Carter Frederick had run, but he wasn’t going to leave Rachel.
“We’re expected,” she said to the officer.
“Names?”
“Rachel Gregory and Jake Harper.”
Jake stiffened as she gave their names. What was she doing, leading them to the cops? But the officer only nodded and stepped aside.
Confused yet intrigued, Jake followed Rachel into the hospital room and stopped short when he saw a woman lying in the bed. Her head was wrapped in bandages, but when he stared at her face, he felt the shock of recognition. It was Evelyn Morgan.
In the chair beside her was Detective Paul Moynihan.
“You’re alive.” Jake gaped at the woman who had come to his office.
She looked like she had aged ten years since he’d seen her last.
“And very lucky. I was in a coma,” she said in a halting voice. “They didn’t think I would wake up, but I fooled them.”
“I see you got my message,” Moynihan said to Jake.
“Which message?”
“The one I left this morning on your voicemail and with your assistant--where I told you it was safe to come out of hiding.”
Jake nodded. He hadn’t gone near his voicemail or contacted his assistant, but he preferred not to explain how they’d arrived at the hospital.
Instead, he gave Moynihan a dark look. “Why did you say Evelyn Morgan was dead?”
“At first, we thought she wasn’t going to pull through. Then we decided that if someone wanted her dead, we’d let them think they’d succeeded.”
“We were wanted for murder,” Jake accused.
“Questioning.”
Jake hardened his stare.
“And we still didn’t know you weren’t involved–until she woke up and told us about the guy who came to her hotel room and demanded information about an international terrorist plot she’d never heard of.”
“International terrorist plot?” Rachel kept her gaze on Evelyn, but her mind zinged to Jake. It wasn’t that, was it?
Apparently she doesn’t want to tell the real story.
“Why were we at the top of the suspect list?” Rachel asked the detective.
“Because you both had appointments with her for just before she was attacked.”
“Call me a sentimental old matchmaker,” Evelyn broke in. “But I met Rachel Gregory when she did a Tarot card reading for me. Then I was at Jake Harper’s restaurant and met him, and I thought they’d be perfect for each other. I was horrified when I found out I’d gotten the two of you in trouble.”
Jake stared at her, and their eyes met. She was lying, but the expression on her face told him that she wanted him to keep the confidence.
Don’t complicate the story, Rachel silently added, and he knew that starting to explain the real facts would only get them into deep trouble.
“I do so apologize,” Evelyn said.
“No harm done,” Rachel answered quickly. “While Jake and I were on the run from the police, we got to know each other pretty well. I guess your instincts about us were right.”
“Since you were innocent, why did you run?” Moynihan asked Jake.
“Because I’ve seen too many people railroaded into jail,” he answered. “It’s easier to prove your innocence if you’re free.”
Evelyn ignored the exchange as she looked from Rachel to Jake and back again, then smiled. “You found out what you have in common?”
“Yes,” Rachel answered.
“I’m so glad.”
She looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, Jake silently observed.
But she’s a tough-as-nails old broad.
Jake turned to Moynihan again. “We’re officially cleared of any charges?”
“Yes.”
“Then I think we’ll be going.”
“Wait. I want to talk to you,” the woman on the bed called out.
“You probably should rest now,” Jake answered, using that as an excuse to put distance between them. When he turned and left, Rachel followed him out of the room.
You don’t want to ask her some questions? Like why did she start the fire at the clinic? Rachel asked when they were on their way back to the elevator.
I want to get as far away from her as I can.
Maybe she knows the Badger’s real name. It’s likely she was working for him out of D.C. when she torched the building.
Or she was working for Solomon. Maybe he wanted to get rid of his own clinic.
If he’s still alive, he could be dangerous.
And suppose she does know the guy who funded the clinic.
What if he’s the one who sent Carter Frederick after her?
What’s he going to do when he finds out she’s not dead?
If I were her, I’d go into hiding. Like us.
Rachel sighed. That’s probably smart.
When they reached the lobby it was quite a different scene from when they arrived. Several camera crews and reporters had set up shop there. Ducking to the side, Rachel and Jake waited until a young blond reporter began to give her stand-up.
“A man who drew a gun on a police officer earlier today and was shot by the officer has died. He was not carrying identification, and his identity is still unknown. He is believed to be in his early thirties. A white male with blond hair and blue eyes. The name of the officer involved in the shooting is being withheld, pending an investigation.”
“Carter Frederick’s dead,” Rachel breathed.
“Unless this is another police scam.”
“Why would they . . . ?” She shrugged, then made a small sound. Not wanting anyone to hear their conversation, she continued silently. I guess he went to the bad place.
Probably where he belongs.
He was scared of what was going to happen to him.
You don’t feel sorry for him, do you?
I can’t help it. He was so frightened.
Not frightened enough to keep him from running from the cops the first chance he got.
I guess his criminal instincts were too strong.
They left their visitor’s badges on the counter and stepped into the twilight.
Where are we going? Rachel asked.
To the apartment I mentioned.
Not your house?
Right now, I think it’s safer to stay under the radar.
They were each lost in their own thoughts as they walked back to the heart of the French Quarter. The entrance to the apartment was around back, and as they reached the stairway leading upward, Rachel realized that she hadn’t heard much of what Jake was thinking.
You’re learning to block me, she said.
I think you did it at the hospital before we got to Evelyn’s room.
I was trying.
It’s a good skill to have in the long run.
They walked up the backstairs to the apartment. The key was on the top of the doorframe, and when they stepped inside, Rachel saw the place was beautifully furnished with antiques that must have come from the shop below.
She breathed out a little sigh as Jake closed the door behind them.
“I’d like to say we’re safe,” Jake said. “But what I said before still counts. We’ve got to stay in hiding until the situation with the clinic is resolved.”
“It will be. Maybe not this week,” Rachel murmured.
“How do you know?”
“The same intuition that made me think that Evelyn Morgan was alive and in that hospital room.”
“Nice to be able to sense the future.”
“Actually it’s strange to have a sense of my own future. I never did before.”
“You mean you didn’t know we were destined for each other?”
“I would have been a lot happier if I had.”
Yeah. He pulled her close, holding her tight. I love you. I want to marry you, have a life with you.
Oh Jake!
He lowered his mouth to hers for a kiss ripe with promise.
“How long will we have to stay in hiding?” he asked when they finally came up for air.
“Get me a deck of Tarot cards, and maybe I can tell you,” she answered, gathering him close, still amazed that she and this fantastic man were together.
Would they have been, without Evelyn Morgan?
She was beginning to think so. She and Jake would have found each other, and she was sure others from the project would do the same.
What would happen when they connected as she and Jake had? Would they turn out like Kira and Mickey, or would they be friends? She longed to know, but that information was beyond her.
We’d better be cautious if we meet any more of them, Jake advised.
Yes.
She turned her mind back to Jake, the man she loved. The man she had thought she would never find. But here they were, in each other’s arms. With the rest of their lives stretching before them.
The story continues with Sudden Attraction, in which Gabriella Boudreaux and Luke Buckley find themselves caught in a web of lies and danger surrounding the Solomon Clinic.