“If we try to take her out, none of us will be able to leave.”
The man—Timmer—nodded.
She grabbed him again, clutching at his arm. “Don’t leave me!” she implored him.
“I’ll be back,” he promised.
“Hurry!” urged the other man, who hovered yet outside the room. “He’s coming!”
Timmer turned back toward her, and taking her hand from his grasp, he quickly slipped her wrists back into the restraints and bound her to the bed.
He obviously hadn’t intended to help her at all. Maybe it had all been a trick. Some silly game to amuse a bored guard…
As her brief flash of hope died, tears stung her eyes. But even in her physically weak state, she was too strong and too damned proud to give in to tears. She wouldn’t cry. And she damn well wouldn’t beg.
“I will come back,” he said again, so sincerely that she was tempted to believe him.
But then he hurried from the room. Before the door swung completely shut behind him, she heard a shout. Voices raised in anger. Maybe even a shot.
She flinched at the noise, as if the bullet had struck her. As if they had sharp talons, fear and panic clutched at her heart. She was scared, and not just because if he were dead, he wouldn’t come back and help her.
She was scared because she cared that he might be hurt, or even worse, that he might be dying. She’d had only a faint glint of recognition for him—for his unusually light eyes and for his skin…if that had been his body in that image that had flashed through her mind. However, she didn’t remember his name or exactly how she’d known him.
She had known him very well; she was aware of that fact. Her stomach shifted as the baby inside her womb stirred restlessly, as if feeling her mother’s fear and panic.
Or her father’s pain?
AARON HAD STEPPED into it—right into the line of fire. The burly guard had caught him coming out of the room. The door hadn’t even closed behind him yet, so he couldn’t deny where he’d been—where he had been ordered never to go. Only a few employees were allowed into the room of the mysterious patient. Room 00.
Since he probably couldn’t talk his way out of the situation, especially with the guy already reaching inside his suit jacket for his gun, Aaron tried getting the hell out of the situation. He ran away from the guard, in the direction that Trigger Herrema had already disappeared.
Some help the U.S. Marshal had proven to be…
With that guy as her partner, it was no wonder that Charlotte had left the U.S. Marshals and become a private bodyguard.
Was she now, despite her adamant resolve not to, about to become a mother? Or was that pregnant woman actually Princess Gabby?
He needed to know. But even more than that, he needed to get her the hell out of this place. He couldn’t do either if he were dead.
Shouting echoed off the walls, erupting from the guard along with labored pants for breath. But he was either too far away, or the guy’s accent too thick, for Aaron to make out any specific words. But he didn’t need to know what the man said to figure out that it was a threat.
He skidded around corners of the hospital’s winding corridors, staying just ahead of the lumbering guard. With a short breath of relief, he headed through the foyer to the glass doors of the exit. He would have to slow down to swipe his name badge through the card reader in order to get those doors to open.
But he never made it that far. Shots rang out. That was a threat he understood. He dropped to the ground. But he might have already been too late. Blood trickled down his face and dropped onto the white tiled floor beneath him.
He’d been hit.
Chapter Three
“You could have killed him,” the woman chastised the guard, her voice a hiss of anger. “You could have killed other employees or patients. You were not supposed to use that gun. Again.”
Through the crack the door had been left open, Aaron spied on the argument. Despite the man’s superior height and burly build, he backed down from the woman. She was tall, too, with ash-blond hair pulled back into a tight bun. The plaque on her desk, which Aaron sat in front of, identified her as Dr. Mona Platt, the hospital administrator.
“That man is not an employee,” the guard replied, his accent thick.
Aaron tried to place it. Greek? St. Pierre Island was close to Greece.
“He’s a new hire,” she replied, “who passed all the security clearances.”
She had checked. She’d used her computer to pull up all of his fake information. He needed to know what other information was on her system, like the identity of the woman in Room 00. Or if not her identity, at least the identity of the person who had committed her to Serenity House.
Keeping an eye on the outer office where the two of them argued, Aaron moved around her desk and reached for her keyboard. He needed to pull up the financials. A place like this didn’t accept patients for free. Someone had to be footing the bills.
Dr. Platt hadn’t signed off her computer before leaving the room. And not enough time had passed since she’d left her desk that the screen had locked. He was able to access the employee records at which she’d been looking. But he needed patient records. However, he didn’t know the patient’s name. And if she was telling the truth, neither did the patient.
“He’s not a nurse aide,” the guard argued. “He could be a reporter.”
“Not with those credentials,” the administrator argued. “They’re real. He passed our very stringent background check.”
“Then he’s not a reporter,” the man agreed with a sigh of relief.
“That isn’t necessarily a good thing,” she warned him. “Since he had a legitimate reason for being here, he’s more likely to go to the sheriff’s office to report your shooting at him.”
Aaron couldn’t involve the authorities—couldn’t draw any media or legal attention to the woman in Room 00. No matter who she was, it was likely to put her in more danger if her whereabouts became widely known.
“He can’t go to the police if he can’t leave,” the man pointed out.
Aaron suppressed a shudder. Maybe instead of looking for information, he should have been looking for an escape. There was a window behind the desk, but like every other window in the place, it had bars behind the glass.
“We can’t hold him here,” she said. “Someone could report him missing, and we don’t want the state police coming here asking questions. Or worse yet, with a search warrant.”
“It is too dangerous to let him go,” the man warned. “He could still go to the police.”
“Yes, because you shot at him,” she admonished him. “That was dangerous—for so many reasons!”
“I couldn’t let him get away!” the man replied. “He was in her room.”
“And she couldn’t have told him anything,” the administrator assured him. “She doesn’t know anything to tell.”
“But he must have recognized her…”
Aaron had but he still wasn’t certain which woman she was. Her trying to strangle him had convinced him she was Charlotte. But part of Charlotte going above And beyond, besides plastic surgery, to protect the princess had been teaching the royal heiress how to protect herself. And Princess Gabby had never needed more protection than she did now.
So