In the Crossfire (Bloodhaven) (27 page)

She walked into Rex’s private room and halted in her tracks. It was empty.

The bed was clean, the sheets crisply tucked in. The room was devoid of machines and flowers, ready to welcome a new patient without a backward glance at the old.

For the briefest of moments, Isobel’s heart rate sped up. Surely nothing had happened to Rex in the past twenty-four hours. His injuries hadn’t been that dire.

She went out to the reception area. “Where’s the patient in 32B?”

The nurse checked her computer screen. “He’s been moved. Are you family?”

Isobel relaxed. “A friend. Where was he moved?”

“I’m afraid I couldn’t say, ma’am.”

“Why not?”

“That information’s for authorized persons only, ma’am.”

“I
am
authorized. . . .” Isobel stopped in the middle of reaching for her missing badge. She had no such authority, at least not until she was back at work. Neither could she fault the nurse for looking out for the safety of a Council agent.

“Fine. Thanks for your time.” Isobel walked toward the elevators. She’d have to call someone at the Council to find out where Rex had been moved to, and why.

Jamal’s room was empty as well.

This time her heart stopped. Isobel backed away, bumping into a nurse in the corridor who was carrying a pile of folded blankets. She grabbed his arm and pointed at the deserted room. “Where’s the patient who was here yesterday? Jamal Mousenn?”

The nurse staggered back from Isobel’s fierce snarl, the blankets escaping his grasp.

“
Where is he?
”

“I don’t know!”

Isobel dropped his arm and whirled around, racing for the reception desk.

“I’m sorry, I can’t give you that information,” was the only answer she received.

“Can’t, or won’t?” Isobel demanded.

“Ma’am, do I need to contact security?”

“You can contact whoever you damn like. I want answers.” She slapped her palm on the counter surface.

The nurse behind the counter spoke into her phone receiver, casting wary looks at Isobel. Isobel brought her own phone up, about to call one of her active-duty colleagues, when she saw the reminder notification of Malcolm’s message.

She cursed. Was this what Malcolm had contacted her about? What the hell was going on? She hit Malcolm’s name onscreen to return the call, too impatient to listen to her voicemail. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a security guard arriving, accompanied by an agent she recognized. The latter looked startled to see her.

“Saba?” asked Richards. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be under lockdown.”

“What are you talking about? Where are Rex and Jamal? Are they all right?”

“They’re fine. Safe. Don’t look at me like that. They were moved to a more secure location, which is more than I can say for you. What the hell? Supe was supposed to get a hold of you.”

“I got his text. Was planning to call later.” Distantly, Isobel realized Malcolm had picked up the other line and was hollering in her ear. “Malcolm, I’m at the hospital with Richards. Rex and Jamal have been moved.”

“Of course they have,” Malcolm exploded. “We’re all in this damn safe house. Where the hell are you? Didn’t you get my message? Let the others find Ogden and haul your ass in here.”

A chill slithered down Isobel’s spine. “Pierry Ogden? What’s he got to do with this?”

“I’ll explain when you get here. Tell Richards to drive you over now!”

“Is that Saba?” Jamal suddenly came on the line, ignoring Malcolm’s indignant bellow at losing possession of his phone. “Saba, you’re out there. Good. Nail the bastard to the wall.”

Malcolm shouted again, and the line went dead.

Isobel turned to Richards, who had thanked and dismissed the hospital security guard. “What’s going on? What’s this about Ogden? Last I heard, he was on his way out of Bloodhaven.”

Richards shook his head and urged her toward the elevators. “That’s what we thought until half an hour ago.”

“What happened half an hour ago?”

He gazed down at her somberly. “They found Lewski’s body.”

She sucked in a stunned breath.

“He didn’t show up for his shift. When comm-central couldn’t get a response, they sent an agent to his basement apartment.” Richards’s eyes turned bleak. “The kid had clearly put up a fight.”

Isobel closed her eyes. Lewski had been young and inexperienced, but he hadn’t deserved this.

“His upstairs neighbor is out of town, which was why nobody saw or heard what happened.”

“The Council was supposed to have sent a team after Ogden!” she snapped. “What the hell have they been doing, sitting on their tails whistling in the wind?”

“For God’s sake, Isobel! You don’t think they’re plagued by guilt as it is?”

“Fat load of good guilt is if it makes them this careless!”

Isobel had to force herself to take several deep breaths to calm down. Richards was right; the news was bound to have hit the active team hard. Rationally, she knew Pierry Ogden had gotten a head start on his escape in the first place. Not to mention both Ogdens had been adept in evading the Council’s clutches when they were being hunted down. If there was one thing Pierry Ogden had surely learned from his father, it was how to escape capture.

That knowledge was no comfort now, not when it came to yet another dead agent at the hands of this bastard.

Richards glanced around them, then quickly ushered Isobel into an empty elevator where they couldn’t be overheard.

“We never expected Ogden to backtrack instead of fleeing Bloodhaven outright,” he muttered. “I don’t know how he managed to locate Lewski.”

“He must’ve taken note of Lewski’s scent that first day,” Isobel said grimly. “When Lewski was fumbling with his restraints.” The one that had led to Ogden’s own escape.

“He could’ve run. Instead, he’s returned to seek revenge for what happened to his damn father.”

“How do you know that?”

Richards grimaced. “He left a message on Lewski’s wall.”

Isobel didn’t ask what Ogden had used to write that message. She could guess well enough.

The elevator doors opened, and they stepped out onto the ground floor. They were silent as they left the multitude of people milling around the lobby and emerged from the building.

“That’s not all,” Richards continued once they’d gained distance. “Ogden used Lewski’s prints to pull up certain files on the kid’s phone. Our techs discovered which ones.”

Isobel now understood why Rex, Jamal, and Malcolm were in the safe house. “He looked up the agents involved in the carnage in the woodlands that day. Rex, Jamal, Malcolm, and me. We’re the ones who survived.”

And I was the one who killed his father.

“Ogden didn’t get your full personnel files,” Richards quickly assured her. “Lewski’s clearance level doesn’t—didn’t—go that high. Ogden doesn’t know where you live, how to reach you, none of that.”

“Our system’s been compromised all the same.”

“I know. Look, let me get you to the safe house and we’ll figure the rest out. My ride’s this way.”

Isobel looked at Richards in disbelief. “I’m not going to the safe house. My niece and mate are with me.”

He appeared temporarily flummoxed by the news that Isobel had acquired a mate, but said, “They’ll understand. You’ve gone incommunicado before.”

“I’m not deserting them, and I’m damn sure not going to leave them out in the open with Ogden on the loose!”

“Ogden wouldn’t know how to find them! I told you, Ogden doesn’t have your address.”

Isobel suddenly stiffened. “Lewski’s clearance level. It allows you to look up next-of-kin’s contact info.”

Richards frowned. “Yes, in the event we have to deliver unfortunate news. So?”

“My mate and niece are at my sister’s apartment right now.” For the first time in her life, Isobel felt the true ice-cold clutches of fear.

Beside her, realization dawned on Richards’s horrified face. “Ogden’s revenge. . . .”

Isobel grabbed her phone and broke into in a run. Twelve blocks away. Kaya’s apartment was twelve blocks away.

“Saba, wait!”

“Get protection detail for the others’ next-of-kin!” she yelled over her shoulder. “And send a unit to my sister’s apartment now!”

Panic threatened to choke her alive. She struggled to steady her hands as she began to dial.

Pick up, Liam. Pick up.

Naley was adamant as they rode the elevator up to the apartment where she used to live with her mother. “Jeremy’s just my study partner. I don’t even like him that way.”

Liam folded his arms skeptically. “So you don’t mind if I pick you up from school and glare daggers at the kid?”

“I thought glaring daggers is your natural state of being?”

He glowered, and Naley laughed in return. “See?”

“Just for that, I’m going to personally introduce myself to this Jeremy.”

“Seriously, there’s nothing going on between us. We’re just friends.” She cast Liam a withering look over her shoulder. “My mom had me when she was only a little older than I am right now. Boys can suck it, far as I’m concerned. I have no intention of turning out like her.”

Liam opened his mouth, then closed it. After a pause he asked, “So why did you look so upset the other day when this Jeremy was talking to you?”

“I wasn’t upset. Jeez, Aunt Iz was right about wolves being uber-protective. He was just asking me out for the umpteenth time, and I was tired of it. I told you boys can suck it.”

“Hmm.” Liam mulled this over. “I’m definitely going to speak to him now.”

Naley nudged him, but her cheek dimpled.

He cleared his throat gruffly. “For the record, I think you’ve turned out very well as you are.”

She looked both embarrassed and pleased by the statement. “C’mon,” she said as the elevator doors opened. “We have
tons
to pack.”

Liam’s phone rang as Naley loped on ahead. The second he stepped out of the elevator, however, he caught the stench of musty swamp swirled with blood.

The odor was faint, as evidenced by Naley’s lack of notice, but he would’ve caught it a mile away. The phone in his back pocket continued to ring, but his gaze fixated on the door to the fire escape on his left. To his right, he could hear Naley further ahead in the hallway, digging into her shorts pocket for her keycard.

The metallic scent of blood was far too thick to mean anything but all things wrong.

Wartime instincts immediately roared to life. Liam could sense the other shifter’s presence on the other side of that closed door. An adult male tiger, who had tried to clean the blood off if the underlying scent of soap was anything to go by. But Liam had spent too long embedded in battle, tracking down humans using nothing more than the bark of a tree they’d brushed up against, to miss anything that reeked this heavily of death and decay.

The blood clinging to that man’s skin didn’t belong to him.

Liam could feel the subtle shift in weight on the other side of that door. He could hear the subtle change in breath, lungs expanding to take in more oxygen, an anticipatory move by a fighter in preparation for combat. The voices in Liam’s head coalesced into one unified ear-piercing scream.

Liam’s phone continued to ring, but he didn’t take his eye off that door.

“Naley,” he murmured.

“I know, I know,” she said, fumbling as she shoved her keycard into the lock.

“Run.”

“What?”

Liam looked at her. She was frowning in confusion, but froze on seeing the expression on his face. He mouthed the word this time:
Run.

He heard a sliver of movement, half a second before he lunged forward and grabbed Naley by the shoulders. He shoved her toward the emergency exit stairwell on the opposite end of the hallway just as he heard the door behind him fly open.

The tiger-shifter had scratch-marks on his grizzled features, square jaw bearing stubble as red as the hair on his head. He wasn’t as tall as Liam, but he had bulk. Perspiration added an unhealthy luster to his skin, which appeared even more pallid due to the dark circles ringing his glittering, feverish eyes. Blood spatter littered his collar and the edge of his shirt.

This was a man hanging on to his last legs with deadly purpose.

His eyes flicked to Naley’s disappearing form on the other end of the hallway, then returned to Liam. He bared yellow gritted teeth.

“You just cost me a tiny cheetah cub.”

Liam calmly met his manic gaze. “Good.”

Without warning, the man launched himself at Liam. Long-ingrained instincts came to life full-force; Liam met him head-on, grabbing on to his collar and twisting him back. They smashed against the floor in a flurry of fists and claws, the impact loud enough to shake the walls.

His opponent pinned Liam underneath him. Liam’s forearm pressed back on the other man’s throat, holding him at bay. The man’s fangs elongated, saliva dripping onto Liam’s cheek.