Identity Withheld Read online

  “Are you okay?” Jake sounded really concerned.

  She teetered, reached out blindly to stop herself from toppling off the gurney.

  Jake lunged toward her. “She’s going to faint!”

  The next thing she knew, her cheek was pressed against his solid chest, his arm wrapped protectively around her. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

  For a few blissful seconds, she lingered in his protective embrace—the kind of embrace Clark should’ve wrapped her in three months ago.

  She sucked in a quick breath and straightened, dismissing the memory. She’d made her choice and so had he. Jake’s arm dropped away, and she shivered at the chilly damp air that rushed into its place.

  “I’m guessing you’ll want those painkillers now?” The paramedic doused the bandage in saline.

  The cooling flow took the edge off the pain. “Uh, maybe just a couple of acetaminophen.”

  Empathy brimmed in Jake’s eyes. “You’ll have to forgive my cousin. She needs to work on her bedside manner.”

  Kara chuckled, bringing that heart-fluttering smile back to Jake’s lips. She sighed. She would’ve liked the chance to get to know him. But by tomorrow, Kara Grant would no longer exist.

  Another paramedic appeared at the back doors, where the now-missing sheriff had been. “Ready to roll?”

  “Roll?” She pushed on the gurney to slide off. “No, I’m fine. I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

  Jake’s hands dropped to her shoulders, pinning her in place. “You almost passed out. You’re going to the hospital.”

  Kara was about to argue, offer to sign anything they needed to let her leave, then she caught sight of the reporter angling for another photograph and said, “Okay, let’s go.” If by some miracle the adoption ring wasn’t behind tonight’s fire, her picture in the paper would seal her fate. A haircut, dye job and colored contacts may have transformed her from a long-haired, blue-eyed blonde, but there was no disguising her heart-shaped face.

  * * *

  One good thing Kara learned en route to the hospital was that the coffee shop where she was supposed to meet her handler was only two blocks away. All she had to do was convince the doctor she was fine and get out before anyone tried to stick her with anything.

  Except the triage nurse didn’t hold out much hope that she’d see a doctor anytime soon. “The fog caused a huge traffic pileup,” she said. “Every E.R. bed is full, and I’m afraid it may be some time before we can even transfer care from the EMT. We need to give priority to the most critical patients.”

  “Yes, I understand,” Kara said, fishing for an out. “Perhaps I should just wait to see my own doctor tomorrow.”

  “I don’t think that’s wise,” the paramedic—Sherri, she’d said her name was—piped up. “You have no home to go to. And besides, the sheriff is coming here to interview you.”

  “Okay, then.” The nurse recorded all Kara’s pertinent details, and then directed Sherri to wheel her into the hall to wait until her care could be transferred.

  Not good. She could be stuck for hours waiting for a bed, never mind waiting to see the E.R. doc. “You really don’t have to stay with me,” Kara said to Sherri after her partner wandered off to do paperwork and restock their rig. “You must have other calls to get to.”

  “No, not until the hospital takes over your care. That’s the policy.”

  Kara sat up. “If you just need the gurney back, I can sit in the waiting room.” She felt silly lying on the thing anyway.

  “That’s not how it works.”

  “Oh.”

  Sherri hitched her hip onto the edge of the gurney. “So how long have you known my cousin?”

  “Your cousin?”

  “Jake.”

  “Oh, the firefighter.” Kara vaguely remembered him referring to Sherri as his cousin, although they shared little family resemblance. “Just since tonight.”

  Sherri’s head jerked back as if she didn’t believe her. “Really? He didn’t act like it.”

  Jake’s “It’s okay. I got you” replayed in Kara’s mind as she realized for the first time that he’d caught her, when Sherri had been closer, right at her side, even.

  Sherri studied her intently, her expression unconvinced.

  “Why don’t you grab yourself a coffee?” Kara suggested.

  “I’m fine.” Sherri asked her about her family and job and Kara did her best to avoid giving direct answers.

  Once more, Kara suggested Sherri get herself a coffee or bite to eat or a breath of fresh air, anything to get her away for a few minutes so Kara could slip out of the hospital. She needed to go before the bad guys figured out she was here. But the woman wouldn’t budge.

  Kara readjusted her position on the uncomfortable gurney for the umpteenth time in two hours. “What happened to the sheriff? I thought he wanted to ask me questions.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be here soon. Why don’t you try to get some rest?”

  No, she couldn’t do that. It seemed as if every person who walked by looked at her oddly. Any one of them could be a goon of the adoption ring waiting for the chance to finish her off. She needed to get out of here. Somehow she needed to get word to the marshal, but with Sherri hovering so close, Kara hadn’t dared even to try to text him. “Um, Sherri? I need to use the washroom.” Why hadn’t she thought of that sooner?

  Sherri smiled, her eyes crinkling as if she genuinely cared, so different from her all-business attitude back in the ambulance. “No problem. I can walk you there.” She led her to a single-stall facility.

  “Uh, maybe you could find out how much longer the wait will be while I go.”

  Sherri propped a shoulder against the hall wall. “I’m sure it won’t be much longer.”

  Great, sneaking away is out. Kara shut the door and opted for plan B. She turned on the faucet and the fan and prayed the noise would muffle her voice as she dialed Ray’s number. Voice mail picked up on the fifth ring. What did she do now? It wasn’t like him not to answer.

  A knock sounded on the door. “You okay?” Sherri called.

  “Yes. Almost done.” Kara lifted her voice over the noise of the fan, and then cupped her hand around her mouth at the receiver. “Ray, it’s Kara. They made me come to the hospital and the sheriff wants to question me and... Please come get me if you can. Or I’ll meet you as soon as I’m released.”

  Sherri knocked again. “They have a bed for you. You ready?”

  Kara stuffed the phone back into her pocket, snapped off the faucet and fan, and jerked open the door. “Ready.”

  Rather than return her to the gurney, Sherri led her to a curtained-off bed at the end of a long room lined with beds. “Here you go. Lie down here and the doctor will be in to see you soon.” Sherri nodded at the sheriff waiting by the bed, then left. Facing the sheriff alone, Kara suddenly felt a whole lot worse than she had a minute ago.

  A very efficient nurse wasted no time checking her vitals as the sheriff pulled up a chair and flipped open his notebook. Between his crisply ironed shirt, unflattering crew cut and the hard lines creasing his face, he reminded her of a drill-sergeant principal she’d once worked under—the kind of guy who didn’t let anything slip by him.

  “Your pulse is very rapid,” the nurse scolded.

  Yours would be, too, if someone was trying to kill you! Kara took a deep breath and willed it to slow.

  “Tell me what happened,” the sheriff said.

  “I was upstairs watching a movie in my room when my landlady’s cat started scratching my door and mewing frantically.” Kara dug her fingers into the sheets. Had she cost Mrs. Harboyle her dear companion, too? “Did the firefighters save the cat? It ran when I tried to pick it up.”

  With a suppressed huff, the sheriff stopped writing. “A large, long-haired
white cat?”

  “Yes!”

  “Yes, he was rescued. Please continue.”

  “I turned off the TV and—” She squeezed her eyes shut as the panic crashed over her all over again. “That’s when—” Her breath came in short gasps. “I heard the crackling, smelled the smoke.”

  The nurse touched Kara’s shoulder. “You’re okay now. Take deep breaths.”

  Inhaling, Kara pressed her lips together.

  “Did you hear anything downstairs before that?” the sheriff asked.

  “It’s an old house. It creaks and groans a lot. I try not to pay too much attention.” She bit her lip. It wasn’t a lie, exactly. She did try not to pay attention, but with a death threat hanging over her head, every creak and groan made her jump. That was why she’d turned on the movie, extraloud, to drown out the noises of the storm outside, and the one inside her head and heart. She was spending Thanksgiving alone, and couldn’t help wondering if she’d ever be able to spend another holiday with her family, as paltry as their celebrations had always been.

  “How about outside? A bark? A car engine? Any kind of movement?”

  She twisted her hands in the sheets and buried them in her lap. “No, nothing.”

  “Were you home alone all day?”

  “No, I work for a janitorial service.” The furthest thing from a kindergarten teacher the marshal’s office could find. And she missed being with kids so much. “I got home just after five.”

  “Was the door locked?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t smell any smoke at that time?”

  “No, I reheated leftovers and went to my room.”

  “You didn’t check the other doors?”

  “I did.” She gulped. She was always checking and double-checking the locks, because Mrs. Harboyle had a bad habit of letting out the cat and not relocking the door.

  “And you didn’t hear anyone break in? See any evidence of a break-in?”

  “No.” Kara’s throat constricted at the possibility that Mrs. Harboyle had left the back door unlocked before her daughter picked her up. That the arsonist might’ve still been in the house when she got home.

  The sheriff flipped over a page in his notebook. “How did you get out?”

  She fixed her gaze on the sheriff’s badge. “I covered myself with a wet towel and tried to get downstairs, but—” The words clogged in her throat. The flames had moved so fast.

  “That’s how you burned your arm?”

  She hugged it to her belly and nodded. “I ran back to my room and jumped out the window onto the roof of the woodshed and from there to the ground.”

  “Did you see anyone then?”

  “A car stopped on the street and I hid in the bushes.” Her heart ratcheted in her chest at the memory—the fear that she’d escaped the fire only to face the man who’d set it.

  “Our 9-1-1 caller. Yes, I talked to him. He said he pounded on the door. Why didn’t you show yourself? Tell him no one else was inside?”

  “I—” She gulped. “I guess I was in shock.”

  The sheriff drilled her with the same questions, phrased a dozen different ways, for what seemed like forever. Finally the nurse shooed him out to make way for the doctor. To Kara’s relief, he said he had all the information he needed for the moment.

  By tomorrow, she’d be out of town and it would be the marshal’s problem to explain her disappearance.

  The nurse returned with a tall, dark-haired doctor who immediately started into his own litany of questions as the nurse removed the arm dressing so he could examine the burn.

  The more questions he asked, the edgier Kara grew, but she couldn’t figure out why. There was nothing weird about his questions. Except...

  He never actually looked her in the eye. Not once. Was he afraid she’d be able to read something there?

  She muffled a gasp. What if the adoption ring was connected to organized crime and they had a hold over him, like that doctor on the TV show, and they’d ordered him to kill her?

  She swallowed. Okay, get a grip. He could just be preoccupied. He wore a wedding band. Maybe he’d just got off the phone with his wife about a problem at home. He had to at least be a doctor, right? Otherwise the nurse wouldn’t have brought him in.

  The doctor glanced at her now-bare wound. “That doesn’t look too bad.”

  And it didn’t. Aside from a few blistery spots, she’d had sunburns that were worse.

  “You can go,” the doctor said, turning to leave.

  “I can?”

  Someone stepped around the curtain on her other side, and she practically springboarded into the air.

  The person glanced at her in confusion. “Sorry, wrong bed.”

  Meanwhile the nurse hurried after the departing doctor. “Are you sure? Her BP is low. And look at her eyes. I’m concerned she’s still in shock.”

  Kara blinked. What was wrong with her eyes? Aside from her overreaction to Mr. Wrong Bed.

  The doctor stopped, and for the first time met her eyes, for all of a fleeting nanosecond. “She’s fine.”

  Kara swung her legs off the bed, not about to wait around long enough for the nurse to change his mind. Maybe it was her imagination, but the woman seemed a little too anxious to keep her here.

  As Kara pushed aside the curtain to leave, the nurse trotted up carrying a hypodermic. “Hold on a second.”

  “What—what’s that for? The doctor said I can go.”

  “Yes, but he just ordered this to help with the pain.”

  “I don’t need it.” Kara edged sideways, putting the bed between her and the needle-happy nurse. How had she not clued in to that maniacal glint in her eyes sooner? It was the exact same glint she’d seen in that goon’s eyes back in Boston when he’d spotted her snapping his picture and pulled his gun.

  An orderly popped a wheelie with a wheelchair at the end of her bed. “You the one who’s getting sprung?”

  “That’s me!” Kara jumped into the wheelchair.

  The orderly didn’t get three feet before the nurse rounded the bed with the needle. “She’s not going yet.”

  “Yes, actually, I am,” Kara insisted, reaching for the wheels herself. “The doctor released me.”

  The orderly hesitated.

  “Let’s go,” Kara prodded, cranking the chair out of the nurse’s reach.

  “Fine, take her,” the nurse relented, and the orderly snapped into action.

  “Your ride waiting outside the E.R.?” he asked, wheeling her past the long row of beds and into the hall.

  “Uh, no ride.”

  He pulled the chair into an abrupt U-turn.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taking you to the front doors. There’s a cab company across the street.”

  As they passed the E.R.’s reception desk, she glimpsed the nurse talking on the phone and eyeballing her. What if she’d alerted a cohort to cut her off out front?

  Spotting an exit sign at the end of the next side hall, Kara said, “Stop, I’ll get out here.”

  “Oh, you drove yourself?” the orderly asked.

  She shot a glance over her shoulder to see if the nurse was looking. She wasn’t. “Is that the back parking lot?”

  “You got it.” The orderly accepted the detour easily.

  Maybe too easily, Kara thought as they approached the exit—the uncomfortably dark exit.

  “You want me to wheel you right to your car?” he asked.

  “No!” Kara hauled down her voice. “Here’s fine. Thank you.”

  Two seconds later, the orderly was already halfway back up the hall as she hovered inside the doorway scanning the poorly lit back lot. She dug into her pocket for her cell phone, except...did she really want to ha
ng around here waiting for Ray if maniac nurse had called goons to nab her on sight?

  Two blocks. She could run that in under five minutes. Clutching her phone, she yanked up her hoodie and plunged into the misty darkness.

  The slap of footsteps on the wet pavement sounded behind her.

  Heart pounding, she quickened her pace.

  The sound got louder, closer.

  Breaking into a sprint, she glanced over her shoulder. The shadowy figure behind her abruptly stopped. “Whew,” Kara breathed, and then slammed into a solid wall of muscle.

  Powerful hands clamped around her upper arms. “I gotcha.”

  TWO

  “Kara?” Jake tightened his hold on the terrified woman and glanced at the man who’d been following her. Or had seemed to be. He’d since veered down a row of parked cars and appeared to be unlocking one.

  “Oh, Jake. It’s you.” Raindrops streaked Kara’s face, looking too much like tears, but the relief that oozed from her words gave him a kick of pleasure.

  He’d hoped to run into her here. Not this way. But he wasn’t complaining. “Who was that guy?” He hitched his chin in the direction of the man who’d since climbed into a nondescript sedan.

  “I—” Kara caught her breath. “I don’t know. I thought he was following me and I...I guess I got spooked.” She suddenly tensed, backed up a step. “What are you doing here?”

  The lights in the hospital’s back parking lot did little to push back the darkness, but this close, he could see wariness replace the relief that had been in her eyes moments ago. Still, he thought better of releasing his hold just yet. “One of my men was brought in for smoke inhalation. I came by to check on him.”

  And on you.

  But she didn’t need to know that. What were the doctors thinking releasing her so soon? She didn’t look ready to face the night with no home to return to. He was convinced that she knew more about the fire than she was saying. And one way or the other, he needed to coax her into telling him everything she knew.

  “Oh.” She shot a nervous glance over her shoulder but didn’t make another attempt to escape his hold. “I’m sorry. I hope your friend will be okay.”