“Huh,” she said, “I’m not sure I do.”
“Oh, you do so,” he said. “I was your best patient ever.” She rolled her eyes at that. Just as he went to lift his teacup, his phone rang. “Hey Fallon, what’s up?”
“You have a visitor.”
He slowly lowered his tea. “Where?”
“Just got on the elevator.”
“Recognize him?”
“Yeah. Looks like the good doctor is paying a house call.”
She heard the words, even as the shock reverberated in her head.
Chapter 16
Is he serious? Leia bolted to her feet and stared at the door.
“Get away from the window,” Bullard said immediately.
Just as quickly, she pulled him back from the window as well, then turned to look at him. “Where do we go?”
“We don’t go anywhere,” he said. “The best place for us is right here. Fallon is coming up behind this guy.”
“But we’re still right here in the line of fire,” she said, reaching up a hand to her forehead. By now, the surface of her braid had dried but the activity of the day had wisps flying around her face. She nervously tucked a few of the longer ones behind her ear, as she realized what this would mean. “I’m really not good with confrontation,” she said.
“You don’t need to be,” he said reassuringly.
She stared at him. “Mine is a world of healing,” she said, “not death.”
“And that’s what makes you different from this guy,” he said. “He’s an asshole, just out for what he can get and for the pleasure he gets from putting other people in pain.”
She nodded slowly. “I’d still rather we caught him somewhere else.”
He smiled. “But, with us taking out his gunman, Leo pretty well had to do this on his own because you could have passed along information to another detective almost instantly. Leo’s got to put a stop to this now.”
That all made sense, and she understood, but, jeez, this was not the type of world she wanted to live in. “And how many attacks do you get at home?” she asked him quietly.
“None,” he said. “They all know better than that. The only problem is when people start to take over my business.”
“Good luck with that,” she said, shaking her head.
“It’s the same guy involved in all the attacks on me, and I don’t know who it is,” he said, “but the same person tried to take out my guys too.”
“But you don’t know who it is, do you?”
“Not yet,” he said, “but I’m starting to get an ugly suspicion.”
Staring at him, she tilted her head, watching a scary look on his chiseled features; whoever he was thinking of was making him sick to consider. “And why would you all of a sudden have an idea of who it is?”
“It just occurred to me, and it’s somebody I haven’t seen in a long time. Yet somebody close and has been at the compound many times. We weren’t looking in that direction though.”
“And now?”
“Now we need to take a look,” he said. “If it’s true, it will cause me and others a great deal of pain.”
“He’s a good friend then?”
“No,” he said quietly. “It’s worse than that.”
She stared at him, but a weird sound at the door diverted their attention. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around her chest.
He walked over and whispered against her ear, “Go sit down on the floor in the corner beside the couch and don’t say a word, no matter what.”
She looked up at him, as he leaned over and kissed her hard. She walked back to the corner he was talking about, her heart pounding, and got down, tucked underneath a small table in front. She was basically hidden, so somebody would have to spend precious minutes to actually find her. She never would have thought about being here or choosing this location, but Bullard had it already planned.
He’d assessed the room and realized where the danger was, right from the beginning, and found where the safest place for her was. She had to appreciate a man who looked after his own. That just brought her mind to the stupid asshole at the door, trying to take her life away again. Isn’t it bad enough he’d tried three times already?
And, with Bullard standing back, they listened for more sounds at the door. Sure enough, it didn’t take long, and there was a click, and the door popped open.
How could that be? He must have a master key. She waited and watched carefully, but, from her hidden spot, she couldn’t see anything, and all she heard was her unsteady breathing and the slamming of her heart against her chest. She didn’t know where Bullard had hidden, but she presumed he was in the open closet behind the door. He was a big man, so it’s not like he could just melt into nothing. She waited and heard soft footsteps. As her heart pounded against her chest, she stared around, crunched up as tiny as she could be, and heard the gunman swear.
“Fucking hell, where is she?”
And she closed her eyes, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t find her.
“Goddammit. They had to have come back here,” he muttered. When he found the connecting door locked, he quickly unlocked it, and it still wouldn’t budge, so he slammed his shoulder against it and rushed through. Almost immediately, she heard gunfire and swearing. Her eyes still closed, and her body crunched up as small as she could get, suddenly she heard that condescending voice.
“Well, there you are,” he said, with a sneer.
She looked up to see him pointing a handgun at her, with a big long silencer at the end. “What did you do to the other man?” she cried out, slowly rising.
“I didn’t do anything,” he said. “I was only swearing because I expected to find you in there, but the place was empty. Looks like they deserted you, sweetheart. Men will always desert you because you’re nothing. You’re absolutely nothing in the world of men or anywhere else.”
She stared at him. “Are you really that simple?” she asked him, curiously studying him and wondering what a psych evaluation would reveal for somebody like him.
He glared at her. “You don’t know anything about what makes me tick.”
“You like to cause chaos and pain. You like to be paid for your work, and you like to do things right under people’s noses, so you can be so all-powerful without them knowing.”
He looked at her, surprised, and said, “That’s not half bad. Maybe you should have gone into psychiatry instead of surgery.”
“I am an excellent surgeon,” she said.
“Well, I couldn’t have some young upstart girl developing new techniques and trying to show me up in my own hospital, could I?”
“I guess not,” she said, knowing her phone sat here recording everything. It was on video, something she had started before she’d gone under the table. “So what’s the deal? You’ll just kill me now?”
“That was my thought, yes,” he said. “I highly doubt that your knights in shining armor will be back anytime soon.”
“Why is that?”
“Why would they?” he said, sounding surprised. “You’re nothing to write home about. Besides, what have you been doing all these years? Look at yourself. You’ve turned into some sort of peasant girl.”