Lethal Lies

Her fingers curled around the bag in her lap and she felt the faint stirrings of an idea. The man had given her several vials of sedatives—enough to fell an elephant, if her hasty calculations were correct. Maybe she could use them to incapacitate him, giving her enough of a chance to run.

“I can see the wheels turning in your head,” he said, frowning at her. He glanced down, understanding dawning on his face as he saw the way she clutched the supplies. “Oh, no,” he said softly, reaching out to take the bag. “Don’t get any ideas.”

She forced her fingers to relax their hold, knowing that if she put up a fight he’d be even more suspicious. Besides, she’d get it back eventually. She had to have access to the supplies if he wanted her to help his friend.

“Time to go inside.”

He got out of the car and opened her door, letting in a blast of cold air and snow. She instinctively shrank away when he reached for her, but he grabbed her easily enough, pulling her from the car and pressing her against the trunk as he slammed the door. The cold metal bit through her coat and she ground her teeth together to keep from crying out.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked as he hauled her up to a door. She stared at the faded black numbers, which grew blurry as tears pooled in her eyes. She blinked them away and shook her head. Crying wasn’t going to help her. Not now.

If her captor noticed her emotion, he didn’t show it, ignoring her question as he gently but firmly pushed her inside. It was warm compared to the car, and she had a moment to register that the room was surprisingly clean, if rather spartan. He marched her past two beds and guided her into the bathroom, closing the lid of the toilet and gesturing for her to sit. She did, and he reached into the pocket of his jacket and withdrew a length of plastic. She recognized the temporary cuffs, having seen them used before when the police needed to restrain a patient.

Jillian pulled her hands away, but her captor merely stared at her, his hand extended patiently as he waited for her to accept the fact that she was well and truly at his mercy. She glanced up at him, expecting to see anger at her defiance, but he regarded her with a flat, bored expression. Slowly, she returned her hands to her lap and he slipped the plastic loops around her wrists, taking care not to tighten them to the point of pain. Another length of plastic was used to secure her to the plumbing of the sink, effectively trapping her in the bathroom. Then he turned on his heel and walked out, shutting the door behind him with a click that echoed off the tiles in the small room.

Now that she was alone, Jillian didn’t try to stop the tears.

* * *

Special Agent Alexander Malcom was having a bad day.

Deep undercover ops were not all they were cracked up to be. It had been hard enough infiltrating the 3 Star Killers, as the gang was inherently distrustful of outsiders. Still, he’d managed to worm his way into the organization, starting as a low-level runner and working up the chain until he’d become part of the trusted inner circle. It helped that gangbangers had a short life expectancy, which meant a vacancy had opened up at just the right time.

He’d been feeding his Bureau case manager a steady stream of information for the past two years, which had further strengthened their case against the group. The gang specialized in drug trafficking, serving as the main meth distributors for the mid-Atlantic region. They weren’t above a little human trafficking and gun running, though, and so the FBI, ATF and DEA had worked together to establish a plan to take them down. It was a shining example of inter-agency cooperation, and the higher-ups couldn’t stop patting themselves on the back for a job well done.

Except it had all gone to hell.

Tonight was supposed to have been a smooth take-down. Alex had been told a shipment of drugs was arriving at an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city. It was a commonly used location for the gang; an ideal site for an operation since there was only one road leading to the building, which made it easy to control traffic in and out. He knew that such a big load would include guns as well, along with a few of the unfortunate women the gang moved from state to state, prostituting out to the highest bidder as a way to augment their earnings.

The alphabet soup had decided tonight’s shipment would be a perfect cherry on top of their case, and that bringing it down would not only cripple the 3 Star Killers, but send a message to the other groups who might think to take their place. It was a decent plan, and it should have worked.

But it hadn’t.

He ran a hand through his hair, cursing at the memories. The semitrailer, opening to reveal not the expected shipment of drugs, but a veritable army of gang members who jumped out, guns blazing... The government operatives, firing back but being forced to retreat in the face of the gang’s overwhelming force... The screams of the wounded, as they lay bleeding out in the crossfire...

And the horrible realization that his cover had been blown.

Tony had turned to him with a sneer. “Not what you expected was it?”

Alex had swallowed hard, not wanting to believe the carnage in front of him. “How did you know?”

Tony lifted one shoulder in an eloquent shrug. “You have your sources. I have mine.”

The realization that there was a double agent at work filled Alex with a potent rage. Not only had the bastard outted him, but whoever it was, they were also responsible for the deaths of the agents tonight. Without stopping to think, he grabbed Tony, intending to arrest the man and haul him in for questioning. Tony wasn’t about to go quietly, though, and in the ensuing scuffle, managed to shoot himself in the chest.

“Damn moron,” Alex muttered.

He wanted nothing more than to let the man die, but he needed Tony to reveal the name of his mole. So he had shoved him into the back seat of his POS car and set off, intending to get him patched up.

And that’s when the evening had gone from bad to worse.

Now he stepped out into the cold night air, his case manager’s words ringing in his ears. “Why’d you do it, man? Why did you betray us?”

“I didn’t.”

Alex pulled open the door to the backseat, eliciting a moan from Tony as the movement jostled him. Too bad. Any pity he might have felt for the man was gone, washed away in the blood of the operatives who had died tonight, all because of his actions.

He stooped and got an arm around the injured man. “Let’s go. Time to move.”

“No, please. No more. Leave me alone.”

Alex ignored his request, pulling with a steady pressure until Tony slid from the car. He was a skinny guy and Alex had no trouble carrying him to the door of the motel room. He deposited Tony on one of the beds and stepped back, staring down at the man. His shirt was saturated with blood, and Alex could feel the sticky wetness on his own hands. Repulsed, he wiped his palms on his pants, needing to remove the stain of Tony’s blood from his skin. God, would he ever be clean again?

Feeling old beyond his years, Alex walked to the bathroom door and paused. He hated himself for having kidnapped this woman, this doctor who held his life in her hands. Hated terrorizing her, threatening her, hurting her. He’d tried to be careful with her, but given the ferocity of her struggles in the parking lot, he’d had to use more force than he’d intended to subdue her. He hoped she wasn’t too bruised from their encounter, but did it really matter? He’d kidnapped her, and he was going to force her to treat Tony’s injuries in a bid to keep the scum alive. In the grand scheme of things, a few bruises were the least of his worries right now.

He opened the door and she jerked, shrinking back from him as he entered the tiny bathroom. Her eyes were huge brown pools in her pale face and he had to look away, unable to stand her hunted expression as she studied him warily.

Alex stepped forward, pulling out his knife so he could cut through the plastic cuffs. She gasped and shoved away, her feet scrabbling wildly as she kicked at him in self-defense. He closed his eyes, sucking in a breath through his nose.

Idiot. What did you think she would do?

“Please,” she whimpered.

Her pitiful plea hit him like a punch to the gut. He was driven to find the mole to protect innocent people, but at what cost? The woman in front of him was completely blameless; her hands were clean of any wrongdoing. Her only mistake was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now her life was forever changed. It pained him to admit it, but she was one more casualty in this war. One more life, irrevocably altered, by the actions of a few bad men.

And one more mark added to his personal tally of destruction.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said quietly. She stopped kicking and stared up at him with a look of profound distrust. Not that he could blame her.

He gestured to her wrists with his free hand. “I want to cut the restraints off. I won’t cut you, I promise.”

She held his gaze for a long moment. He remained still, waiting for her to give him permission to approach. It wouldn’t change things, but he wanted her to understand, even if only on an instinctual level, that he truly wouldn’t hurt her.

Finally she nodded once. He knelt and reached for her wrists, trying not to notice how fragile the bones felt in his hands. Like a bird’s wing, he thought. All graceful lines, perfectly formed.

The skin of her inner wrist was so pale as to be almost translucent, and he could see the dark blue lines of the veins that snaked from hand to forearm. He caught her shudder as he brought the blade close to that vulnerable skin, and was struck by the sudden urge to gather her in his arms, press her to his chest and rock her, to convince her with his body, if not his words, that he would keep her safe.

The knife sliced cleanly through the thin plastic. Once free, she snatched her hands away from him and wriggled to put more space between them. He felt an odd hollowness in his chest at the loss of contact, but quickly shoved it aside as he stood and returned the knife to his pocket. Time to check on Tony.

“My—” he almost choked on the word “—friend is on the bed. I need you to fix him.”

She stared up at him, her light brown eyes narrowing as he towered over her. “What if I can’t?” She thrust her chin out in defiance, but he caught the flicker of fear that danced across her face.

“You can.”

He’d meant the words to be reassuring, but her face blanched, losing the little color she had. Not wanting to scare her further, he elected to keep his mouth shut. He gestured with his arm and she slowly rose.

“He’s on the bed.”

She kept her eyes on him as she moved, reminding him of a watchful cat. She inched around him, pressing her back to the wall, careful to keep space between them. He caught a whiff of vanilla as she passed, and resisted the temptation to haul her close so he could bury his nose in her hair. The warm scent reminded him of home, but he knew she wouldn’t welcome his touch. Not now.

Not ever, he told himself firmly. In another life, she would have been his type. With her dark blond hair pulled back in a no-nonsense ponytail, soft brown eyes and gently curving mouth, she was just the kind of girl-next-door he preferred. Pretty but not intimidatingly so. A woman who could hang out with the guys in the afternoon then put on a ball gown and knock his socks off at night. And since she was a doctor, he knew she was smart, to boot. In other words, she was the perfect woman, the embodiment of all his fantasies.

And totally off-limits.

With a soft sigh he followed her into the main room. While he didn’t think she’d try to run before treating Tony, he couldn’t give her a chance to call for help. With the 3 Star Killers and the FBI after him, his life depended on staying off the grid. The last thing he needed was a 9-1-1 call revealing their location. His case handler already thought he was a traitor—if he discovered Alex had kidnapped a woman, he would never believe the truth, and Alex would be dead before the next sunrise.

I just need a few hours.

That’s all. Just a little bit of time to make sure Tony was going to survive. Once he was sure the bastard wasn’t going to die on him, he’d make his move and clear his name.

Chapter 2

Jillian kept her eyes on the man lying on the bed as she shrugged off her black coat. She’d entertained a brief but vivid fantasy of kicking her kidnapper in the face and bolting from the room, but logic told her she wouldn’t get far. Besides, she couldn’t leave this man alone to die. It wasn’t in her nature to ignore a person in pain, not if she could do something to help.

She dropped the coat in the chair and scooped the bag of medical supplies off the chipped table. Fishing out a pair of gloves, she pulled them on as she walked over to her patient.

He was young, impossibly so. No older than twenty, she guessed. Another kid caught in the crossfire. Moving carefully, she unzipped his hoodie and peeled it away from his chest. Now that she had light, the blood from his wound was obvious. It had soaked into the fabric, making it cling to his skinny frame.

She felt rather than saw her kidnapper enter the room. He didn’t make a sound, but she sensed a change in the air, a charge that told her he was there. She could feel his gaze on her as she bent over his friend, heavy as a touch. It made her uncomfortable to be the focus of his attention, so she decided to distract him.

“Scissors?”

“What?”

“Do you have scissors?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then give me your knife.”

She felt him hesitate and turned to face him. “I need to cut his clothes away so I can access his injury.”

He stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”

Jillian rolled her eyes, but let him approach. Like she was going to stab him and make a run for it. She wouldn’t get far, not in this weather. And while she didn’t know precisely where they were, she did know they were in the kind of neighborhood where people minded their own business. It was unlikely anyone would offer her assistance, even if she did escape. No, she was stuck here, at least for the next little while.

The man loomed over his friend, blade in hand. He held the knife above his friend’s abdomen for the space of a few heartbeats, and Jillian could have sworn she saw a flash of anger cross his face. But then it was gone and he quickly sliced through the young man’s shirt, taking care not to cut him in the process. He peeled back the ruined cloth, making additional cuts to remove it completely.

He’s so gentle. Shocked at the errant thought, Jillian shook her head. No, he wasn’t gentle. Not at all. He’d attacked her in the parking lot, gripping her arm so tightly she could feel the bruises his fingers had left behind. He’d shoved her into a car, then yanked her out and pushed her into this godforsaken room. Those were not the actions of a gentle man.

But...he hadn’t slapped or hit her when she’d fought him, just used enough force to restrain her. He had kept her from bumping her head as he’d put her in the car. And his touch in the bathroom had been very light, his hand cupping her bound wrists with a softness that surprised her. Now he’d removed the shirt from his injured friend, trying not to jostle the man too much in the process. He didn’t seem like a violent man, but she couldn’t reconcile his behavior with the fact that he had forcibly kidnapped her.

“What’s your name?”

He glanced back at her, his brows lifted in surprise. She could have bitten her tongue off for asking the question—if she knew his name, she’d start seeing him as a person, not the enemy. But it was too late to take the words back, so she held his gaze as he stepped away from his friend, giving her room to stand next to the bed.

He didn’t answer right away and she turned her focus back to the young man, her brain already clicking over into doctor mode. That was what Carla called it anyway, having learned not to attempt a non-patient-related conversation with her when she was engaged. Jillian couldn’t exactly explain it, but it was an almost trance-like state in which her entire consciousness was aimed at the person under her hands.

With his clothing gone, she could see the small bullet hole in Tony’s chest. It was on the right side, more lateral than central, which was likely why he was still alive. It had missed his heart and while it looked a little too high to have affected his liver, she couldn’t be sure. “Help me roll him.”

“You want him on his stomach?”

“No. I want him on his side so I can check for an exit wound and determine the trajectory of the bullet.”

She placed the kidnapper’s hands on the young man’s body, one on his shoulder and the other on his hip. When he was in position, she walked to the other side of the bed, pulling out her penlight as she moved. The lamp on the bedside table didn’t provide as much light as she would like, but it was better than nothing. The man waited for her nod, then pulled in a fluid motion, rolling her patient to his side and triggering a groan from the young man.

Jillian ran the light along his back, noting the hole the bullet left behind when it had exited his body. It was fairly small, indicating he hadn’t been shot by hollowpoint ammunition. It was also almost directly in line with the entrance wound, which meant the bullet hadn’t taken any detours on its way out. Both were good indicators, but he wasn’t out of the woods yet.

She gave another nod and he lowered Tony to his back. She pulled out her stethoscope and placed it on the man’s chest, listening intently. Breath sounds on the left, none on the right. Given the young man’s labored gasps for breath, she’d suspected a pneumothorax, and this confirmed it.

“I need occlusive dressing. Two of them.” He had air in his chest cavity, which prevented his right lung from expanding normally. The first order of business was to seal the bullet holes to keep more air from getting in. Then she could work on restoring his breathing.

She held out her hand, but the expected supplies didn’t materialize. Annoyed, she glanced up to see her kidnapper digging through the bag of supplies.

“Give me that,” she said impatiently, snatching it from his hands and dumping the contents on the bed next to her patient. Gauze, Band-Aid bandages, tape...no occlusive dressing.

“Do you have any plastic bags?”

The man shook his head. Of course not. Fabulous.

“Okay,” she said, thinking out loud. What else could she use to seal off the wounds? “I need you to cut off two squares from the shower curtain liner. Make them about this big—” She held out her hands to demonstrate. “Can you do that?” It was a long shot, but it just might work.

As he left to procure the requested material, Jillian collected the jar of Vaseline, several gauze squares and the roll of white tape. She spread a liberal coat of the petroleum jelly on the gauze, saturating it completely before moving on to the next stack of white squares. By the time she was done, the man had returned from the bathroom with her liner.

“Lay them on the bed. I need you to roll him again.”

Her patient moaned as he was repositioned. The kidnapper grimaced in response, and she realized with a shock that he was upset by the sounds. She was so used to people moaning, crying or screaming that she’d become desensitized, no longer bothered by the sound of a person in pain. In fact, she much preferred it if they made noise—it told her they were still alive and breathing.

“If he’s crying, he’s still here,” she told her kidnapper, uncertain why she offered him such reassurance. Maybe because his unguarded reaction to his friend’s pain made him seem more human, not the dark monster she had painted him as after he’d thrown her in the car.

Moving quickly, she placed the soaked gauze over the hole in the young man’s back, applied the square of shower curtain liner and taped down three edges. She leaned back, gesturing, and her patient was returned to the bed, giving her access to the chest wound. She repeated the process for his front, studying the dressing with a critical eye. It wasn’t ideal by any stretch, but it would have to do. Now to restore his breathing.

A large-bore IV was the safest way to decompress a patient, but she didn’t recall seeing those supplies in the bag. Still, best to double check. She scanned the paraphernalia on the bed, clenching her jaw in frustration as she realized she was going to have to employ a more dangerous, and painful, method of treatment. She hesitated, but there was no help for it.

“Give me the chest tube kit.” She held out her hand, gratified when the man passed her the bundle right away. “We’ll make a nurse out of you yet,” she murmured, laying the kit on the bed and ripping open the package. It was slightly different than what she was used to—the diameter of the tube was much smaller, for one thing—but she was pleased to see a valve on the end of the tube. Since she didn’t have access to a drainage system, the ability to seal the tube was critical. She put on fresh gloves and picked up the scalpel.

“Hold his right arm above his head.”

The man moved forward, grabbing Tony’s arm and raising it as instructed. “Keep hold of him,” she said, meeting his eyes for a brief second so he would know she was serious. “Don’t let go.”

Jillian bent to make the first cut. “Wait,” the man said. She looked up at him to find his eyes wide and his face pale. “Aren’t you going to give him something first? Something for the pain?”

She gritted her teeth, unused to having her actions questioned in an emergency. “I can’t,” she explained with a patience she didn’t feel. “He’s lost too much blood and I can’t risk sedating him when I don’t have control of his airway. You didn’t steal me any local anesthetic, so I have nothing to give him to numb the area. Now, hold him down.”

Tony’s eyes flared open and he grunted as she sliced quickly and cleanly through the skin, making a small cut to insert the tube. She stuck her finger inside, probing through the deeper tissue until she felt the bone of his rib. Keeping her finger in place to hold the incision open, she picked up the plastic tube and positioned the tapered end.

“Now it’s really going to hurt,” she warned, and thrust the tube through the opening she’d created. Tony let out a guttural scream and writhed on the bed, trying to wriggle away from the pain. “Hold him.” She bit the words out, working fast to push past the resistance of muscle and connective tissue until the tube broke into the free space of his chest cavity with a pop she felt in her fingertips.

There was a soft hiss as the air in his chest began to escape through the tube, a sound that always made her think of opening a soda bottle.

Jillian held her breath, looking for a flash of red. If the bullet had nicked an artery and his chest cavity was filled with blood, it was unlikely the man would live. She couldn’t treat an internal hemorrhage in a motel room.

Fortunately for him, the tube stayed clear. She kept one eye on the dressing that covered his bullet hole, gratified to see the gauze suck into the wound as Tony’s chest cavity decompressed. The shower curtain liner seemed to hold, as well, creating a seal to prevent air from re-entering his body. As the gas left his chest he began to cough, gasping in great lungfuls of air between the racking spasms that shook his thin frame. Jillian bared her teeth in a fierce grin, the familiar rush of satisfaction washing over her as she rode the high that came from saving someone’s life.

When the hissing sound stopped, Jillian twisted the stopcock on the end of the tube to seal it off and picked up her stethoscope. Normal breath sounds on the left and the sweet sound of slightly labored, but functional, breathing from the right. His heart sounded good, too, the frantic cadence settling into a steady rhythmic pulse as his breathing evened out. Excellent.