LITMIR.BIZ

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his directions down the dingy, narrow corridors of a part of the building obviously frequented only by staff and maintenance, Raine had thought they would surely encounter someone. If they did, she planned to try to signal to them that she needed help.

      The only people they’d passed, however, had been a couple of nurses, who hurried by them with their eyes downcast. Tellingly, they had both been carrying purses.

      Coming in to work from the parking deck? If so, that must where her captor was taking her.

      If this were like the parking facilities of most hospitals, it would be filled with cars and people at this time of day. He probably wouldn’t be willing to use the gun out there among them. That wasn’t a given, of course, but she thought a more likely scenario was that he would put her into whatever vehicle he’d driven here and take her with him.

      The crucial questions were why he wanted to do that and where he intended to take her—neither of which she could answer. She couldn’t begin to speculate on what this abduction might be about—other than the Phoenix’s investigation, which also seemed to have precipitated the attack on her father.

      Someone obviously believed the two of them knew something about the organization Ethan Snow had mentioned. Maybe her father did, but if so, why hadn’t he given that information to Ethan and Cabot when he had the chance?

      As for her, she knew nothing about The Covenant. She couldn’t remember hearing the name before Ethan had mentioned it in her living room last night.

      “To the left,” the man behind her directed.

      His hold on her arm hadn’t loosened, nor had the muzzle of the weapon he held shifted. As they walked, she could feel it rubbing against her spine.

      “Punch the up button,” he instructed as they approached a bank of three elevators.

      As soon as they were in front of the doors of the first, she obeyed, reaching out to push the ascending arrow. The sign on the wall listed a color match for each parking level, four of which were above the floor they were on.

      This might be her last chance, Raine realized, especially if he had parked on the top level, which in any deck was apt to be sparsely populated. The last opportunity to effect an escape before he got her alone.

      If there’s someone inside when the doors open—

      Two chimes signaled the near-simultaneous arrival of two separate cars. Still without any clear-cut plan, she tensed, preparing to take whatever opportunity presented itself.

      Would he shoot me in cold blood with a witness present?

      Her sense from the first had been that he would. Certainly if he was pushed.

      If she was right about that, as soon as he got her into a deserted area, then he would kill her. But if he’d been instructed to take her somewhere instead of killing her here—

      The doors of the elevator in front of her, as well as the ones on the one beside it, began to slide open. She took a breath, afraid that if she did anything more to prepare, she would communicate her intent to him.

      The opening doors revealed an elderly woman and a man in a wheelchair. The man looked frail, but the woman was tall and raw-boned. Her white uniform seemed to indicate she was the man’s caregiver rather than a relative.

      “Excuse us, please,” the woman said cheerily as she began to maneuver the chair out of the elevator.

      Raine and her captor were standing so close it would be difficult for the caregiver to get the chair out around them. Despite that, the man behind Raine made no move to step aside, perhaps fearful that in doing so, he might reveal his weapon.

      “Watch your toes, dear,” the woman warned as she attempted to roll her charge by them.

      Taking advantage of the situation, Raine pretended she was forced to take a step to the side in order to get out of the way of the wheelchair. The move caught her captor by surprise, and the hold on her elbow loosened fractionally.

      When it did, she jerked her arm forward as hard as she could. Incredibly, it slipped out of the man’s grasp.

      She sprinted to the next elevator, whose doors, with perfect timing, began to close as soon as she ran between them. That didn’t prevent her from pressing the close-door button when she’d located it.

      Outside there was an ungodly commotion. It sounded as if, in pursuing her, her captor had somehow become entangled with the wheelchair, maybe upsetting it. The female aide was shrieking something unintelligible. The man with the gun shouted an obscenity just as the elevator doors slid together.

      Heart racing, her breath coming in audible gasps, Raine tried to think what she should do next. If she were right about her captor having deliberately parked at the top of the parking deck…

      Frantically she punched the button for the floor below it. Her eyes watched the elevator’s climb while she prayed she’d been in time. A soft ping gave the answer to that plea.

      As soon as the doors opened, she stepped out and began running full-out down a corridor that looked very much like the one she’d just left. She needed to find another set of elevators or figure out how to get back into the main section of the hospital as quickly as she could.

      Once she’d done that, she would think about what came next. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go back to the ICU, since that’s where the man with the gun had been waiting for her.

      And in all probability, it was where he would begin his search for her this time. If he were brazen enough to try to take her again.

      Of course, the ICU area was also where Ethan Snow was. Despite the fact that he was little more than a stranger, her inclination was to find him as quickly as she could.

      He was the ex-CIA agent. He was also the one who had gotten her into this. And beside that, he was—

      The sound of a chime from the other end of the corridor put a halt to her list of Ethan Snow’s crimes and attributes. The chances that the occupant of that arriving elevator was her captor were remote. Unless…

      She tried to picture the elevator bank where she’d pulled off her escape. Had the floors where the elevators stopped been shown above each car? If so, it was possible he’d tracked her by simply watching those numbers flash by until the elevator had stopped on this particular floor.

      The spurt of adrenaline produced by that realization pushed her to increase her speed. Breathless, she finally rounded a corner to see a small offset with a double bank of elevators.

      She rushed into the center of it, pushing the up and down arrows on both sides repeatedly. Rationally she knew that wouldn’t make them arrive any quicker, but she felt she had so little control over what was happening that doing something—even if it were pointless—seemed to help.

      The first car to arrive was going down. And it was empty. As she stepped in and pushed the close-door button, she heard what sounded like someone running down the corridor she’d just traversed.

      The footsteps were heavy. A man’s hard-soled shoes, slamming against the polished tile with each step.

      When the elevator doors closed, she leaned, weak and panting, against the cool metal wall before she realized she hadn’t made a floor selection. She straightened, looking at the control panel. The only lighted indicator was for the first floor. If she didn’t do something soon—

      The chime and a soft bump indicated it was too late to change her destination. An upward glance at the numbers above the doors confirmed she had already arrived on the main floor.

      Maybe that would be an advantage, she told herself. More people. More protection. Security guards.

      The doors opened to reveal none of those things. She was in another offset hallway, the corridor that fronted it as deserted as had been the one she’d just left.

      Except for the sound of those running footsteps, she amended.

      She shot

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