LITMIR.BIZ

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as they say.”

      Ashley took the card from the officer’s hand. “Stay safe out there.”

      She watched them exit the department through the ambulance bay before making her way to the nerve center of the ER, the central hub where doctors and nurses mingled. She sat down at a computer and pulled up Casper’s chart to enter some orders for tests when a man tapped the top of her computer screen with the tip of a cane.

      Ashley flared her fingers out above her keyboard in annoyance before glancing up.

      She pressed her lips together to keep from screaming.

      Jared Fleming stood in front her. His bright blue eyes bored straight into her.

      Her father’s arch nemesis.

      Who clearly didn’t recognize her.

      “You are?” he clipped.

      He was exactly how she remembered him from her youth. Six feet, which was tall considering her five-foot-two-inch frame. Gray hair. Bushy black eyebrows.

      “I asked you a question,” he reiterated in the wake of her silence.

      A man in a military uniform stood a few feet behind him, but Fleming was dressed in a black tailored suit. The vibrant, sapphire-blue shirt beneath it was almost too bright to look at.

      “Dr....” Something in her told her not to continue. She reached up and flipped her ID badge around to cover her identity as she stood up, wishing she had a step stool so she could be eye to eye with the tyrant. “How did you get back here?”

      “I don’t need permission to—”

      “Actually, you do need permission. Are you family of a patient?”

      His eyes narrowed. “That’s...complicated.”

      Thrusting her arm up, she pointed to the door that exited to the waiting room. “If you’re not immediate family of one of our patients, then you’ll have to leave.”

      He straightened and squared his shoulders. “I’m here on important business. A matter of national security.” He rustled through one of his pockets. “I’m looking for this man. Have you seen him?”

      A striking photo of her patient, handsome, clean-shaven. Unbeaten.

      Casper.

      She lowered her arm, her fingertips tingled.

      “It’s imperative that he be turned over into our care,” Fleming said.

      A sharp pain flared in her gut. The one thing she knew about this man was that her father had told her never to trust him. In fact, so often came this warning in the years before he went missing that it was one of the most common memories she had of their lives together. Now, this enemy of her missing father wanted her patient, who just by the very nature of Jared’s visit was now more firmly connected to her father in her mind.

      And if Casper disappeared like her father, then perhaps her last hope of discovering the truth would vanish, as well.

      “If this gentleman were here, I assume you have legal documents that say he can be relinquished into your care.”

      Jared narrowed his eyes. “Such paperwork will be...forthcoming.”

      “Excellent. Until then, I’ll need you to get off hospital property.”

      He rapped the bottom of his cane against her desk like a metronome.

      “Do I need to have security escort you out?” she asked, knowing how empty a threat this was as she eyed the seventy-year-old sentry that sat at the ER entrance perusing a newspaper.

      “That won’t be necessary.” He tipped his head to her. “I think I can find my way out.”

      Fleming motioned to his cohort. As soon as the two men disappeared through the door, Ashley sat in the chair, her head falling into her hands.

      What she was contemplating was going to put her whole medical career in jeopardy.

       THREE

      Perhaps twenty minutes after Ashley had left him, she was back pushing a wheelchair, whisking the curtain closed over his glass doors so that he was shielded from peering eyes in the hall.

      “Lance, would you mind leaving us? There’s a private matter I need to discuss with our patient.”

      “CT just called for him,” Lance said.

      “Yes, exactly. You know, I’m getting off work anyway. I’ll clear this matter up and then I’ll take him to CT myself.”

      Lance looked at her blankly. “Are you...sure?”

      “Absolutely.” Ashley motioned her hand in front of her to try to erase his doubts. It was a rare event for a doctor to personally escort a patient to Radiology. “It’s the end of your shift, too. I know you’re anxious to get home to your new baby girl.”

      Lance’s smile lit his face up. “You’re right. Thanks, Ashley. It’s going to take me a while to get things wrapped up and give my report. You doing this really helps.”

      “Have a great night,” she said as he exited the room.

      The interchange confused Casper. Ashley looked disheveled, out of sorts. There was a slight sheen to her forehead. A mild tremble in her shoulders. She pushed the wheelchair next to his bed, parked it and then lowered the side rails.

      “We’re leaving.” She rounded to his left side and turned off his monitor, then began disconnecting the monitoring cables from his body.

      Her words had an edge to them—her face creased with worry. The actions she took coupled with her clipped words seemed to suggest something other than a simple trip to Radiology.

      “This is going to hurt,” she said, taking firm fingers and ripping the defibrillation pads off his chest.

      Casper gritted his teeth and suppressed a yell. Unable to keep his eyes from watering, he rubbed at the raw, burning skin.

      “Sorry,” she said, though she didn’t sound nearly as penitent as he wanted her to be. Next, she removed the layers of clear tape that held his IV in place.

      He clasped his hand over hers. “Wait, aren’t they going to need this for the scan?”

      She blinked at him. If he had to guess, she pondered why he would even think to ask such a question. “No, we’re leaving the hospital.” With a quick motion, she pulled the catheter from his arm, put a cotton ball over the site and then wrapped a piece of self-adhering dressing around his hand.

      “Dr. Drager, please, what is going on?”

      “Ashley... You might as well call me by my first name. I’m essentially kidnapping you.”

      Not that he minded, but for what reason? What had her so unnerved?

      “Why are we leaving?”

      She yanked one of the blankets from his chest, settled it in the wheelchair and then eased his legs so his feet were resting against the floor. The room spun.

      “Sit here for a minute. You’re probably dizzy from laying down for so long. If you fall I won’t be able to pick you up by myself and I can’t call for help.”

      Casper pressed two fingers into his temple until the sensation passed. “If I’m going to allow myself to be kidnapped then I need to know why.”

      “Does the name Jared Fleming mean anything to you?”

      Nothing registered. He shook his head.

      “Something very weird is going on here. You show up, amnestic—almost beaten to death. Your tattoo is the same exact one my father, who’s been missing, has. You arrive with a photo of me in your pocket. And just as I was

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