Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) by Karen Rose

            “You can come with us and take care of me,” Pastor said. “It’ll be okay.”

            DJ pushed the woman to walk faster and, again, she obeyed. Pastor really was going senile. He hadn’t put together that his nurse was one of those Feds.

            DJ grabbed Barkley’s badge and buzzed them out. Perfect. The ambulance was parked by the back door under an awning that shielded it from the rest of the lot. DJ opened the passenger door, surprised to see someone in the driver’s seat.

            “What the—” was all the man had time to get out before he slumped, a bullet in his head.

            “Open the back,” DJ told Miss Barkley. “Then get the stretcher.”

            She obeyed again, her muscles flexing under the strain. Keeping the gun on her, DJ helped Pastor onto the stretcher. “In you go.”

            The nursing assistant pushed the stretcher into the back of the ambulance.

            “Sit tight, Pastor. I’m getting us out of here.” DJ put his duffel in with Pastor, reached into the bag, and retrieved a zip tie. He used it to bind the woman’s wrists together in front of her, then shoved her toward the passenger seat. “Get in. You’re my insurance.”

            She lifted her chin. “No. I won’t go.”

            He held up his phone. “You remember the explosion at the radio station yesterday? That was only a few little sticks. I planted a bomb in there with four of the big sticks.” Which was a lie, but she didn’t know that. “Filled the canister with nails and broken glass. It’ll blow a hole in the wall and kill anyone in a forty-foot radius. And if they aren’t blown to bits, they’ll be human pincushions. You want that? All I need to do to detonate is make one phone call.”

            She swallowed hard and climbed into the ambulance.

            He yanked the driver out, taking the man’s badge before tossing his body to the ground. He got behind the wheel, relieved to see the keys in the ignition. He started the vehicle and headed toward the ambulance entrance, on the opposite side from the employee and family entrance.

            Keeping his face averted from the security camera, he’d rolled down his window to slide the driver’s badge through the card reader when he heard the roar of an engine. His side mirror showed an approaching SUV with heavily tinted windows.

            Except for the driver’s window, which was open, a gun visible. “Stop! Police!”

            “Fucking hell,” DJ growled. The gate was opening slowly, but he wasn’t going to make it.

            And then the SUV was T-boned by a dark sedan. The sedan hit the SUV on the back fender, forcing it into the fence. Saltrick, the security chief, got out, his gun drawn and pointed at the driver of the SUV.

            Well, shit. Saltrick didn’t know DJ was stealing the ambulance, intent instead on stopping the cop. Things are going my way.

            The gate in front of DJ opened and he drove out. Yes.

            Barkley was staring in her side mirror in annoyed frustration.

            DJ smiled. “Not your day, huh?” She didn’t respond and that annoyed him. “Aren’t you going to say that I’m never getting away with that?”

            She turned her head to stare at him with contempt.

            No worry. He’d slap that look off her face at the first opportunity.

            They’d gotten away. For now.





THIRTY



SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

            TUESDAY, MAY 30, 1:40 P.M.





It was like an episode of The Twilight Zone, Tom thought as he watched Liza and Pastor talk.

            The man had been like a kindly grandfather with Liza’s patient Brooklyn. And then again later, when Liza had been ordered back to socialize with him, he’d been kind and thoughtful. He’d asked questions about her time in Afghanistan and she’d answered him honestly.

            If one didn’t know her, they’d believe that she was having a lovely chat.

            “Remarkable,” Raeburn murmured. “He is an utter chameleon. He can torture, order killings, enable rape, and then talk to Liza like he’s Mr. Rogers.”