Melinda Di Lorenzo - Undercover Protector

“Were you faking it, princess?” he wondered aloud.

She must’ve been. It wasn’t like she’d made it a secret that she wasn’t happy being cooped up. Imprisoned, she’d called it at one point. So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that she would—

“Dammit,” Anderson muttered, his brain catching up to the fact that she was on the run just as she disappeared into one of the elevators at the end of the hall. “You were faking it.”

He took a final, irritated sip of his coffee, then set it down on the lip of a nearby trash bin and strode after her. When he reached the elevators, though, his mood grew even sourer. The lights over the first set of doors—the ones that had swallowed Nadine—were burned out, so he couldn’t tell if she’d headed for the lobby or the underground exit or some other escape route entirely. The second set of doors had been hung with an out-of-service sign. To top it all off, as Anderson turned to the final set, a team of frantic nurses pushed by him, wheeling a gurney and a crash cart. He jumped out of their way. Even if it wouldn’t have been tacky to join them in the elevator, there wasn’t room.

With a frustrated grumble, he spun toward the stairs. At least shoving the heavy door open provided a much-needed release of annoyance. Slamming his feet into the concrete steps was pretty good, too. As he moved down them as quickly as he could, he tried to calm his mind. He considered himself to be a patient man. More than reasonable. Since the moment his partners had asked him to keep tabs on Nadine Stuart, however, both his patience and reason had been sorely tested. From her snippy comments and looks full of distaste to her need to call him by his title—Detective with a capital D—every time no one else was in earshot, yeah, she was definitely putting him about as close to the edge as he ever got. It was the whole reason he’d moved from keeping vigil inside her room to acting a glorified bodyguard outside of it instead.

He kept reminding himself that she’d been through some tough things in the last little while. Things that could break a person. Losing her brother violently. Being thrust under the very dark microscope of Jesse Garibaldi—the same man who was responsible for his own father’s death fifteen years earlier.

Jesse Garibaldi.

Just thinking that man’s name was enough to make Anderson grit his teeth.

Fifteen years, he and his three partners had been chasing the man. They’d finally found him holed up here in Whispering Woods.

Holed up? No. That’s not quite right.

The evil man wasn’t in hiding. He was in plain sight. Ruling the town through money. Using the people in it to further his own agenda.

Anderson knew just what it felt like to be on the losing end of that particular stick. He wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Smart-mouthed Nadine Stuart included.

Somehow, though, being forced to chase the woman through the medical center dulled his ability to be quite as sympathetic as he should be. What kind of person ran from help? She had to know unequivocally that Anderson wasn’t a threat. Hell. She was the only person in all of Whispering Woods who was fully aware of his agenda. It made little sense to buck against his protection. All the stubbornness in the world wouldn’t keep her safe if Garibaldi got ahold of her.

Anderson had reached the landing that led to the lobby then and paused in his run. Going out that way was the straightest shot to freedom. It meant going past the information and intake desk, but it was still the quickest route out. Would Nadine be most interested in speed, or would she try to do something trickier? If he had to guess, he’d say she was the kind of woman who’d go for clever. Of course, she’d also probably assume that Anderson wouldn’t be far behind. He weighed the options, then eyed the door and made his decision.

“Lobby it is,” he said, his voice echoing through the stairwell.

He pushed through and found the wide space almost empty. The only person in sight was a solitary woman sitting behind the desk with her nose buried in a book, and she didn’t even glance up as Anderson walked straight up to her. He fought a need to grit his teeth at the lack of security and told himself that a care facility like this one wasn’t supposed to be under lock and key. It was the reason his own presence was a necessity. Still, he would’ve felt a little better if he thought that Nadine had met with a bit of a challenge.

He cleared his throat and fixed a polite smile onto his face. “Excuse me?”

The woman lifted her eyes and aimed a bored stare his way. “Yes?”

“Sorry for the interruption, but did you happen to see a blonde woman come by in the last minute or two?”

“People come and go all the time.”

“This one would’ve been in pajamas.”

“Pajamas?”

“With a sheep theme.”

“Are we talking about a patient?”

Anderson pressed his lips together for a moment before answering. Sounding the alarm about a patient on the run seemed a bit over the top. He somehow doubted it would help Nadine want him around, too.

“Just a woman with a strong love of casual wear,” he said.

“And casual wear is now sheep-themed pajamas?” The woman lifted a dubious eyebrow.

“Guess it is.”

“Then, no.”

“No?”

“I haven’t seen a blonde woman in casual wear come by in the last one or two minutes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Every person who comes in or out has to walk right past me.”

“True enough. Thanks anyway.”

Fighting a need to curse, he turned back toward the stairs and stopped. From where he stood, he could hardly see the first set of elevator doors. He was standing up. If he’d been sitting down like the woman behind the desk, he doubted he’d be able to see them at all. It’d be easy enough to exit the elevator and veer to the right instead of the left.

“What’s at the other end of the hall?” he asked.

The woman let out a sigh. “What?”

Anderson pointed. “If I went down there instead of past you.”

“Staff lounge.”

“Any way to get out?”

“Are you sure this isn’t about a patient?”

“Yes,” he lied.

She sighed again. “There’s an exit. But in order to get to the exit, you need to get into the staff lounge. And in order to get into the staff lounge, you need a passkey. So unless your friend in the pajamas is a staff member, she couldn’t have gone that way.”

Anderson forced another smile. “Thanks again.”

His cop’s gut was rearing its head, telling him that Nadine would’ve found a way. He didn’t waste time questioning his instincts. Moving quickly, he took long, decisive steps across the linoleum. In seconds, he reached a door clearly labeled with a Staff Lounge sign. There he stopped and studied the locking mechanism. It was a simple, magnetic swipe system. With a quick glance around, he yanked his wallet from his pocket and chose a card at random, then jammed it into the slot. The light above the handle flickered but stayed red. He yanked his card free and threw the door a glare.

“Card get demagnetized?” said a voice from over his shoulder.

Anderson turned and nodded at the man who’d appeared behind him. “Guess so.”

The man smiled. “Happens to me about twice a week. Gotta love overpriced technology that only works a quarter of the time. Here, I’ll let you in with mine.”

“Thanks.”

A heartbeat later, he was standing inside the supposedly secure staff lounge, his eyes on the glass door at the rear of the room. Through it, he could see just what he needed to.

Nadine Stuart.

She was planted on the edge of the sidewalk in the taxi zone, her head down, her cell phone pressed to her ear. Anderson walked toward the door, watching as she hung up, stuck the phone into her bag, then fixed her eyes straight ahead. When she started to cross the narrow strip of pavement in front of her—presumably toward the bench she had in her sights—a navy-colored car on the same side of the road started to move, too. First at a crawl. Then a little faster.