Deadly Games - Cate Noble [25]
“Move it!” a doctor ordered as he slammed his access card through the sensor, then pushed past her as the slow-moving doors swung wide.
Gena stepped forward, stood momentarily frozen in the opening, witnessing the controlled chaos. As the door closed it swept her inside, where she went unnoticed.
A male nurse shoved what must have been a crash cart toward Lupe’s bed, half a dozen nurses in his wake.
The doctor who was responsible for Gena’s ringside seat plunged into the midst, already barking orders. “Give me point-five milligrams atropine … lidocaine!”
Gena lost count of the injections given. Blood pressure and pulse were called out repeatedly, the numbers garbled.
Then there were no more orders.
The room went silent. And Gena knew, knew, knew. Lupe was dead.
No! She hung her head and felt the knot of anguish that had been building in her chest rise.
The doors swung open behind her, stirring the air. A dark-haired woman in a lab coat hustled past without speaking, without questioning Gena’s presence in the restricted area.
Then the doctor who had inadvertently let her slip inside the ICU approached, his gaze sliding across her face. But he, too, passed mutely by.
Invisible.
Gena’s loss had left her as invisible as Lupe had been for most of her life.
“You shouldn’t be in here!” A nurse came up just then, shaking her head as she gently but firmly guided Gena out to the hall before turning away.
Unable to move or speak, Gena stared at the closed doors. Then she felt hands at her shoulders, knew someone was tugging her back toward the waiting area.
She resisted, not ready to leave Lupe, not wanting comfort for a truth she didn’t want to face.
“Gena?”
That voice …
The breath left her body as she turned and looked into the face of the most gorgeous and cruelest man she’d ever known.
No, not the worst.
Utter confusion threatened to wreck Gena’s fragile equilibrium. She blinked, frantic to block the memories that wanted to rush forward. She couldn’t deal with the mess that was their past. Not now.
“What—? What are you doing here, Rocco?”
“I’m sorry for the loss of your friend.” He fumbled for words.
“Lupe. Her name was Lupe!” Gena shook off his hand and stepped away. “And you have no idea what I’ve lost.”
“Agreed.” He looked solemnly left, then right. “Is there somewhere private we can talk?”
The one-two changeup of his tone rankled her. “To be honest, I don’t feel much like talking at the moment.”
“It’s important. And urgent.”
Gena looked past him, at the Border Patrol agents who were questioning a nurse. And then to where Helen sat, watching her with an odd expression.
The last thing Gena wanted was to have to explain Rocco to Helen. Or even to Agent Ramirez. Because explaining Rocco meant walking down the hellish path called Her Past.
Maybe the easiest and quickest way to get rid of him was to listen to whatever the hell he’d come there to say and then tell him to scram.
“Follow me,” she snapped.
Chapter Eight
Harry Gambrel was pissed that he hadn’t received advance warning that Rocco Taylor was en route to Sugar Springs.
Seeing Rocco stroll through the front door of the hospital ten minutes ago had infuriated Harry. If Rocco got to Gena first …
After confirming that Gena was unharmed, and learning that she refused to leave her injured friend, Harry and Edguardo had staked out the hospital entrances. The place was too small, too full of cops to risk going inside.
Instead, Harry had slouched in his rental car, in the hospital’s crowded parking lot, watching through the small slits cut in a newspaper.
As soon as he spotted Rocco, Harry called Ian Brown, the CIA mole he’d inherited from Abe Cald-well. “What the hell is Taylor doing in Texas?”
“Rocco Taylor?” Ian sputtered. “My latest intel shows him on ice, here in D.C. Well crap! I suppose this means he’s operating off the grid now, too.”
“Gee, you think?” Harry ground out. Travis Franks had already pulled his own disappearing act. What good was an inside contact when all the players operated outside?
“Well, on the bright