J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8 - J. R. Ward [58]
Maybe this was all a dream. Maybe she’d fallen asleep on the train down to Manhattan and would wake up as they pulled into Penn Station. She’d have an awkward laugh, get a cup of coffee, and go to her interview at Columbia as planned, blaming it all on vending cuisine.
She waited. Hoped a bump in the tracks would lurch her into waking up.
Instead, the digital clock just kept churning through the minutes.
Right. Back to the shit-this-is-reality idea. Feeling utterly alone and scared to death, Jane walked over to the door, tried the knob, and found it locked. Surprise, surprise. She was tempted to bang on the thing, but why bother? No one on the other side was going to let her free, and besides, she didn’t want any of them to know she was awake.
Casing the place was the directive: The windows were covered by some kind of barrier on the far side of the glass, the panel so thick there wasn’t even a glow of day coming through it. Door was obviously a no-go. Walls were solid. No phone. No computer.
Closet was nothing but black clothes, big boots, and a fireproof cabinet. With a lock on it.
The bathroom didn’t offer any escape. There was no window and no vent big enough for her to squeeze through.
She came back out. Man, this wasn’t a bedroom. It was a cell with a mattress.
And this was not a dream.
Her adrenal glands got kicking, her heart going giddyap wild in her chest. She told herself that the police must be looking for her. Had to be. With all the security cameras and personnel at the hospital, someone must have seen them take her and the patient out of there. Plus, if she missed her interview, questions would start rolling.
Trying to get a grip, Jane closed herself in the bathroom, the lock of which had been removed, natch. After using the facilities, she washed her face and grabbed a towel that was hanging off the back of the door. As she put her nose into the folds, she caught an amazing scent that stopped her dead. It was the smell of the patient. He must have used this, probably before he went out and took that bullet in the chest.
She closed her eyes and breathed in deep. Sex was the first and only thing that came to her mind. God, if they could bottle this, these boys could feed their gambling and drug habits by going legit.
Disgusted with herself, she dropped the towel like it was trash and caught a flash behind the toilet. Bending down to the marble tile, she found a straight-edged razor, the old-fashioned kind that made her think of Western movies. As she picked it up, she stared at the shiny blade.
Now, this was a fine weapon, she thought. A damn fine weapon.
She slipped it in her white coat just as she heard the bedroom door open.
Leaving the bathroom, she kept her hand in her pocket and her eyes sharp. Red Sox was back, and he had a pair of duffels with him. The load didn’t seem substantial, at least not for someone as big as him, but he struggled under it.
“This should be a good enough start,” he said in a raspy, tired voice, the word start pronounced staht in classic Bostonian fashion.
“Start what?”
“Treating him.”
“Excuse me?”
Red Sox bent down and opened one of the bags. Inside were boxes of bandages and gauze wraps. Latex gloves. Plastic mauve bedpans. Bottles of pills.
“He told us what you’d need.”
“Did he.” Damn it. She had no interest in playing doc. It was a big enough job being Kidnap Victim, thank you very much.
The guy straightened carefully, like he was light-headed. “You’re going to take care of him.”
“Am I?”
“Yeah. And before you ask, yes, you’re going to make it out of here alive.”
“Assuming I do the medical thing, right?”
“Pretty much. But I’m not worried. You’d do it anyway, wouldn’t you.”
Jane stared at the guy. Not much showed of his face underneath the baseball cap, but his jaw had a curve to it she recognized. And there was that Boston accent.
“Do I know you?” she asked.
“Not anymore.”
In the silence