Chapter 2 - The First Warning
Samantha looked at Alexander for a long second.
“Tuesday.”
Alexander’s expression changed.
“It’s Friday.”
“I’m aware of how calendars work.”
“You haven’t slept since Tuesday?”
“I said I last slept Tuesday. I didn’t say I haven’t closed my eyes since then.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“I got forty-three minutes in the staff lounge yesterday.”
“That’s worse.”
“It was a very comfortable chair.”
Alexander stared at her.
Samantha stared back.
Then the front of the SUV suddenly swerved.
The movement was small.
Most passengers would have barely noticed.
Samantha noticed everything.
Her exhaustion vanished.
She sat up instantly.
“What happened?”
The driver’s voice came through the speaker.
“Car cut in front of us, sir.”
Alexander glanced toward the windshield.
Samantha didn’t.
She looked through the rear window.
A silver sedan.
Two lanes back.
Headlights off despite the rain.
It changed lanes when they did.
She narrowed her eyes.
“How long has that car been behind us?”
Alexander turned toward her.
“What?”
“The silver sedan.”
The driver answered.
“About six blocks.”
Samantha’s voice hardened.
“Don’t take the tunnel.”
Alexander looked at her sharply.
The driver hesitated.
“Ma’am?”
“Do not take the tunnel.”
Alexander leaned toward the partition.
“Elias. Listen to her.”
The SUV changed lanes.
The silver sedan changed lanes too.
Samantha’s hand moved automatically toward the inside of her scrub jacket before she remembered there was nothing there.
Alexander caught the movement.
“What were you reaching for?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
“Old habit.”
“What kind of habit?”
She ignored him.
“Elias, how many vehicles do you see working with the sedan?”
There was a pause.
Then the driver’s voice lost some of its calm.
“Black motorcycle. Maybe.”
“Not maybe.”
Samantha was watching the side mirror.
The motorcycle had no visible plate.
Its rider wore a dark helmet.
And he had positioned himself exactly where an ordinary driver would not.
“He’s keeping your blind spot,” Samantha said.
Alexander studied her.
“You sound like you’ve done this before.”
“Right now isn’t the time.”
The traffic light ahead turned red.
Three vehicles stopped in front of them.
The silver sedan accelerated from behind.
Samantha’s stomach dropped.
“Elias, move.”
“Light’s red.”
“MOVE!”
The silver sedan surged forward.
Elias reacted.
The SUV jumped the curb just as the sedan slammed into the rear quarter panel.
Metal screamed.
Alexander was thrown sideways.
Samantha caught his shoulder before his head hit the window.
A second impact rocked the vehicle.
The motorcycle had struck the passenger side.
Then Samantha saw the rider lift one hand.
Something black.
Compact.
Her voice turned cold.
“DOWN!”
She shoved Alexander beneath the window line.
Two explosive cracks shattered the night.
The rear glass spiderwebbed.
Elias accelerated.
Pedestrians screamed and scattered.
The SUV tore through the intersection.
Alexander stared at Samantha from the floor.
“Was that a gun?”
“Yes.”
“You said that very calmly.”
“Would you prefer screaming?”
Another shot struck the rear hatch.
Samantha twisted around.
The silver sedan was coming again.
“Elias, next right. Then immediate left.”
“That takes us away from Mr. Cole’s residence.”
“That’s the idea.”
Alexander pushed himself upright.
“My security team can meet us.”
“No.”
He froze.
Samantha pointed toward his phone.
“If this is coordinated, whoever did this knew your route.”
“My route changes.”
“Who knew tonight’s route?”
Alexander didn’t answer.
That was an answer.
Samantha continued.
“They knew which exit you’d take from the fundraiser. They knew which car you were in. They knew you were heading toward the tunnel.”
Elias turned hard.
The motorcycle overshot them.
The silver sedan remained behind.
“Someone inside your security structure gave them the route,” Samantha said.
Alexander’s face went still.
He picked up his phone.
Samantha took it from his hand.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling my head of security.”
“That would be my last choice.”
“Nolan has worked for me for eleven years.”
“And somebody just shot at you.”
Alexander held out his hand.
“Give me my phone.”
“No.”
“Samantha.”
“Mr. Cole, nine months ago you almost bled to death because somebody brought you into my emergency room with half the blood volume you were supposed to have.”
“That was an accident.”
“Was it?”
Alexander’s hand stopped.
For the first time that night, uncertainty entered his eyes.
Samantha leaned closer.
“What happened before that crash?”
“My brakes failed.”
Her breathing changed.
“You never told the police that?”
“I did. The investigation found mechanical damage caused by the collision.”
“After the collision?”
“What?”
“Did they determine whether the brake line failed before impact or was damaged during impact?”
Alexander opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
A loud bang erupted from the front of the SUV.
The vehicle lurched.
Elias grunted.
The SUV smashed through a row of plastic traffic barriers and rolled into a closed construction lane.
“Elias?”
No answer.
“Elias!”
Samantha climbed between the seats.
Blood covered the driver’s right sleeve.
The windshield had been punctured.
He had been hit.
“Keep your foot on the brake,” she ordered.
“I’m trying.”
“Alexander, hold the wheel.”
Alexander climbed forward.
Samantha pulled Elias’s jacket open.
The bullet had entered high in the shoulder.
Not immediately fatal.
But blood was spreading fast.
She ripped a strip from a medical compression bandage still stuffed in her scrub pocket.
Alexander noticed.
“You carry that?”
“I carry half an emergency department in these pockets.”
Another shot struck the SUV.
Samantha didn’t flinch.
She packed the wound.
Elias groaned.
“Pressure,” she ordered.
Alexander reached down.
“Here?”
“Harder.”
“I’m hurting him.”
“Good. That means he’s alive.”
Alexander pressed down.
Samantha looked outside.
Construction fencing.
Concrete barriers.
An unfinished commercial tower.
Temporary lighting.
Several ways out.
Several ways to get trapped.
The SUV engine died.
For three seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Samantha heard something beneath the rain.
Footsteps.
Not running.
Walking.
Whoever was coming knew the SUV couldn’t move.
She looked at Alexander.
“How much do you trust me?”
He stared at her.
“Nine months ago, I trusted you unconscious.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Completely.”
“Then take off your jacket.”
He obeyed.
“Why?”
“Because everyone in Manhattan knows what Alexander Cole looks like in a five-thousand-dollar suit.”
“It was seven.”
She glared at him.
“Not the moment.”
He almost smiled.
Samantha pulled Elias’s spare rain jacket from behind the driver’s seat and threw it at Alexander.
“Put that on. Help Elias out the driver’s side.”
“What about you?”
“I’m making sure they keep looking at the car.”
Alexander’s face hardened.
“No.”
She looked at him.
“No?”
“I spent nine months trying to find you. I’m not letting you volunteer to get shot ten minutes after I finally did.”
Something in his voice stopped her.
It wasn’t arrogance.
It wasn’t command.
It was fear.
For her.
Samantha had spent years seeing fear directed at wounds, dying relatives, bad diagnoses and helplessness.
She wasn’t used to seeing fear directed at the possibility of losing her.
“We’re not dying,” she said quietly.
“How comforting.”
“Get Elias out.”
They moved.
Alexander dragged Elias toward a gap in the construction barrier while Samantha stayed low and shoved open the opposite door.
A shadow appeared thirty yards away.
She grabbed Alexander’s crimson rose from the seat and tossed it beneath another parked construction vehicle.
Then she picked up a loose metal pipe and struck the SUV’s horn.
The attacker fired toward the sound.
Samantha ran.
Not toward Alexander.
Away from him.
The gunman followed.
For six seconds.
That was enough.
She cut behind a concrete pillar, crossed through darkness, doubled back, and disappeared into the skeleton of the unfinished building.
Alexander watched from behind the barrier.
His expression changed.
Exhausted nurses did not move like that.
Samantha reappeared behind him less than a minute later.
“Go.”
He stared at her.
“How did you—”
“Later.”
They half-carried Elias down a service corridor.
Sirens were finally audible in the distance.
Samantha stopped.
Something lay near the stairwell.
A plastic access badge.
She picked it up.
The photograph showed a man in his forties.
The company printed beneath it made Alexander go pale.
COLE MERIDIAN HOLDINGS.
Department: Executive Security.
Alexander took the badge from her.
“I know him.”
Samantha’s voice became very quiet.
“Who is he?”
“Victor Dane. He worked on my personal protection rotation.”
“Worked?”
“He disappeared three weeks after my crash.”
Before Samantha could answer, her phone vibrated.
The screen showed St. Catherine Medical Center.
She answered.
“Whitfield.”
A frightened voice came through.
“Samantha, it’s Dr. Patel.”
She frowned.
“What happened?”
“Someone accessed your personnel file tonight.”
Samantha’s eyes lifted to Alexander.
Dr. Patel continued.
“They also accessed a restricted trauma record.”
“Whose?”
A pause.
“Alexander Cole’s.”
Rainwater slid from Samantha’s hair onto her cheek.
Alexander watched her expression.
“What else?”
Dr. Patel’s voice dropped.
“They downloaded your home address.”
Samantha stopped breathing.
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
May you like
Then Dr. Patel said the words that turned the cold night even colder.
“Samantha... the account that accessed everything belongs to someone who died eight months ago.”
