Page 93 of Desperate Creed

It was the man with the scar. Frankie recognized the caveman forehead, his hawk nose and black eyes. He wore a white coat, just like Gus.

She couldn’t move. Her hands grabbed for the bed rail. She wasn’t strong enough to pull herself up. She didn’t know what to push to call for help.

“Gus, what’s...what’s going on?”

Her voice was so quiet, so weak. And yet, she was exhausted from the effort.

But Gus had moved away from the bed. She couldn’t see him anymore. Had he left the room?

The man with the scar scowled at her as he pushed the needle of a syringe into a small bottle. He was filling it.

“No, wait! What are you doing?”

Her heart was pounding. She tried to shove herself up, but there was no getting away from him. With the syringe ready, he looked at the intravenous port on her hand then at the IV bag up above her, searching the best place to insert it.

From somewhere inside the room there was a muffled pop-pop. The big man’s head jerked. Frankie couldn’t take her eyes off the needle to look for the sound.

Then she glanced up to see why he stopped. His eyes stared straight ahead. His hand dropped the syringe. He fell forward. His body thumped against the bed before he crashed to the floor.

When Frankie looked up, she saw Gus still holding the gun. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the next shot. Maybe it was the drugs. Maybe she’d wake up and find out she had hallucinated the whole thing.

“Frankie? You okay?”

“What happened?”

She opened her eyes to find Ryder and Maggie running through the door.

Gus was gone. Or maybe he’d never been there.

“He’s dead,” she heard Ryder say. He was kneeling next to the giant on the floor.

So it was real. But she was still alive. She looked to Maggie and met her eyes.

“It was Gus,” she whispered to her.

“I know.” To Ryder, she said, “Stay with her.” Then Maggie took off out the door to go after him.

74

Braxton watched as she came racing out the nearest exit. He rubbed a hand over his jaw and pulled the ball cap lower. FBI agent, Maggie, had good instincts. Her head pivoted in all directions. Her eyes darted around. She came to a stop and turned a full circle taking in the chaos, searching for him. Her left arm was in a sling. She no longer wore her shoulder holster, and she didn’t have her weapon. Yet here she was chasing after him.

Rescue units weaved their way out of the emergency bays and left the parking lot making way for those arriving. Injured storm victims staggered from their vehicles with the help of family or friends who were also bloodied. Braxton watched Agent Maggie’s head swiveling back and forth. She was checking every face, looking around corners and hurrying up and down aisles of vehicles. At one point, she dropped to her knees to glance under a row of cars.

But she didn’t consider checking the ambulance driving right by her.

He glanced at her one last time in the rearview mirror as he drove out of the hospital parking lot. He and Rex had left the sedan two blocks away. He’d be inside it and catching the interstate by the time they discovered the ambulance missing.

Now he drove the sedan to a busy drugstore parking lot. He wrapped the stolen white jacket around the Ruger SR22 pistol with the sound suppressor intact. Later he’d drop it in a river, two or three states away. It didn’t matter. The gun would never be traced back to him. Besides, he had other things to take care of first, and he didn’t have much time. If this was going to work at all, he needed to move quickly. Otherwise, they would hunt him down and then send someone else to eliminate Francine Russo.

Braxton and Rex had been hired to do whatever was necessary to keep secret the information that Tyler Gates and his friend, Deacon Kaye had hacked into. The only reason Braxton targeted Frankie Russo was because she may have seen the compromised emails, and she could recognize Rex.

Now, she knew his face, too.

In a day or two, Agent Maggie would probably know exactly who he was. But Braxton planned to be long gone. He’d already prepared. His go-bag was stashed inside the trunk with passports and credit cards. At three different banks across the country he had safe deposit boxes under as many different aliases stuffed with more documents and enough cash to retire anywhere he chose. And that’s exactly what he planned on doing.

But first, he needed to make sure he wouldn’t be killed, or worse, have a price put on his head. He’d need to play the game better than the man he worked for.

The man Braxton had worked for and killed for had crossed the line when he gave Rex the orders to set a fire on top of the restaurant ruins. The man Braxton had given his dedication and loyalty to for almost a decade had repaid that loyalty by considering Braxton collateral damage in order to make sure Russo didn’t make it out alive.