Chapter 9

Monday 12.14am

Cooper

I scan the street, and rub my eyes, sipping on my fourth coffee in as many hours as I fight to stay alert.

If Chris is right, and he always is, the gang Gabby has taken up with is inside the broken-down bar.

I can see the bikes parked out front, but despite my impatience to sort this out, I have to stay put until they decide to call it a night.

Taking on twelve armed bikers is pushing it even for me.

While I wait, I decide to check on the woman I’ve placed a whole lot of trust in and hope I read her character right.

I find her online, but she’s not posted much on social media, more that other people have tagged her in photos.

I skim the photos, alternating between looking at the entrance to the bar and searching for anything that might give me a little more information about Elinore James.

When nothing stands out, I quit looking in the legal channels, and delve a little deeper, justifying my action, knowing she’s signed a non-disclosure agreement.

As I scroll through her history, on the surface she looks as clean as I have expected her to be.

But it’s when I find a name change from ten years ago, things start to get interesting.

Her records have been sealed, so I hack my way in and find the reason why.

I have to read between the lines of the police report, but from what I can tell, Ellie was skipping school, and her grades were below average before she was arrested for shoplifting.

The judge sent her to Juvy Hall where she spent almost a year.

From the statement, and the arresting officer’s testimony, it looks like the judge showed leniency for her first offense, took pity on her and sealed her records.

I should be pleased that’s all she has to hide. She made a mistake but managed to turn her life around.

Technically she should be the perfect person to nurse Gabby.

But something is missing from her reports, there’s a gap between the end of Juvy and the start of nursing school where she seems to have fallen off the grid.

I glance at the bar and see a couple bikers trailing out. I have no time to dwell on where Ellie was those six months.

My eyes are on the drunken tattooed shit heels stumbling towards their bikes. None of them match the description I have of the leader, which means he’s solo tonight.

I double-check the bikers, but my attention is drawn away when a woman topples behind them, obviously high, wearing a short skirt, heels, and even in the streetlight, way too much makeup.

One of the bikers grabs her by her hair and starts to yank her backward while the others make catcalls as they climb on their bikes.

Anger builds inside me as the woman struggles, screaming until I can’t stand it anymore.

I throw open my door and jog across the street as the bikers take off in the opposite direction.

I steady my breathing and sneak down the alleyway, where I can hear the woman wailing.

I slide my hand around to the back of my jeans and use as much stealth as I can to sneak up on my target.

He shoves the woman against the wall and backhands her before he starts to tug at his belt buckle. “I told you. You think I gave you that blow for free?” he says.

The woman starts to shake her head, hand rubbing her cheek as she sobs so loud, she masks my approach.

The man laughs. “You got your blow, now I want mine.”

Her eyes shift to the left, and I press a finger to my lips as I raise the knife. My target is so focussed on getting his dick out, he doesn’t notice me until I have my knife pressed against his throat.

When he struggles, I grab him and wrap my arm around his shoulder, so he can’t move, and the knife presses in deeper.

He starts to splutter curses as I look at the terrified woman he was about to assault. “Get out of here, this has nothing to do with you,” I say.

She blinks but has enough sense to topple away as fast as her heels allow for.

When she’s disappeared into the inky night, I push the edge of the blade into his flesh hard enough for it to draw blood. “Where’s Spider?” I hiss.

He doesn’t even try to be tough, he’s such a coward, he gives up his leader immediately. “Gone. He left this morning.”

I frown and squeeze my arm around his shoulder a little harder. “Gone where?”

He tries to shake his head but seems to think better of it. “Didn’t say where,” he spits.

I’m about done being patient when I growl the words. “What did he say?”

When he speaks, all my blood runs cold. “Something about payback. His bitch left with this military guy in an SUV, out of town plates. Spider’s gonna cut his balls off when he catches him,” he says with a laugh.

I don’t bother with a reply, my training kicks in, and I’m barely aware of it when I slice his throat.

***

Ellie

When I step back inside Cooper’s house, medical bag in my hand, I’m met immediately by the same man who I saw earlier.

He looks me over and accepts Sam’s handshake as she steps through the door. “She gave up trying to kick the door down and passed out,” he says.

Given how exhausted he looks, it’s reasonable to assume he’s been with Gabby for a while now. “She has no phone?” Sam asks.

The man nods and smothers a yawn. “I took her iPhone off her back in Houston. She was plenty pissed about it.”

Sam doesn’t look convinced, just presses her lips together. “I’ll do a thorough search when she wakes up.”

I clutch the bag tighter and look at the locked door. “Can I see her?” I ask.

The man seems to realize I’m here to help, but he shakes his head. “You can watch her on the monitor, but she’s been awake over twenty fours and she’s finally come down.”

I frown hard at him, wondering why they bothered to get me here if they weren’t even going to let me see her.

But another thought stops me from berating him. “There are security cameras in the bedrooms?”

It’s Sam that answers with a wry smile. “Just this one. Cooper hooked it up before he left.”

Since I feel ridiculous standing in the hallway, almost whispering like the woman asleep is a newborn, I start to walk towards the bar where I hope I can see inside the bedroom.

With Sam and the as-yet-unnamed man right behind me, I drop the bag down, slide behind the bar, and find the screen I need.

Since it’s a touchscreen, I zoom in and am surprised to see they’ve placed plastic over the floor and seem to have medical supplies in the bedroom.

I shrink back from the bar, uncertainty building as I consider how prepared they were for this. You’ve done this for her before?” I ask.

The man nods while Sam can’t look me in the eye. “I’m going to get some sleep,” he says.

Without another word of explanation as to who he is, or his name, he wanders off, I presume to another one of the bedrooms in the house.

I check the monitor again and blow out a breath as Sam eyes me. “If you’ve done this before, why am I here?”

Sam’s voice comes out strained. “Cooper was worried about the baby. He wanted you here in case anything went wrong. He said you worked with kids in intensive care?”

I give her a weak nod as I try to keep a lid on my annoyance. Not only has Cooper dragged me here, but he used the information I gave him about my job to justify it.

Before I can tell Sam I’m having second thoughts, she leans over the bar and flicks a switch so another monitor illuminates.

In another room, possibly off the garage, I can see medical equipment stacked on shelves, and alarmingly a lot of guns, and what looks like military-grade equipment.

“You should find everything you need. But if you think we missed something, let me know and I’ll make sure you have it.”

When she flicks the switch off, I’m just about ready to walk out the door and hike back down the damn mountain.

“Who are you people?” I ask.

Sam chuckles and starts to walk away. “The less you know the better.”

I shake my head and cross the room to block her. “Then why have me sign the NDA?”

She holds my gaze, unblinking for a few seconds. “For the same reason Cooper did a background check on you before he asked me to go look for you.”

The idea Cooper has been snooping about in my life makes my blood boil.

“Are you kidding me?”

Her expression softens and she leans against the bar. “I know you’re pissed, and this is happening really quickly, and honestly I’d be more than a little fucked off if I were in your shoes, but this isn’t the time to explore how Cooper invaded your privacy.”

When I open my mouth to protest, she holds her hand up. “Chris is asleep, so right now we need to—”

Her cell starts to ring at exactly the same time an alarm starts to go off behind us.

All thoughts of how Cooper has been sneaking around behind my back disappears as she checks her phone.

To confirm things are going pear-shaped, she gestures to the screens. “See if the perimeter has been breached. I need to take this call.”

I nearly snap at her that I’m not a damn soldier, but I’m curious enough to take a look and see what set off the alarm.

Despite how pissed off at Cooper I am, a choked laugh escapes as I see a bear nosing around the edge of the property, probably looking for more berries.

At the reminder of the man who brought me here, I spin around ready to tell Sam it’s nothing important.

But when I see the deep grooves in her forehead, and the way she’s glancing at me, my anxiety starts to increase.

When she ends the call, I already know she’s going to relay bad news. “Change of plan. We need to get Gabby out of here,” she says.

She looks so serious, I just follow in her footsteps until she’s outside the bedroom, I now see is locked.

“Who was on the phone? Cooper?” I ask her.

She twists the door and doesn’t bother to answer me as she steps inside. “Gabby. It’s Sam. Time to go.”

With the drapes closed it takes me a few seconds to adjust, but I have just enough time to see a shape launch itself out of the bed towards Sam.

I stumble back, slamming into the door, yelling for Sam to look out, but Sam just calmly sidesteps, and grabs a hold of Gabby and twists her arm behind her back.

I watch on in horror as Sam pushes Gabby down to her knees and near spits the words. “Quit fighting. For once in your damn life, let us help you, you crazy bitch.”

Gabby’s face is twisted into a scowl and her voice comes out strangled. “Who is she?”

Sam sighs and releases her hold. “She’s Florence Nightingale. Cooper hired her to help you detox.”

Gabby’s lip wobbles but there’s a level of anger I don’t expect when she sneers at me. “Does she know I’m being held against my will? That I don’t want to fucking detox?”

When neither of us answers, she lifts her chin and looks so spiteful, so furious with me, I’m right back on the ward, back pressed against the wall, as Courtney’s mother yells in my face it’s my fault her daughter is dead.

Gabby keeps spewing insults, peppering them with obscenities as she glares at Sam and at me.

“I don’t want to be here. I want to go back to Spider. Cooper can go to hell for all I care. And so can this fucking bitch of a nurse. Spider wants me back, and he will come to get me,” she spits.

Sam looks at me, her expression grim. “She’s not like this all the time. Occasionally she makes sense and isn’t a raving lunatic.”

I nod lazily, but I’m not thinking about Gabby or the fact she’s in pain or who Spider is.

I’m wondering why I feel white-hot anger building. Why all I want is to smash something or someone until I can understand why I agreed to put myself in the firing line for a junkie.

I should feel pity, but all I can feel is resentment that Gabby has so many people around her willing to help, and she couldn’t care less about those people or her unborn baby.

Rage is starting to build, overtaking the pain, until all I can see is the hospital, the police sitting crying in their cars, the exhausted nurses, and the parents, so bewildered they’d just wander the halls as if they could find their dead children somehow.

Older memories, ones I’ve tried to erase push their way to the surface so violently I can feel them ripping out of me.

I jab my finger into Gabby’s chest so hard she flinches. “You should count yourself lucky someone actually cares about you. You have no fucking idea how many junkies I’ve seen die screaming for family members to come save them.”

Her mouth slackens, but I’m not done. I’m so utterly sick of being abused, I let loose every last thing I ever wanted to say but was never able to.

I know I’m losing it completely, but the words seem to flow out of me like molten lava. “Because if you don’t let us help you now, it’ll be a nurse cleaning up the shit, and the vomit, and the blood, and holding your hand when you die. Me, the bitch standing here wondering why the fuck she bothers when no one was there for her.”

I’m not sure who looks more shocked, Gabby or Sam, they’re both staring, slack-jawed at me like I’m speaking an alien language, but it’s Sam that recovers first.

She grabs Gabby’s arm and tugs her towards the door, sending me a ‘what the fuck’ look. “We need to go. The helicopter is on its way.”

I close my eyes and place my shaking hands over my face in the hopes I can calm down enough to apologize.

I’m so overwhelmed by unspent emotions and adrenaline, that I don’t know whether to stay where I am or follow.

I’m about as sure as I ever have been that I couldn’t have nursed Gabby even if my life depended on it.

Everything about this situation and her attitude reminds me on a deep visceral level of why I started having panic attacks at work.

I swallow hard, desperate for a drink when a tiny red flashing light catches my eye.

In my addled state, I’m sure I must be mistaken when I see the square outline of what looks like an old cell phone.

But as I squint and step closer, I immediately see why Gabby was so agitated.

Spider has sent a threatening message.

It’s solitary emoji of a skull.