Kevin flinched. His skin was ice cold beneath her touch. The machines beeped louder, faster.
“Special Agent Kennedy,” Dr. Bradshaw began.
“Open your eyes,” Sam sharpened her voice, “and look at me.”
His eyelids twitched, but didn’t open. His breath rasped out. The nurse on the left-hand side of the bed looked up from the chart, her eyes wide.
Sam leaned in closer. “Why did you do it?” she demanded. “Why did you take those men?” But she knew, of course: money. Everyone had a price.
His head moved in the faintest of negative shakes.
Her eyes narrowed.
Chalky lips moved, but no sound emerged.
“Kevin, why did you kill them?”
Nothing.
And that beeping… it wasn’t so fast now. Slow, slowing down.
His breath eased in. Out.
“Why did you kill them?”
His mouth moved again. She couldn’t read his lips because the movement was too faint so she put her head right next to his mouth as she tried to hear the words. “Why?” She demanded again.
“Not… m-me…” Kevin’s whisper ended on a sigh.
A long, constant shriek pierced the room.
“He’s coding!” The nurse yelled, lunging for her patient.
The doctor grabbed Sam’s arm and hauled her back. “You have to leave, now!”
Blood gurgled from Kevin’s mouth. Red bloomed across the bandages on his chest. His breath wheezed out.
Sam backed up, but didn’t leave.
Two more nurses ran into the room. Another doctor. They huddled over the bed.
“Clear!”
She couldn’t even see Kevin anymore. Just a jumble of green scrubs.
“No pulse!”
Sam stared at the mass of bodies.
“Again!” Dr. Bradshaw’s order.
Kevin was someone’s son. Maybe someone’s lover.
And a killer.
The whine of the machines continued to blast, and the doctors kept working. Sam stayed there, watching.
They worked on their patient, voices tense. The minutes ticked past.
She watched, and when the nurses and the doctors stepped back, their gloves covered in blood, Sam was still there.
“Calling it,” Bradshaw said, yanking off her gloves. “Time of death, one fifty-eight a.m.” She stormed toward the door but stopped to glare at Sam. “You didn’t even get anything from him. His last few moments, and you didn’t get a damn thing.”
Maybe.
Not… m-me…
Maybe not.
Max stared at Quinlan’s still body. The bandages covered him from neck to foot. So many wounds. Some small and light, designed just to tease, to let him know that the pain was coming. Others deep. Meant to hurt. Meant to make Quinlan suffer.
The door behind Max opened with a soft swish, but he didn’t glance back.
“I wanted you to know,” Samantha said quietly, “the suspect died about five minutes ago.”
His eyes were on the thick bandages that covered Quinlan’s left hand. “Good.”
“Two slugs were pulled out of him. We’re going to run a ballistics test and see if they match up with Frank’s gun.”
Quinlan barely appeared to breathe, but then, the doctors had pumped him so full of drugs that he would seem dead to the world. Painkillers. Max had been told Quinlan would be out the rest of the night. “What’s going to happen to him?”
Jesus, what a mess. A sick, sad mess.
“The team will run a full investigation of the scene before determining anything.”
Max rose from the bed and turned to pin her with his stare. But she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes, narrowed, distant, were on the bed.
He stepped in front of her, blocking her view of Quinlan. Making her see him. “He’s not going to jail.” Jail wasn’t for his brother. The guy wouldn’t survive there, and dammit, Quinlan didn’t deserve to be there. “He didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t know—” Not like me.
“It appears he thought the kidnapper was coming back.” Now her eyes were on him. “And he attacked. In the dark, he couldn’t see what was happening—or who was coming for him—not until it was too late.”
Blood soaking Frank’s clothes. The knife embedded in his throat.
Max drew in a long breath. “The press is going to be all over this.”
“We’re taking care of the press. Agent Kenton Lake is on top of it.”
He’d better handle them. “My family has been through enough.” With more to come. The funeral. Quinlan’s treatment.
“I know.”
His gaze traced her face. Damn but she was lovely. Staring at her made him ache.
“He’s not going to jail,” Max said again, aware that his voice was too rough. Behind him, the machines hooked up to Quinlan steadily hissed and beeped.
Samantha didn’t speak. Her stare darted to the bed, then back to him. “I’m sorry about your stepfather. If there’s anything I can do…”
He stiffened at the familiar spiel. The same refrain that everyone always offered.
She swallowed and turned away. “We’re going to keep two guards outside of your brother’s room.”
“What? Why?” All the kidnappers were dead.
Her hand was on the door. “We have to be absolutely certain that the people who took your brother are—”
“They’re dead. They’re all f**king dead.”
Samantha wasn’t looking at him. “We haven’t determined that yet, and until we know exactly what we’re dealing with, the guards stay.” She glanced over her shoulder. “And that’s my order.”
Tension had his temples throbbing. “You really think someone else could still be out there? Someone who might want to hurt Quinlan?”
“I think it’s a possibility, and I’m not going to leave your brother unguarded until we know for sure.”
“I’ll get guards. I’ll hire some, bring them in—”
“You can do that, but the agents are going to stay on duty until the SSD is satisfied.” She pulled open the door.
“That’s it?” The words tore out. “You’re done now?”
Samantha stopped. “I told you, we’re going to finish the case.”
He caught a glimpse of a guy with close-cropped black hair and saw the flash of a badge. Screw who heard. “I was talking about us.” Look at me. She didn’t. “You’re just walking out.”