Читать книгу Undercover Memories - Lenora Worth - Страница 15

Ryder moved down the stairwell at a breakneck speed, his boots hitting steel as he chased after the man who’d just tried to attack Emma. When a shot rang out and missed Ryder by inches, he grunted and picked up speed. They made it to the bottom floor of the sprawling hospital. Ryder listened as a door opened and shut with a thud and a bang.

By the time he got outside to the loading dock, the man was gone in a sea of linen trucks and official vehicles.

Calling in a description, Ryder hurried back up to check on Emma. After a thorough search by both hospital security and several police officers, the lockdown was lifted.

Pierce showed up and took a report. “No sign of the man you described, Palladin. He’s long gone. But we got people looking.”

“Keep at it,” Ryder replied while they stood in the hallway in front of Emma’s room. “I’ll stand guard. And let me know what our people find at the Dumpster behind the bar. Tell them to go over every inch of that alley and the side streets.”

“So...you’re staying here tonight?” Pierce asked, his hazel eyes moving over Ryder’s face as if he had the plague or something.

“Yeah,” Ryder said. “You have a problem with that?”

“No, but we have people for that.”

“I’m people. I can guard her door if I want to.”

“That’s the part that’s got me confused. You wanting to.”

“What does that mean?”

Pierce pushed a gangly hand through his straight brown bangs. “You never want to...get this close to someone, Ryder. You make it a point not to want to, know what I mean?”

“Look, I’m protecting a woman who got hit over the head by two very nasty men. That’s not exactly a fair fight.”

Realization lightened Pierce’s eyes like a bulb in a dark hallway coming to life. “Oh, now I get it. You’re all about things being fair in life.”

“Yeah, you got a problem with that, too?”

“Nope. But we both know that ain’t how life works.”

Ryder got in Pierce’s face, the frustrations of the day raging through his system. “I’m staying here tonight, Mr. Philosophy. Get over it.”

Pierce shrugged and whirled to leave. “Don’t worry. While you’re being a Guardian of the Galaxy, I’ll be doing all the grunge work on finding the car, the phone, the bad guys. You know, little details that make up a case.”

“Thanks. So sweet of you.”

Ryder turned back to Emma’s room to find her glaring at him. “I don’t need you to stay here with me. I need you to get me out of here. I’ve been through tests, I’m remembering more by the minute and my head has finally stopped throbbing like a sore thumb. I’m okay to leave.”

She’d obviously heard his conversation with Pierce. “The doctor thinks you need to stay awhile longer.”

She fell back against the pillow. “Okay.”

Ryder knew she was biding her time. If he closed just one eye, she’d bolt right past him. Shaking his head, he said, “I’ll just bunk right here in this comfortable recliner.”

“No. You stay outside. Watch the door.”

“No. I’ll stay right here. In this recliner. Throw me a blanket, will you?”

“How did you get so stubborn?”

“That’s a long story.”

“I have nothing but time and a blank mind.”

Ryder shook his head. “You realize that what happened here earlier was another attempt to get to you, right?”

“How can I not realize that? I told you they’d find me. If you hadn’t been here—”

Her aggravated blue-green gaze rippled across his soul like undercurrents of warm, inviting water. Ryder couldn’t go down in that current.

Then she spoke again. “You set me up nicely for that admission, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t set up anything. That’s the facts, and you know it. But now I agree that we need to get you out of here. I will do that, but I need to figure some things out first. So until then, we stay here. Together.”

She tossed him the blanket. “Do you snore?”

“Never.”

“Can we order in?”

“What do you want?”

“I told you—a cheeseburger.”

He could seriously fall for this woman.

“No, we can’t order that in because I’m pretty sure you’d regret it. Probably wise to eat soft foods not so heavy on your system for a few days.”

She slanted her eyes. “Are you speaking from experience?”

“Could be.”

He could read her enough to know that she didn’t want to back down either, but she looked tired and defeated. “Okay, I’ll eat more Jell-O and scrambled eggs. But once I’m out of here—”

“I know just the place,” he replied, grinning. “And I’ll even buy.”

“It’s a date,” Emma said. Then she shook her head. “I mean, not a date. It’s not a date.”

Ryder gave her a mock-sad face. “Okay, I get it. It’s a nondate date. A make-good-on-a-promise kind of date. Because you and me—not a thing. Not gonna happen. Am I right?”

“So right,” she said, her expression determined. “So right.” Then she shifted into not-gonna-happen overdrive. “Even if it did, I’d probably forget that it did.”

“You are cruel,” he said, wagging his finger at her. “But if and when that not-gonna-happen happens, I’ll make sure you remember.”

After she closed her gaping mouth, she recovered nicely. “Stop talking.”

Ryder did a zip swipe across his lips. But he wished they could go on a real date. Wished it and then dismissed it.

Two hours later, Emma woke up to find Ryder still in the recliner, watching over her.

Even though he wouldn’t let her have a cheeseburger, he looked just as yummy as ever, sitting there with his long, jean-clad legs stretched out in front of him and his shirt sleeves rolled up to show off his tanned, hair-dusted forearms.

“Hello, sunshine,” he said, his voice husky. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’m under house arrest.”

“That bad, huh? What can I do to help?”

That was a loaded question, considering his sleepy, husky voice and that silky, curly hair. But she thought long and hard on how to answer it.

“Tell me that long story about you,” she said, wanting to fill her mind with details. Wanting to remember what she needed to find. “I want to hear about your life. Maybe not thinking about mine will help me relax.”

“It’s not that exciting,” he said, after taking a sip of soda from a can the nurse must have brought him. “Grew up on a ranch that’s been around since Custer’s last stand and pretty much farmed and worked the land until I became a cop. Crops, livestock, including cattle and horses, the usual Texas overkill.”

“And you loved it, right?”

“I did. I do. I still live there. I sleep in town a lot at headquarters but I get back to the Palace as often as I can.”

“The Palace?” She snorted a laugh. “Think highly of ourselves, do we?”

“Someone named it that long ago and it stuck. It’s always been the Palladin Ranch. Big and bold, but we ain’t fancy. Just my mother and my younger sister and me. We lost my dad a few years ago, but they still live in the main house. I have a cabin around the bend from them.”

“I’m sorry about your dad,” she said, meaning it.

“Yeah, me, too.” He shrugged. “I went into law enforcement because of him. Because of what happened to him.”

Noting the darkness following that statement, she asked, “What did happen...with your dad?”

Thinking a heart attack or stroke, she was shocked when he took a breath and told her the truth. “He was a sheriff. All my life, he was larger than life. Off duty one night and stopped to get gas. Robbed and his truck taken. He tried to stop them but they shot him. He died at the scene.”

Emma put a hand to her mouth. “Ryder, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.”

“It’s okay,” he said, his smile full of regret. “They caught the man who did it. A career criminal. Won’t see life on the streets for a long time.”

“Good.”

“I always wanted to follow in his footsteps, so I joined the police academy. I wanted to stop the hard-core criminals.”

“You mean the ones like your father’s killer?”

“Yep.”

“So you asked to work Vice?”

“Yep.”

He’d told her more than he’d wanted to tell.

Emma wanted to know more, but his gaze shouted to let it go. “Where is this palatial ranch?”

“Northwest of Fort Worth between Lake Worth and Denton.”

She stopped teasing. “I know Denton. I remember Denton.”

“You’ll figure all of this out soon.”

“I hope.” She noticed he didn’t like to talk in specifics. Because somewhere between Lake Worth and Denton could mean many out-of-the-way places.

Having him near had helped her take her mind off things, but having him near also meant she was still in the thick of this mess. “What do we do now?”

“We wait out the night and see if you remember anything else. Maybe the doc will spring you tomorrow.”

She sat up, a slight throb moving through her temple. “Ryder, when someone is missing, we both know the first few hours are critical. And I’ve already wasted close to forty-eight hours in here.”

“Did you remember something?”

“No, I didn’t remember precisely but...I have this urgency in my gut and it’s telling me I need to get back out there. I have good instincts. I know that somehow.”

“You can’t do anything right now regarding what we might find out there.” He checked his watch, then pulled out his cell. “I had one of the techs do a search for any underage teens reported missing in the last week. I’ll put a fire under him and see if he’s found any names.”

Emma sat watching him work. He had a way about him—smooth, in control, calm—that got other people moving. She’d heard him passing insults with his partner, but the mirth in both their eyes told her they trusted and depended on each other.

Would they help her? Really help her? Or were they using this as part of their sting operation? More evidence against the lowlifes who hung around the Triple B?

She’d also heard his partner questioning Ryder about watching out for her. As in, he didn’t get too close to his subjects or his suspects?

Was he getting close to her, or staying close to her in hopes of finding out what she knew?

Hard to say. Emma closed her eyes and tried to picture her life coming back together, not in puzzle pieces that moved through her head and made it ache all over again. She needed the pieces to fit and make sense.

But nothing more came to the surface.

I’m Emma Langston. I’m a private investigator from Galveston. I have no idea why I’m here. Why? Why did I go to that bar? Who am I looking for?

And why did Bounce and Ounce try to kill her?

Ryder closed his phone. “We have several names and photos of missing teens. This is just in the last week or so. Want to look at them?”

She swallowed, nodded, feared the worst. “Yes.”

But after looking at the photos that came through on his phone and reading the names of the five missing teens—three girls and two boys—in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, Emma fell back against her pillow and closed her eyes for a few seconds before opening them to stare over at Ryder.

“I don’t recognize any of them. And the names don’t ring a bell. What if one of them is the one I’m trying to find, Ryder?”

“People are already on these cases,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean someone didn’t hire you.”

She went cold inside. “What if the parents haven’t listed the teen as missing yet? What if they thought I’d find their child right away?”

“No parent would do that,” he reminded her. “They call the locals right away.”

“And if that didn’t work?”

“They’d call you,” he admitted. “Maybe they called you and the locals don’t know that.”

“That would mean the parents have to be frantic by now.”

He put down his phone. “You look tired, and you won’t be able to focus if you don’t heal. So rest, Emma. Just lie back and go to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Try.”

“Has anyone questioned Bounce and Ounce?”

“We’ve tried. Unavailable. The Triple B has gone on the quiet. No one will dare talk out of fear of getting a bat to their head. But we’re watching the place even more now.”

A nurse came in and gave her a pill. “Just a mild pain pill.” After examining Emma, she asked, “How’s your head pain on a scale of one to ten?”

Emma held the pill cup and replied, “Maybe a three.”

“That’s a good sign but take the acetaminophen anyway.”

Emma didn’t want to take anything that would muddle her memory even more, but the nurse urged her to so she could sleep.

“You people never let up.”

“Our job,” the smiling nurse said. “But you’re improving so much I think you’ll be able to leave soon.”

After the nurse left, Emma looked at Ryder. “Leave? And where do I go from here? I’ve been so intent on getting out I haven’t considered if I had a hotel room anywhere.”

When he didn’t respond, she said, “But then, you’ve already checked the area hotels, right?”

“Right. So far, your name hasn’t come up, but we’ll keep looking. Maybe you checked in under an alias?”

She actually snorted a laugh. “And you expect me to remember that alias?”

“No. We’ll keep at it.”

“I have to find a place to stay,” she said, the thought jarring her head all over again. “I can’t go home not knowing.”

Ryder slanted his gaze toward her, his head tilted. “Well, wherever that is, I won’t be far away. I want to solve this, too. And I want to bring in Bounce and Ounce and slam the jail door on them once and for all.”

“I’ve given you extra work,” she said, glad to know he was on her side.

“Keeps me out of trouble.”

Emma drifted off to sleep with the memory of his determined look and definite tone in her mind.

Ryder was that kind of guy.

He did things the old-fashioned way.

The cowboy way.

Ryder woke with a grunt.

He’d heard something. A slamming noise followed by a crash.

And where was Emma?

Bolting out of the recliner, he called out, “Emma?”

“In here.”

The bathroom door was closed.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” came the muffled reply. “But that man on the floor isn’t.”

Ryder whirled when he heard a moan. Rushing to the other side of the bed, he found a tall, athletic man with short platinum hair holding a hand to his head. Ryder drew his gun and yanked the man up.

“Don’t move or I will shoot you,” he said, showing the man his badge before he shoved him against the wall. “Put your hands up.”

The man moaned and did as he asked. “She tried to kill me.”

Emma walked out of the bathroom, her hair disheveled, her eyes flashing. “Well, you tried to stick a needle in my arm. I don’t like needles.”

Ryder frisked the man and found a knife and a hidden pistol strapped to his ankle. Spotting the syringe on the floor by the bed, he read the man his rights and cuffed him.

Whirling the man around, Ryder looked at Emma. “Are you really okay?”

“Yes,” she said, sinking down onto the bed. “I woke up and this visitor came at me with a needle full of clear liquid. I kicked out and hit him toward his...uh...midsection then threw the water jug in his face.”

“And she jammed me with that bed tray thing,” the man said on a whine and a glare.

“She’s good about taking care of things,” Ryder said with a grin at the overturned tray. But his heart flipped and flopped in a delayed panic. He shouldn’t have dozed and he should have stayed outside in front of the door. But he’d wanted to be near her. Just one more reason to stay away from her. Giving Emma a warning stare, he slammed the man back against the wall. “Talk.”

“I got nothin’ to say.”

“You’ll talk, sooner or later,” Ryder said on a soft promise. “I’m thinking soon you’ll be singing like a little bird.”

No ID and an unyielding, cold, dead stare.

“I want a lawyer.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll get one. But for now, you’re mine.”

In a matter of minutes, the hospital once again swarmed with officers. After Pierce and his men took the assailant away, Ryder finally turned to where the doctor was checking Emma.

“Doc, she seems okay to me. I mean, she took down a man who could have easily snapped her neck.”

Dr. Sherrington didn’t smile. “Our patient had improved dramatically but she still has memory issues.”

“I’m taking her to my ranch,” Ryder said, daring either one of them to argue. “My mother happens to be a retired ER nurse.”

“How convenient,” the doctor quipped. He looked down at Emma. “Do you want this man to take you away from me?”

“More than you’ll ever know,” Emma replied. “But he could have cleared it with me first.”