Above Protection (Imperfect Heroes Book 1) (23 page)

Tampa PD, along with everyone and
their mother’s brother, were at the hospital when I arrived. I
parked in front on the street and jogged inside. There was yellow
police tape blocking off one of the elevators. I was greeted by
Jeffrey and my brother, Mason, and his cocky Ken-doll partner,
Hunter Jenkins. I really didn’t care for the guy but I never really
let on. Just something about the way he smiled made me want to fold
his teeth back.

“What do we have?” I asked to anyone
who would answer.

My boss looked at my brother. “Go
ahead, Detective Oliver, since you got here first.”

“It’ll be easier to show you,” he
began, holding his hand out to Detective Jenkins who handed him an
iPad looking thing. He pointed at the screen and began narrating.
“About 9:30 this morning, an unknown male walked in claiming he was
here to visit one of the patients on the trauma ward. The fucker
had flowers and everything. You can see here where he dumps the
flowers into a trash can after exiting the elevators. He then
walked a short ways down the hallway and his perfect opportunity in
the form of an orderly in green scrubs was unlocking a door.” I
grimaced as I watched the poor dude get pushed into the closet and
the door closing behind them. “You can see him emerge a couple
minutes later wearing the scrubs. The orderly was unconscious in
the mop closet, waking with a headache in nothing but his
drawers.”

Hunter laughed and I ignored
him.

“The unknown male then goes down the
hallway and enters a closet with the aid of the keys he stole from
the orderly, and retrieves a stethoscope and one of the electronic
thingies they use to take notes in. We confirmed those things
require a password and thumbprint to get into, so I’m sure it was
just for show.”

I shook my head. “He looks too stupid
to know how to use it anyway. In fact, he looks stupid in those
scrubs.”

Hunter laughed again, and Mason
snickered. “I agree.” He swiped the screen and moved to the next
video. “Here he is entering the suspect’s room. The guards
questioned him briefly but he flashed the orderly’s ID at them and
they just waved him in.”

“How the fuck did he get out?” I
mumbled.

My boss said, “Oh just wait ‘til you
see this shit.”

“If you look at the timestamp, you can
see he was in there quite a while. We think he was trying to figure
out how he was going to move Watkins with all that medical shit
attached to him, and was probably removing his cuffs,
too.”

I watched as the male pushed Shane out
on the wheeled bed. I noticed the bars to the bed weren’t propped
up, like they usually do when moving a patient in one of those
bulky medical beds.

“Here, he has a brief conversation
with the guarding police officers, and when we interviewed them,
they said the male had told them the patient was being taken for
x-rays.”

I was getting angry, gritting my teeth
together as I spoke. “Okaayyy, so why didn’t one of the cops go
with him?”

Mason chuckled and put his hand on my
shoulder. “Brother, calm down, one did. Unfortunately,” he stopped,
clicking to the next video and hitting play with his finger, “he
did not come back up. The radiology department is on the first
floor, so after about an hour when they didn’t return, the other
cop radioed to his partner and got no response. Seeing no need to
guard the room at the moment, he asked one of the nurses where
radiology was and went down there but they weren’t there. He called
it in.” Mason switched to a video of what looked like an alley.
“There’s the cop there, running out with his gun drawn, but he was
ambushed and knocked out cold. We do not have video of the vehicle
that took the suspects away, as there are no more cameras back
there.”

I shook my head. “Cop
okay?”

“Yes,” Hunter answered. “He’s in the
same condition as the orderly. Both are being observed for head
trauma but will otherwise recover.”

“Fucking bastards,” I
murmured.

Mason nodded. “I agree.”

Jeffrey said, “Ok it’s time for
interviews. Duke, you take the nursing staff on that floor. I’m
gonna go talk to hospital security and then to the unharmed cop and
see if he remembers anything else. Where you boys headed?” He
looked at Mason and Hunter.

“Since you guys are here, we’re gonna
head out and do our paperwork. There’s obviously an APB out on
Watson and the suspect. Your witness still under protection?
Jeffrey here filled me in on what you’d been up to the last couple
weeks.” Mason looked at me.

Nodding, I said, “Yes, she’s got
agents with her until the trial is over.”

“Good.” He shot me a look I couldn’t
quite decipher, but definitely meant we’ll talk later, and then
left me with a fist bump.

I took the stairs to the third floor
where the trauma unit was and went to the nurse’s station. I pulled
out my brand new FBI credentials they’d issued me yesterday morning
and said to a cute nurse sitting at the desk, “I’m Special Agent
Hawthorne. Were you here this morning for the incident?”

The girl nodded and stood,
“Yes.”

“Great, can I speak to you for a few
minutes?”

“Sure. I’m due for rounds in about
five, so we’ll have to make it quick.”

She was a tiny little
thing with short black hair with some color streaks in it. I could
see a few tattoos under her pink scrubs and a few piercings in her
ears and a tiny one in her nose. Her badge read
Adria
.

I glanced at it and pulled out a
notebook and pen from my sport coat. “Can I get your full name,
please?”

“Adria Green.”

“And your position here?”

“R.N. Just a nurse,” she
smiled.

“Tell me what you saw today, please.
Don’t leave out any details.”

“Sure,” she started. “I was sitting at
the desk when I looked up and saw one of the orderlies go into
Shane’s room. I assumed he was cleaning. I didn’t see him come out
at all, because I had to run to a code blue. About an hour later,
one of the cops, Jerry, who was guarding that room, asked where we
took x-rays and I told him in radiology, then I asked why. He said
some guy in scrubs had come in to get the patient over an hour ago
for x-rays and they hadn’t returned. I became alarmed and checked
the computer. Shane Watson wasn’t scheduled for x-rays. In fact, we
would have no reason to x-ray him. The cop told me to call hospital
security then he took off running toward the staircase. I called
security and that was it.”

“Anything else?” I asked, furiously
jotting down her words.

“I just need to add that if you don’t
find that patient soon he could get sicker. We’ve stitched up his
bullet wound but he was rockin’ a nasty infection and had only
received about 24 hours’ worth of antibiotics. He needs a lot more
than that. What did he do, anyway?”

I looked into her curious brown eyes,
and below the curiosity I saw a harshness there. Not anger but
something like a fierce need to protect and help. I could tell this
chick didn’t take any shit from patients or anyone else. “He’s
wanted for attempted murder and attempted kidnapping, for
starters.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, my God. What a
dirtbag. Well,” she looked around and lowered her voice and said,
“then I hope that infection hurts like a son of a bitch right about
now!”

I chuckled and nodded. “I have no
doubt we’ll find him again once he realizes that.”

“Anything else, Officer?” she asked.
“I gotta make rounds.”

I ignored the officer comment and
said, “No, thank you, Ms. Green. Here’s my card if you can remember
anything else. Or just call Tampa PD. They know how to get ahold of
me.”

She shoved my card into a small pocket
on the shirt of her scrubs and then pulled a piece of gum seemingly
out of thin air and popped it into her mouth. With a wink she left
me to go do her rounds.

I liked that chick.

I interviewed a few more nurses and a
couple of orderlies, and they either did not see anything, or they
gave the same account Adria had. What they all had in common was
asking why Shane had to be guarded. I found it amusing, but gave
them all the same vanilla answer I’d given Nurse Green.

Once finished, I got into my car and
took off toward the office. The anger at Watson escaping began to
bubble up inside of me again. I raked my fingers down my beard and
then punched the steering wheel. “Fuck!”

As much as I wanted to place blame, I
really couldn’t. Watson and his cronies weren’t as stupid as they
looked. Well maybe they were, but they sure had a set of balls on
them. But why spring Watson from custody? Why didn’t they just take
off and go into hiding until it all blew over? An idea hit me and I
floored the gas pedal so I could get back to the office.

I sighed thinking of Rayanne. I hoped
she didn’t have to get back on the stand today. I wanted to be
there when she did. Make sure nobody harassed her. I wanted to
watch her get into the government sedan and be taken safely home,
but I didn’t. I couldn’t. It was well past 5 p.m. now and I knew
court was already out.

I parked and sprinted up the steps to
the second floor and went straight back into the intelligence
research specialist’s office. This is where all the guys and gals
who support the agents sit all day. We call them “IRSes” and when
we need a quick errand done, like looking up a license plate number
or running a guy, these are our go-to people.

“Hey, Smith,” I said, going straight
to my favorite specialist. “Can you get ahold of the Pinellas
County Jail and get some phone records pulled?”

He set his cell phone down and looked
up at me. Pushing his black framed glasses up further on his nose,
he cracked knuckles littered with tattoos that stretched over his
hands and I presumed all the way up his arm, although I wasn’t sure
since his plaid dress shirt was only rolled to the elbows. The
sides of his head were shaved and the lights glinted off the gel
that slicked back the overgrown portion at the top. “I can just get
into the system and check.” He typed quickly on the computer,
seeming happy to have a job to do. I bit back a laugh at him. He
was so damn awesome.

Typing quickly, he stopped and looked
up at me with wide hazel eyes. “What’s the prisoner’s
name?”

“Elmo Watson.”

He began typing while I stood in the
small, windowless room with five other specialists. Smith murmured,
“That old man is so going to die in prison.”

I gasped. “Wow. Why do you say
that?”

“I’ve been watching the courtroom
cameras. That geezer is so guilty. I can just tell by his
mannerisms. Okay what date do you need?”

“Go back three days and tell me which
numbers he’s called.”

The county jail had finally adapted
the same system the federal prisons had in which the inmates had to
add numbers to their phone lists and could only call approved
numbers, and had to pay by the minute to talk to them through money
on their personal inmate accounts. Which was usually added on by
outside funds from friends and family.

“Okay, he calls the same number a lot.
Hold on, let me run it real quick.” He clicked the mouse and we
both looked to his other computer screen and up popped a name and
address. “Emily Watson, 1855 Summer Court…”

“That’s the wife. Any
others?”

“Yeah, there’s another here. It’s not
a local area code. Let me run it.”

He again clicked over to another
program and ran the number. It came up unavailable. “Prepaid
cell.”

“Fuck, that’s what I thought. Okay,
any others?”

“No. Just the wife and that
one.”

I blew out a breath. “Okay write down
the prepaid number for me and send me the audio on those
calls.”

Smith jotted the prepaid number down
on a sticky note. “Anything else, Knight in Shining
Armor?”

I lifted an eyebrow at him. “Are you
Jack-N-Jill?”

“Maybe, big guy.” He laughed and went
back to whatever he’d been doing on his phone.

I went to my desk and hung my jacket
over my chair. I picked up the desk phone and dialed the agent’s
number who was watching over Rayanne to check up on her. I couldn’t
help myself.

The agent didn’t seem to bat an eye at
my call, and I realized that this particular agent did witness
protection detail almost all the time. I guess some people actually
liked it. When I thought about it, if you really had no family
around and liked to travel, I suppose it would be for you. And
while I fit those categories, I really had no patience for
babysitting details. Especially after what had happened with
Rayanne. As strong as I thought I was, it was clear I was weak when
it came to beautiful, helpless women.

But she really wasn’t that helpless.
If I recall, she had resisted our help, but after a while, death
threats and scary phone calls will whip anybody into submission and
accepting help.

“Dockins,” he answered.

“This is Hawthorne. I’m just checking
on the vic. She good?”