Gotthard would understand that he was asking if Joe had sent a team to bring Hunter in. “No. He needs you to finish this job.” Meaning Joe still wanted Hunter to insert into Kore. “You still good?”
“Sure.” If Joe hadn’t sent a team, then who had come up Hunter’s mountain? “What’d Joe decide? Am I handling all of this or is he inserting a female agent?”
“He said it’s your show. You’ve got eighteen hours. Don’t waste it.”
Less time than Hunter had hoped for, but he let out a breath he was holding. Joe was leaving the plan for accessing Kore’s files in Hunter’s hands. “I hear you.”
“By oh six hundred. Sooner would be in your favor,” Gotthard warned in a clipped tone.
Hunter realized he was hearing more than Gotthard’s usual grumpiness. Something to do with this mission bothered the big guy. “We got a problem?”
“Maybe. Our contact hasn’t checked in since sending the last missive yesterday. I’m… concerned someone might have discovered the connection.”
That would suck in more ways than Hunter could count and explained why Joe was letting him enter Kore solo. Hunter was expendable. If Linette got burned as the mole she’d probably face hideous consequences. The minute she gave up her method of contacting Gotthard the Fratelli would use her to track and expose BAD.
“That may not be the case.” Hunter hoped he was right. “If the contact is involved in the current Fratelli operation the contact won’t be as free to access a computer if others are around. Just have to be patient.”
And hope like hell Linette hadn’t been found out.
“That could be.” Gotthard still sounded as though he’d been hit in the gut with a telephone pole, but he shifted back to business. “Why’d you ask if Joe sent a team? You have unexpected visitors?”
“Yeah.”
“Got an idea who?”
“The list is too long.” Hunter joked wryly rather than mention the JC killer since he hadn’t told BAD that JC was the attacker he’d confronted at Abbie’s. “We’ll kick around possibilities later. Gotta roll right now.”
“One more thing. We checked out Tatum, that doctor taking care of the Blanton woman’s mother. He died early yesterday morning. Police are calling it suicide.”
Shit. Couldn’t there be one bit of good news for Abbie? “How’d he do it?”
“Looks like drugs. The autopsy will tell, but no note. Tatum lost his wife five months ago and was devoted to raising his two small girls. No suicidal tendencies, no note, but the police found a spoon stuck in the body. It’s the JC killer’s.
Police don’t know what they have. We found a spoon at Abigail Blanton’s apartment, too.”
“Our boy is getting around.”
“Abigail’s neck-deep in all this.”
Hunter understood the warning from Gotthard-don’t get tangled up with Abbie-but he couldn’t admit to anyone he was shielding her from BAD as well as the killer. “I’ll keep that in mind. Be in touch.”
He pocketed the cell phone and climbed in the car next to Abbie. She had on a new pair of jeans and a pink knit top from the several outfits he’d bought her in Gillette, Wyoming, before they took off for Chicago. She’d stuffed her clothes plus a few toiletries in an oversized black canvas shoulder bag.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
He gave her credit for not hounding him all the way there. He’d put in a call to her mom’s medical center when they reached Gillette, but her mother had been out of the room having tests. Abbie had deflated at missing the chance to talk to even her sister Hannah. She’d mentioned a second sister, Casey, but just said they weren’t on speaking terms.
He’d told her she could try again in Chicago. The police had to be searching for Abbie by now and BAD would have both the medical center and Kore Women’s Center under surveillance. If he exposed that he had Abbie, he’d have no chance at catching Eliot’s killer or getting into Kore to gain a bargaining chip with Joe. Not if they locked him up. All his training warred against what he’d already put into motion, but every minute they spent on the run could be the last one of Abbie’s freedom. “We’re going to the medical center to see your mother.”
The smile she gave him lit up her whole body. “Thank you.”
“But we can’t go in through the front doors.” Joe’s people would grab her the minute they saw her. When she nodded her compliance, Hunter instructed the driver to head to the Oakbrook Shopping Center west of downtown Chicago, where an associate from Hunter’s CIA days waited. Their sedan arrived at the parking area for the mall close to two o’clock.
He directed the driver to park next to an ambulance sitting by itself, then told him, “If we’re not back by five return to the office.” That gave Hunter three hours. If he and Abbie hadn’t returned by then he wouldn’t be coming back. Plus, he had a meeting with Kore’s senior vice president at four o’clock.
A wiry guy in his thirties with sharp eyes and quick movements climbed down from the ambulance driver’s seat and shook hands with Hunter. “Everything’s in the back.”
“Thanks, Ned.” Hunter rushed Abbie and her purse from the sedan to the rear of the ambulance, then Ned shut the doors.
She sat on the gurney and looked around. “We’re going in as an emergency? Won’t that be a bit high profile?” The vehicle started moving. She fell sideways.
“Not going to the emergency entrance.” Hunter caught her by the shoulders, righting her, and sat down on the gurney. He leaned down and dug through a duffel, pulling out a maternity top. “Put this on.”
“I’m pretending to be pregnant?” She eyed him. “What about you?”
“I’m your doctor.” He discarded his jeans and the faded green T-shirt came off next, exchanging them for a dark suit hanging on the wall of the truck. The white doctor’s coat went on next.
By the time the vehicle parked at the rear of the medical center, he had an ID clipped in place. Abbie had pulled a sleeveless pale yellow maternity top sprinkled with daisies over a long-sleeved white T-shirt that hid a half-round foam piece.
She looked up at him, smiling. His breath caught. She’d make a beautiful mother.
Had Eliot looked at Cynthia and thought that?
Ned opened the back doors, jostling Hunter’s thoughts. “Wheelchair’s inside.”
Hunter jumped down and lifted Abbie to the ground. A short guy with a receding hairline and stained scrubs opened the back entrance for them. For as nonthreatening as the guy appeared, Hunter knew he was not medical personnel but one of Ned’s men who had reconned the facility.
Ned gave Hunter directions to the floor for Abbie’s mother, then said, “You’ve got twenty minutes.”
“Got it.” Hunter ushered Abbie to the wheelchair.
At her mother’s room, she pulled the foam piece from under her blouse, dropping it on the chair, then opened the door.
Where the halls had smelled antiseptic, this room reeked of sickness. Her mother had a semiprivate room, but the second bed was currently empty.
Abbie paused. Hunter looked down to find the misery she’d been holding in check clouding her face. They couldn’t stay long so he gently pushed her forward. “Go see your mother.”
She took a tentative step, then rushed over and carefully hugged her mother, whose eyes didn’t open. Tubes ran everywhere and her breathing was shallow. By the yellow tinge of her skin Hunter assumed her liver was still deteriorating.
He hadn’t told Abbie about Dr. Tatum’s suicide… murder. Hadn’t wanted her distracted while they got inside.
“Where’ve you been?” a female voice demanded.
He turned toward the doorway, where a woman stood, wearing black pants and a wrinkled cotton shirt a darker brown than her straight hair. Similar to the skinny-looking Abbie he’d orignally met.
“I’ve been trying to find out what’s wrong with Mom, Hannah,” Abbie answered.
“Where, pray tell, have you been doing that?” Hannah carried a cup of hospital coffee to a side table and sat it down. “And who’s this? He’s not Mom’s doctor.”