They turned to see Matt and his grandmother standing in the door. The boy stood back for a moment, terrified at the sight of his mother’s bruised neck and face.

“It’s okay, Matt.” Smiling, Bennett pushed the button on her bed, allowing her to sit up more. She held out her hands.

Matt stepped toward her, hesitating as if he were still afraid to touch her. “Mom, what happened?”

Bennett took his hand in hers and pulled him toward her. She wrapped her arms around him, and he relaxed against her, sobbing softly. “Just a few scrapes and bruises, baby.”

The boy tightened his hug, causing Bennett to wince.

Matt drew back. “Did I hurt you?”

“Nope,” she said as she smoothed his hair out of his eyes. “It’s just what I needed.”

He stood outside the back entrance to the hospital, a cigarette in hand. He had showered in a cheap motel room that only required cash and no identification and had changed into scrubs that he had stolen from the assisted living facility. Anyone who saw him now would think he was staff taking a smoke break. All he had to do was wait for the back entrance to open and slip inside.

He knew Macy and Nevada were there with Brooke. It wouldn’t be easy to grab Macy, but he had the element of surprise. People let down their guards in hospitals, assuming with all the nurses and doctors that they were perfectly safe.

The side door swung open, and he tossed down his cigarette and sauntered up to the door, holding it for a maintenance worker pushing out a trash can.

“Thanks, man,” the worker said.

“No problem.”

Stepping inside, he let the door close behind him. He moved to the staircase, where there would be less risk.

It had been less than twelve hours since they’d brought Bennett here, so she was likely still on the third floor. All he had to do was lure Macy near the stairwell or an empty room. He wasn’t interested in playing this time. This time, he had one simple goal.

To kill Macy Crow.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Friday, November 22, 9:00 a.m.

As Macy and Nevada walked toward the front doors of the hospital, she was anxious to leave. To be out in the fresh air and away from the buzz of fluorescent lights, the rattle of wheelchairs, and the hurt and sickness.

Just as the automatic doors swung out and Nevada stepped through, Macy’s phone rang. She stopped and glanced at the unknown number. “Agent Macy Crow.”

“This is Dr. Myers,” he said. “I’m one of Brooke Bennett’s doctors. She asked if she could speak to you alone for a moment.”

“Alone?” Macy asked, glancing at Nevada. “She was with her son.”

“He’s about to leave, and she would like to see you about something that she remembered.”

“Sure, I’ll be right back in.” She glanced toward Nevada and smiled. “Let me see what this is about, and I’ll join you out front in a few minutes.”

Nevada frowned. “What’s going on?”

“Brooke might have recalled something. She wants to talk to me.”

“I’ll come with you.”

She held up her hand, pressing gently against his chest. “She said she wanted to see me alone. I’ll see what it’s about and text you.”

He looked past her toward the lobby, scanning for any threat. “See you in a few.”

She took the elevator back up to the third floor. As she stepped off, she walked past the nurses’ station toward Bennett’s room. In the distance, she spotted Matt stepping into the hallway. He looked up at her, his expression troubled as he rubbed his eyes. Even from this distance, she could see he had been crying.

Her attention on the boy, she didn’t notice the man in scrubs who quickly came up beside her. In one instant, he bodychecked her into an empty room.

She stumbled and quickly righted herself as she reached for her weapon. But a man’s right hook connected squarely with her jaw and dropped her to her knees.

Pain exploded in her head. When her injured knee hit the tiled floor, more agony rocketed through her body and took her breath away. Rough hands jerked her weapon from its holster and sent it sliding under a bed and out of her reach.

Macy struggled to take several short, quick breaths and draw air into her lungs. He flipped her on her back and buried his knee into her chest. Only then did he wrap his hands around her throat and begin to choke her.

Her attacker wasn’t hiding behind a mask this time. She was looking into Kevin Wyatt’s eyes.

Pure hate exuded from him. He didn’t even look human. “You think you are so smart. You think you are better than me.”

Macy dug her fingers into his hands as he tightened his hold around her neck.

“Who’s the weak one now?” His breath hissed warm against her cheek.

She clawed at his fingers and tried to pry them open. Adrenaline jolted her heart, and it raced faster, burning through the oxygen reserves in her lungs.

“One, two, three . . .”

His eyes darkened with a savage lust as her efforts to break his hold failed. She arched her back and kicked her feet, hoping the noise might catch someone’s attention.

“Six, seven, eight,” he whispered.

There was no breath left to pull into her burning lungs. Her heart rammed into her chest and her head spun out of control. It felt like it had in the ambulance in Texas just before she coded.

She blinked, felt her eyes strain, and imagined capillaries bursting. She’d always feared dying in a hospital but never thought it would be like this. She fought to stay conscious.

The room’s door opened. She shifted her gaze to the sight of worn athletic shoes. Her pulse thumped in her throat. She struggled to scream.

“Nine, ten, eleven,” he said.

A boy’s cry for help echoed in the room as the athletic shoes raced toward her. Someone jumped on Kevin’s back.

“Get off of her! Get off!” For a moment, Kevin’s grip loosened, and she pulled in a breath. She realized her rescuer was Matt.

Kevin knocked the boy off his back with such force he crashed hard against the wall. The boy blinked as he tried to stagger to his feet but then fell backward.

Kevin refocused on Macy and retightened his grip. “You’re going to die now, bitch.”

When Nevada had dropped Macy off at the Kansas City airport last spring, Macy had smiled. She’d looked cocky and self-assured as she had passed through security and vanished around a corner. He’d had a bad feeling that day, but had brushed it off. Weeks later she’d nearly been killed in Texas.

When she had disappeared into the hospital moments ago, the same feeling had tightened in the pit of his stomach.

He had ignored the sensation once, but he wouldn’t do it twice. He jogged toward the elevator and caught it right before the door shut. He checked his watch as the elevator opened at the second floor and a doctor stepped into the car. He was less than two minutes behind her. He punched the third-floor button several times until the doors closed. “Come on. Come on.”

Macy had wanted to prove she was still the agent she’d been. She had never liked receiving help from anyone. He understood that drive. And when Ramsey had called with the idea of sending her to Deep Run, he’d jumped at the chance to give her this case. She was smart and savvy. This case had her written all over it. He also knew the cases she would have to chase would keep her away from him fifty weeks out of the year.

Screw it. He had her back whether she liked it or not.

As the elevator doors opened to the third floor, he heard a young boy’s scream. Drawing his weapon, he moved down the hallway, looking in the open rooms for signs of trouble. When the boy yelled for help a second time, he identified the room and pushed through the door. He barely registered seeing Matt struggling to get up. His focus was on the man strangling an unconscious Macy.

As much as Nevada wanted to shoot him, he knew the bullet could easily pass through and hit Macy. He holstered his weapon and in one fluid movement, slid his arm around the killer’s neck. Nevada placed his other hand behind the man’s head and squeezed until the carotid artery closed. The man fought him, trying to reach back and hit him, but Nevada held steady. The man’s thrashing slowed and then stopped.

Nevada saw Matt’s bloody lip and Macy’s swollen face and bruised neck. “Matt,” he said. “Get a doctor.”

The boy blinked and rose. “Okay.”

Nevada loosened his hold as he reached for his cuffs but as he did, Kevin’s eyes opened and his body tensed. Kevin reached back for Nevada’s gun. Nevada reacted instantly, retightening his grip, compressing with maximum pressure. The sounds of alarms in the hallway and nurses calling for supplies drifted in the distance as Kevin strained to get his gun until, finally, his fingers dropped to his side. Nevada reached for his cuffs, secured Kevin’s now-limp arms behind his back.

He shifted his attention to Macy, who lay curled on the floor. Her face was pale and her lips blue.

“Macy!” he shouted as he rolled her on her back.

She didn’t respond. He pressed fingertips to her red and scratched throat. There was no pulse, and she wasn’t breathing.