had a bad feeling about this. First Trevor Lewis; now Matteo? What the hell was going on?
Nick slowed his pace, raised his right hand and motioned Harlan to the other side of the entrance before he sucked up next to the door frame and glanced inside.
The small room was empty except for a row of soda and snack machines ablaze in fluorescent light.
“Nothing,” Harlan said, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t know how, but he must have gotten past us.”
Relaxing his stance, Nick stepped through the entrance and surveyed the room for hidden nooks and crannies, still unable to shake the worry surging in his veins. Where was Matteo Soarez? He’d never leave his post.
Frustrated, Nick pulled out his cell phone and dialed Matt’s number.
Over the drone of the machines, he swore he heard a muffled ringtone. “Do you hear that, Harlan?”
Harlan stopped in his tracks. “Yeah.”
“Where’s it coming from?” A wave of desperation floated Nick along the bank of vending machines as he listened to the familiar ringtone grow louder. At the end of the processional, a cooler filled with premade sandwiches stood silent and dark. Unplugged?
In an instant, reality jolted through Nick on the heels of one last ringtone before a beep signaled one missed call.
“Damn,” he whispered as he stared into the corner between the cooler and the wall. Into the narrow gap where Matteo Soarez was crushed against the wall with a black hood over his head.
“It’s Matt! Help me move this!” Nick and Harlan worked in unison, holding on to the cumbersome machine, pulling and rocking it until the space opened several inches.
Nick reached in and snagged Matt’s limp arm where it hung at his side.
“Matt, buddy. Can you hear me?”
Matteo groaned.
A good sign in Nick’s mind. “We’re going to get you out of there. Hold on.”
Harlan jockeyed the cooler case, opening the crack another inch, just enough that Nick felt Matt’s body give in the tight space.
“That’s it! A little more.” Inch by inch, he dragged Matteo out of the crevice and lowered him to the floor.
Fingering the knot of cord that held the bag in place over Matt’s head, Nick prayed that it hadn’t also strangled his buddy in the process. How long had he been pinned? How long had he been deprived of oxygen?
The knot came free and together he and Harlan pulled the bag off Matteo’s head. He blinked against the overhead lights and mumbled underneath the strip of duct tape over his mouth.
Peeling up an edge, Nick stripped the tape off. Matteo let out a stream of profanity that echoed against the walls of the cubical. “Are you okay?” Nick asked, staring at the blazing red mark around Matt’s mouth and the taser burn on his neck.
“I’ll live.”
“What happened?” Harlan rocked back onto the floor.
“Somebody jumped me from behind.” Matt sucked in three gulps of air in a row and sat up. “Got me with a Taser, shoved me into the corner and proceeded to squash me like a grape.”
“Did you get a look at him?” Nick rose to his feet; Harlan followed. Bending down, they each put an arm around Matteo and helped him stand.
“No. It happened too damn fast. One minute my soda was dropping, the next it was me. I did get one punch in, but it felt like I’d slugged an oak.”
“Big guy, huh?” Speculation laced through Nick’s mind. The description of a powerful perpetrator coincided with Harlan’s description of the man he’d seen getting into the elevator. “Could be the guy we saw running across the parking lot.”
Together they helped Matteo out into the corridor.
“I’ve got this,” Matt said as he got his legs working and shrugged off their help. “What’s up with Lewis?” He nodded toward the commotion down the hall.
“Coded half an hour ago. They’re working to save his life right now.” Nick spotted Nolan gesturing in their direction. “Come on. Maybe they’ve revived him.”
They walked back down the corridor and stopped next to Nolan in the doorway of Trevor Lewis’s room. He looked up and shook his head, his mouth set in a grim line.
From inside, behind a privacy curtain, Nick clearly heard a male voice above the hum of a heart monitor and the whoosh of air being forced into Trevor Lewis’s lungs through a bag valve mask.
“Stop CPR. Check the monitor.”
“Still a flat line, Dr. Karnahan.”
“I’m going to call it. Time of death, 5:41 p.m.”
Chapter Three
Nick fidgeted in his chair as he glanced around the conference table at the CSaI team members: Nolan Law, Parker McKenna, Matteo Soarez, Wade Coltrane and Harlan McClain. They were all officially in battle mode after the events at Holy Cross Hospital, and their motto—For Country; For Brotherhood; For Love—never rang more true. Too bad their boss and mentor, Bart Bellows, was out sick, battling a persistent case of bronchitis.
He swallowed, trying to alleviate the knot of gratitude that squeezed in his chest. He had Bart to thank, along with every man sitting at the table right now. Because of them, he was almost whole again. He reined in his emotions and tried to focus on the case at hand. Trevor Lewis’s autopsy report was decisive. He’d been injected with a large dose of potassium chloride, enough to stop an elephant’s heart, and the hospital’s surveillance footage had confirmed the man they’d seen running across the parking lot had been in Lewis’s room moments before Nolan and Harlan arrived. He’d also been the one who followed Matt into the vending-machine room and tried to make him a human pancake with a sandwich cooler.
“None of the vehicles Nick and I spotted came back with an owner who matched the perpetrator’s height and build. We’ve got nothing.” Harlan leaned back in his chair.
“So what do we know about Trevor Lewis, other than someone wanted him dead before he could talk to us?” Nolan Law questioned from his seat at the head of the table where Bart usually sat.
“From a simple background check we know he spent a couple of years in Iraq,” team member Wade Coltrane said. “Other than that, he’s flown under the radar. Sheriff Hale has agreed to release Lewis’s personal effects to us tomorrow morning since no one has come forward to claim them. It includes his cell phone. We should be able to find out who he’s been communicating with. If we get lucky, a name will pop.”
Nolan nodded. “Good work. Parker, I want you, Matteo and Harlan to double your protection and surveillance efforts on Governor Lockhart. She’s planning to spend a considerable amount of time this month out at Twin Harts Ranch rather than in Austin. She’ll be here right up until Thanksgiving. Bart has given us carte blanche to do whatever it takes to keep her and those around her safe.” Nolan shoved
