“Anything else?” Ted asked the kid.
“That’s all I remember. Can someone call my mom?” Ryan asked. “Or find my cell?”
“Detective Sanchez will be standing outside your door. He’ll help you reach your mom. If you remember anything else, let him know.”
“I hope Fran is okay. I really do like her, Mr. McCauley.”
I didn’t respond as I walked away. His relationship with my daughter wasn’t important at the moment, but it was good to know that he hadn’t had a hand in her disappearance.
Detective Sanchez stood outside Ryan’s room. “Anything, boss?” he asked Ted, who was typing out a text to someone.
“Ted, I’ll meet you in the parking lot where we left Duke.” I didn’t need to be part of their conversation. I navigated the hallway, banked around a corner, and spotted the Red Sox ball cap first then locked eyes with Josh.
For a brief moment, neither of us moved.
“Zane, right?” I asked for confirmation.
He smirked as if to saythat’s my name.
I fisted my hands, although I was itching to pull out the gun tucked in my lower back. “Where are my daughter and Grace?”
The elevator between us dinged.
The momentary distraction of a doctor and nurse coming out of the elevator gave Josh the opening he needed. He took off running as more hospital staff exited the elevator.
I plowed through them and banked around a corner in pursuit of Josh.
He grabbed a cart of supplies and knocked it over, trying to slow me down. I leaped over the cart, muscle memory from years of chasing my enemies and running from the cops not failing me.
The hallway stretched ahead.
Josh took a sharp turn.
As soon as I rounded the corner, the stairwell door slammed shut ahead.
I shoulder checked the door and briefly came to an abrupt halt. Up or down? I glanced over the railing, catching sight of his red ball cap, then flew down the steps, taking them two to three at a time.
My heart hammered against my ribs, more from rage than exertion.
When I reached the first floor and burst through the doorway, only a surgeon was coming toward me.
“Excuse me, did you see a man with a red ball cap?” I asked.
“He went toward the emergency waiting room,” the doctor said.
I jogged in that direction, and by the time I reached the area, I didn’t see anyone who resembled Josh. I left through the emergency exit and searched the area but saw no sign of him.
Dawn was on the horizon, and the brisk morning air was cooling my sweat-soaked skin.
“Fuck me.” I was seething as I kept scanning the area on my way around the outer perimeter to the main entrance where we’d left Duke.
Still no man with a red ball cap. He probably had taken the hat off.
By the time I reached Duke, Ted was walking out of the hospital.
“Why do you look like you ran a marathon?” Duke asked me.
“I ran into Josh. I had him.” I shouldn’t have hesitated in the hallway. “I lost the fucker.”
