“No.” He told Troy what happened with her friend Adelaide. “What do I tell her?”
“No easy way. You tell her straight out.” Troy sighed.
“Her sister, Chantal, is in potential trouble. And then there is why Harper was targeted by the same person who killed her friend. Then there’s Adelaide’s husband, Gabriel. I’m waiting for the background check to come back, but something was off.” Kip explained what happened with the death notification. “Troy, she has no one but Chantal. And Chantal is in no condition to cope.” Then he explained the conversation with their parents.
“She has you,” Troy whispered.
Kip was silent for a few moments. “She’s my tenant.”
“You kissed her, right? And you gave her your personal card. Something drew you to her. Then Acrobat the acrobat. If she wasn’t important, you could have let Zayne and Josh to do the Flying Wallenda thing. You, and I mean the corporate you, have a responsibility to Harper and Chantal legally. But, hell, you could have let staff deal with them. You know—delegation, the stuff you filled my ears with.
“Think about it. You are faced with two choices: you go back, tell her, and go where that leads you, or you wash your hands of her and put her in your rearview mirror.”
“I forgot, you’re Dear Abby crossed with Dr. Phil. Hey, why so early for Kieran and Monique?”
“He wants it done before the building is fully occupied. He’s staying at my house. We still have the med room. Eric and Trish are staying to do the care.”
Both men went silent for a few seconds. The silence was suddenly broken by the incessant, steady cadence ofpop, pop, pop, pop.
“Is that what I think I heard?” Troy alarmed.
Pop, pop, pop, pop.
“I gotta go,” Kip said, his gut wrenching.
“Kip. Kip—" Troy’s voice cut off.
Josh withdrew his Smith & Wesson, M&P M2.0 nine millimeter from his back and made it to the doorway. Cracking it an inch, he called inside, “Boss, stay put.”
Not doing that.Gunfire sounded again, this time accompanied by screams. As Kip dialed 911 to report an active shooter situation, he rolled his neck and shoulders. As he checked the code list in his phone, he typed in the right numbers for a lockdown. Shelter in place orders went out.
A guttural growl fell from his lips. The muscles in his neck tightened like ropes. Kip withdrew his weapon and, with his back to the wall, moved slowly and deliberately toward the stairwell and down the steps. From what they could figure, the shooter was on the sixth floor of the eight-floor facility.
Josh took a fast look into the hallway. Closing the stairwell door, he turned to Kip. “One shooter. Full camo. Shooting at anything that’s moving. Two down in the hall.”
Kip dialed 911 again, described the shooter and identified himself and Josh and their clothing. He then did the mental math. The sixth floor held medical patients and an oncology ward. “I’ll go up a flight, cut across and try to make it up behind him.”
More shots sounded as sirens echoed in the distance. “Boss, there goes the element of surprise,” Josh spat.
Kip nodded and headed up the stairs again, his phone vibrating. As he read Josh’s text, he heard a volley of shots.Engaging shooter. Multiple dead and wounded. Firing at hospital staff, not patients. Kill shots.
“Damn it, Hoist. Where are you?” Kip moved up the steps two at a time.
More shots fired. Now the pops were at least a floor above his location. His phone vibrated. “Hoist and I are separated. He reported one well-armed shooter,” he told Mike. “He’s not going to stop on his own.”
Adrenaline coursed through his system as he continued his ascent, encountering a nurse with a gunshot wound to her left chest. Fury combined with the adrenaline. He’d had it.
As pink froth bubbled between her lips, his heart sank. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. “Hang in there, sweetheart.”
Every emergency medicine course he ever took ran through his head. He wasn’t dressed for battle. This was not a war.
Concentrate.Forcing his emotions away, Kip exposed the wound, then dragged her down the hall toward a cart. After ripping the plastic off an isolation gown, he folded it up and covered the hole in her chest with it. When he found tape, he secured it.
Next, he balled up the gown and pressed it on top of the wound. “Hold this tight. Help is coming.”
He opened a door and managed to get her inside a patient room. He admonished the patient to stay put and assured her help would be coming. As the door closed, he saw his own bloody handprint on the door.
A few feet down, Kip found another nurse overcome with a shot to her abdomen. “He’s killing everyone,” she panted. “He blames us for his wife’s death. My patients,” she coughed and cried from pain, fear and loss.
