The man merely looked at Jason for several seconds, then shifted his attention back to Ami. “Youare a nurse in this facility?”
Ami struggled to keep from trembling. Who did he think she was? She had the white uniform and the damned ID. Couldn’t he see that she was a member of the hospital staff? “Yes,” she said shakily. “Kathi and I came in to check Mr. Olment’s vitals.”
The man said something in that foreign language again and the two guards released her and returned to their posts outside the door. She exhaled the breath she hadn’t even been aware she’d been holding. This was beyond crazy. She rubbed her bruised arms and her knees almost buckled.
Jason bracketed a protective arm around her as if sensing her waning ability to stay vertical. “Would you like to explain what happened?” he asked the man who continued to stare suspiciously at Ami.
“I have obviously made a mistake,” the man said stiffly, his attention now focused on Jason. “You must excuse me.” He turned that unapologetic gaze back to Ami. “I won’t make the same mistake again.”
Fear sliced straight through her. Every instinct warned her that his words were more threat than apology. But how could that be? She didn’t know this man. Why would he threaten her?
Jason extended his free hand. “My name is Jason Stanford. I’m chief of hospital security.”
After a hesitation that lasted far too long for comfort, the man accepted Jason’s hand. “I am Amos Amin. I am head of Mr. Olment’s security,” he returned in a tone that sounded forced, clipped.
“If you have any problems, Mr. Amin, you should let me know first.” There was no question what Jason meant by his statement. He would not tolerate Amin or any member of his security crossing the line he’d just drawn. Jason squeezed Ami’s shoulders. “You ladies through in here?”
“Yes,” Kathi said, her voice sounding almost as shaky as Ami felt.
Ami nodded, dredging up a smile for Jason. As she left the room, she felt Amin’s gaze on her back like a dagger poised to thrust deep. Who the hell was this man? Who was Olment? And why in God’s name did they think they knew her?
Kathi and Ami exchanged unsteady goodbyes at the nurses’ station. She didn’t miss the strange looks the other two nurses stole in her direction. Ami forced herself to go on, immensely grateful that Jason walked with her to the elevator. Her mind reeled with conflicting emotions. She felt scared, angry, and extremely…anxious. Her entire being wanted to deny the episode that had just taken place.
“Do you have a clue what that was all about?” Jason asked as he depressed the call button.
She shook her head, her body literally humming with emotion and a kind of dread she couldn’t quite comprehend. It was as if she should know something that she didn’t. She folded her arms over her middle and tried to warm herself. She was cold. Cold and scared.
“I must remind them of someone they know,” she said finally, then choked out a humorless sound. “On a Wanted poster, obviously.”
Jason laughed at that. “It sure looks that way. Maybe you should avoid this floor until these guys are out of here. I’ll see what I can find out about them. I don’t know why I wasn’t informed of their presence in the first place. I swear, by the time the official word gets to me the guy will probably have been released.” The elevator doors slid open and Jason ushered her into the waiting car.
“I think you’re right,” Ami agreed without reservation. “I’ll just stay in the ER until they go back to their homeland.”
As the elevator bumped into downward motion, Ami closed her eyes and tried to gather her composure. Going to that room had been a huge error in judgment. What were the odds that two men from the same foreign country would think they knew her? She had a very bad feeling that she wouldn’t like the answer.
Ami and Jason parted ways on the first floor. She hurried to the ER, ten minutes late rather than ten minutes early. Had it only been twenty minutes? It felt like a lifetime since she’d gotten on that elevator headed for Olment’s room. And worst of all, she had more questions now than she’d had when she got out of bed this morning. Her little adventure hadn’t proven anything at all.
Well, maybe it had proven something…that she didn’t ever need to take a trip to the Middle East.
CHAPTER THREE
AN HOUR BEFOREher ER shift ended, Ami finally took a break. She hadn’t had a moment to worry about the past or the Israelis on the fourth floor, though, apparently word of the incident had spread like a plague through the hospital. Lunch had come and gone in a flash of sutures and EKGs. The day after the full moon was proving to be worse than the day before.
The one moment of quiet she’d had, she’d used to call home, only to get the machine. She told herself not to worry, that Mrs. Perry had probably taken Nicholas for a stroll. But it was raining outside. Ami then rationalized that just because it was raining downtown didn’t mean it was in her ’burb outside of town. Still feeling uneasy, she’d called Robert and was told that he would be out of the office all day. He never went to work without saying goodbye…and now he was unavailable. This was just too weird. The whole day had been the pits, starting with the incident on the fourth floor and going downhill from there.
A cup of coffee in her hand, Ami sat on the well-worn couch in the nurses’ lounge, closed her eyes and leaned her head back. It felt so good just to sit. And the quiet. Oh, that was heavenly. Jane and Lonnie had made a cafeteria run. The doctor on call was poring over reports in the tiny room designated as the on-call physician’s private sanctuary. The triage nurse was holding the fort at the front desk.
All Ami needed was five minutes of quiet and this cup of coffee. She took a deep swallow and moaned her satisfaction. No one made coffee like Jane did.
The squeak of the door echoed in the quiet and Ami reluctantly opened her eyes expecting to find the triage nurse with word that another onslaught of patients had arrived. To her surprise, a stranger—a man wearing a travel-wrinkled suit—entered the lounge and closed the door behind him. He was tall, she noted. Black hair…nice tan. Ami was pretty sure he wasn’t on staff here, which meant he was probably lost.
Annoyed at the intrusion, she sat up a little straighter. Maybe he was here with a patient. A father or brother or son. She supposed in his distress he could think this was a public lounge.
“May I help you?” she asked.
He just looked at her.
Ami stood, trepidation belatedly setting in. “If you’re looking for the cafeteria, it’s on the opposite end of the building. This is the nurses’ lounge.” When he continued to stand there staring a hole through her, she added a bit more firmly, “I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
