Brandt remained closer, speaking with one of the nurses.
Something sharp like a pin prick pierced Cate’s shoulder. She reached up to find out what it was.
Her vision blurred, and her knees buckled. Thankfully, there was a wheelchair behind her. She sank into it. Someone threw a hospital blanket over her as her vision went from blurry to gray. The chair moved, rolling down the corridor, away from the nurses and doctors.
And Draco.
Gray faded to black.
Chapter 13
As soon as Draco entered Marcus’s room, he assessed the situation. Marcus was exactly as he’d left him moments before.
Crusher held the door open for a moment, only to have a nurse bump into it, wheeling a patient on a gurney out into the hallway. At the same time, one person performed CPR, another forced air into the man’s lungs and more scurried around, doing what medical personnel do in an emergency situation. “What’s happening out there?”
“Code blue. I thought Sterling might have gotten to Marcus.”
“No change here.”
Draco pulled the door open and had to wait for the people pushing the gurney to move out of the way before he could step out into the hallway.
“Draco,” Inspector Brandt rushed toward him and laid her hand on his arm. “Where’s Cate? Please, tell me she’s with Marcus.”
Draco scanned the hallway, quickly emptying of medical staff as they loaded the gurney on the elevator and the doors closed. He ran to Sanders’ room. Fearghas hadn’t seen her since they’d run out moments before.
Brandt called security. With the help of hospital staff, they searched the building from top to bottom.
Cate was gone.
Draco stood in front of the hospital, staring out at the maze of streets and buildings that was Zurich. “This is my fault.” His voice came out flat and dead. “Safety was my job. I left her for a moment in the hall. Now, she’s gone.”
Brandt shook her head. “She was right behind me. And then she was not.”
“We need to get back to headquarters,” Draco said and took off running for Brandt’s car in the parking lot.
Lena Brandt drove like a race car driver to get them back to the BPI headquarters in record time. Draco texted Hammer on the way, letting him know what had happened.
Hammer went to them as they entered the conference room. “We’ll find her.”
Draco wasn’t so sure. Sterling was a desperate man, a loose cannon ready to explode. What was to keep him from taking out his anger on Cate?
Dmytro’s phone chimed. He read the screen and went pale under his white hair. “It’s a message from Ms. Cate’s burner to the office number I gave her.” He brought the message up on the overhead monitor.
A photograph appeared of Cate, unconscious, slumped in a chair, wrists zip-tied, a folded newspaper in her lap with the current date. Beneath it were three lines of text.
Restore the nine million to the account I provide. You have until midnight. When the funds clear, she walks. If they do not, or if I see a badge, you get her a piece at a time.
Draco’s vision grayed around the edges. He forced himself to breathe through it, the way he’d worked through worse. When he could see clearly again, he was very calm and very cold, the version of himself that frightened people.
“He’s telling us he owns the money,” Draco said.
“It is a confession,” Brandt agreed quietly. “It is not one a court will hear from a text message. But it tells us everything.”
“We can’t pay him.” Draco straightened. “He has no intention of letting her walk. The second that money clears, he’ll kill her. She knows his face and his voice, and she’s the last thread he has to cut.”
“He can’t let her go,” Hammer agreed.
“So, we don’t pay him.” Though he wanted to do anything, give everything, to get her back, returning money wasn’t the answer. Cate’s voice was in his head, everything she’d taught him in two weeks about how she thought. The case is mine. You have to remain quiet. He wasn’t going to be quiet now. “We give him a reason to come to us. We give him all of it. In one room.”
