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“You were living in the elevator?” The out-of-order signs were simply there to keep people away.

“When I needed to be close to you.” He slipped the master access card back into his pocket. “See? I protect you. I keep the bad ones away. I’ll get that soldier away from you, too. I almost got him with the car.”

“You almost hit me.”

He pushed two grimy fingers to her lips, silencing her protest. “He’s dangerous. Unpredictable. I know he sees a doctor at the hospital every week. He’s not right in the head.”

Like Cayden should talk. “Daniel has post-traumatic stress. From his time in the service. He’s not sick.”

“He stayed all night at your place. You stayed at his.” He set the knife aside to take her hand. “Did he force you to do something you didn’t want to?”

Horror rolled cold through her belly, then coiled into something harder, angrier. What she and Daniel had shared was special, life-changing. And she wouldn’t allow this man to taint her feelings for Daniel in any way.

She felt a vibration in her pocket and exhaled a deep sigh to cover her reaction. Someone was trying to contact her. Maybe her stepdad. Maybe Daniel.

Someone come find me, she silently begged. She vowed to stay alive, to do whatever was necessary, to buy time for the people she loved to get to her.

“You’re hurt,” she said, reaching over to squeeze his fingers. “May I check your injury? Your color isn’t good, and if I don’t stitch it up or treat your infection, I’m afraid it’ll get worse. I’ve got all the supplies I need in my backpack.” It almost hurt to do it, but she gave him a smile. “That’s how we met, isn’t it? Me nursing you? Will you let me fix you up again?”

Her gaze flicked to the desk. Her backpack sagged open, the blood-pressure cuff looped through a strap, vials in a side pouch glinting faintly.

“Yeah. Okay.” He retrieved her bag and set it on the bed. Then he sat back down, matching her smile. “You were so gentle and kind that day. I’m sorry I had to hurt you. I was just following orders—get the bullet so the cops couldn’t track me. And then the security guard was coming, and I had to get away.” He winced as he reached behind him to sheathe the knife, and then he laid his crudely bandaged, bloody hand in her lap. “I liked it when you touched me. That’s how I knew you liked me, too.”

Ignoring that delusion, she gently untied the bandanna to reveal a gnarly cut across the palm of his hand. “I’ll need to clean this out. I can already see some infection there. You’ll need stitches. I can give you a local anesthetic, so you won’t feel it. Otherwise, working with all that raw skin is going to be pretty painful.” She pushed up the sleeve of his jacket to reveal three more cuts. Any deeper and he would have bled out by now. Polly had worked in the ER long enough to recognize wounds from a knife fight—probably from his own blade when he was killing Tate. “These need my attention, too. You’re lucky I’m here,” she added, although the words grated against her ears.

Cayden brushed a lock of hair off her face and tucked it behind her ear, and she actually managed not to cringe at his touch. “I’m very lucky.”

And then she knew what she had to do.

“I GOT HER!” Burke interrupted Daniel’s pacing and the report Joel Standage was getting from the uniformed officers on the scene at Polly’s condo. “Her cell’s at an abandoned warehouse in an old industrial park near the river.” He pulled up the map on his phone, even as they jogged past the elevator where a team from the crime lab was processing fingerprints, blood droplets and a wadded-up candy wrapper. Daniel was hot on his heels, with Pirate charging down the stairs beside him. “I’ve tried to text her and call, but there’s no answer.”

Daniel immediately punched in her number. It rang and rang until voicemail picked up. “She’s not picking up for me, either. Can you pinpoint her location?”

“Yeah. I’ve got an app.”

Joel Standage was on the landing right behind him. “Get me the address. I’ve got SWAT on the way. I’ll update them on the situation, and they can meet us there.”

The three men reached the garage level and piled into Burke’s SUV. There was some curious sniffing and growling between Pirate and Burke’s German shepherd caged in the back. But both dogs seemed to settle as soon as the siren blared, the lights flashed and Burke hit the pavement and sped down the street.

Daniel clung to Pirate’s collar and the back of the front seat. “They can’t go in there shooting. What if Polly can’t defend herself? There was blood in that elevator. What if he’s incapacitated her? She could get caught in the cross fire. He could use her as a shield.” His mind was racing with possible scenarios and plans to circumvent them, just as he had when his team had prepped for a recon or takedown mission. “Send me in. I’m Special Forces. I can take him down without a shot being fired.”

“Damn it, Travis.” Joel quickly shot down his suggestion. “We’ve got protocols in place for hostage rescues. You can’t just go in and kill a guy with your bare hands and not expect there to be consequences. Besides, you’re military. You know there’s a chain of command.”

“Damn protocols. That’s my woman in there.” Daniel gripped the seat and leaned forward. “Everything in your investigation says this is one guy. If he had an accomplice, like Porter or Emery, he’s already killed him. I can take down one guy. Hell, with my training I can take down three or—”

“Pardon me for sounding like a jerk,” Standage interrupted. “But you’re not at one hundred percent. With a blind side, you never will be.”

Fair point. Wasn’t stopping him from getting to Polly, though. “I’ll take Pirate with me. Then I won’t have a blind side.”

Burke met his gaze in the rearview mirror, then glanced over at the detective. “We could set up a perimeter. Get the guy talking. Keep him distracted while Travis sneaks in. At the very least, he can get eyes on the situation and report back. I’d very much like not to have my daughter get shot.”

Daniel inhaled deeply and found a calmer tone. “Detective—Joel—I need Polly to be okay. I need to take care of her. I promised. I love her. Please.”

Joel shook his head. “You’re going in whether I say no or not, aren’t you.”

“Yes.”

The detective cursed.