Page 63 of The Perfect Accomplice

“What’s the situation?”

“A guy yelled something about being an assassin and shot at Kat. Mitch jumped in to take the bullet, but Kat said she thinks he’s going to be okay. A cop at the scene took out the shooter. Kat thought the killer was acting on Ash Pierce’s orders.”

“Do you think that?” Ryan asked as he ran the last red light before they reached the hospital.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “That woman is capable of anything, but—.”

She didn’t finish her thought. Ryan cut into the emergency room driveway and came to a hard stop.

“You go in,” he told her. “I’ll move the car out of the way and be right behind you.”

“Okay,” she replied. “They’re at bed fourteen.”

She dashed through the main doors and ran over to the emergency room reception window, holding up her ID. “Jessie Hunt, LAPD. I need bed fourteen!”

The nurse buzzed her in without question. Once inside, the woman directed her down the hall.

“Halfway down and to the left,” she said.

“Thanks,” Jessie said. “My partner will be in here any moment. Please send him there too.”

The nurse nodded, and Jessie sprinted ahead, dodging two nurses and someone pushing a patient on a stretcher. The walls had numbers next to each curtained alcove. She passed them quickly and was just to bed ten when a doctor stepped out from behind a curtain just ahead of her. The expression on the man’s face told her all she needed to know. She stopped in her tracks.

“Mitch Connor?” she demanded.

The doctor’s dejected face morphed into confusion.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Jessie Hunt, criminal profiler for the LAPD,” she told him, holding up her ID. “I’m also a good friend of Mitch and his fiancée’, Katherine Gentry. What’s his status?”

The doctor took it all in with surprising calm, a characteristic that she suspected was cultivated by working in this environment.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “but Mr. Connor’s injury was beyond our capabilities to treat. We did everything we could, but unfortunately, he died.”

Jessie stood there silently, trying to process the words she'd just heard. She had no reason to doubt the doctor, but part of her wanted to ask if he was sure. Of course, she knew that was pointless. Instead, she focused her attention on the next question that popped into her head.

“Is Kat in there?” she asked quietly, “Ms. Gentry, I mean?”

The doctor shook his head.

“I’m afraid that she rushed out right after we called the time of death,” he said. “I sent a nurse after her but I’m not sure where she went.”

Jessie nodded. She could understand Kat’s reaction. Her friend had seen all manner of death and destruction, both in Afghanistan and here at home, but this was something else entirely. Just then, a young nurse with short, brown hair walked over.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Rustin,” she said, “But I couldn’t find the patient’s girlfriend. I thought she went to the restroom, but she wasn’t there.”

“Fiancée,” Jessie corrected absently.

“Excuse me?” the nurse asked.

“They were getting married in a few months,” she explained. “Kat was his fiancée.”

“I’m sorry,” the nurse said unconvincingly.

“Which direction did she go?” Jessie asked.

The nurse pointed behind her.

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