Page 83 of Sinner's Secret

“I will thank you.”

The woman smiled at her and walked deeper into the building.

Nika looked at the street again. Yvgeny was still there, no sign of Baz. Baz, who’d apparently played Don Quixote with that truckload of kidnap victims last night. When it came to women in danger, the man was a softie.

A couple of minutes later, Lieutenant Thomas drove up in his car.

She waved and hurried to the passenger door, opening it, and jumping in. She closed the door, put her seatbelt on, and relaxed into the seat with a relieved sigh.

“I am so tired.”

“You look like you need a couple of days in a hospital,” Thomas said as he pulled out into traffic. “Let’s get you looked at by a doctor before we do anything else.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you able to answer some questions?”

“I’ll try.”

“Who took you? Was it that cabdriver?”

“No, it was someone I’ve never met before. There was one guy in charge, who looked like an accountant. I’d never seen him before either. He told me someone had wanted me, specifically.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t explain. All he did was threaten me if I didn’t behave.”

“How did you get away?”

“That was weird,” she said. “The accountant guy had just unlocked my handcuffs, when a fight broke out somewhere else in the apartment. He told me to stay put, then left. I assume to stop the fight. I could hear fighting, screams, shots, then...nothing. I cautiously made my way out. There were the bodies of at least six men, some of them looked like pretzels, but I didn’t stick around in case they had backup. Whoever killed them was gone.”

She watched the streets go by. He’d passed the quickest route to a hospital a couple of streets back.

“Where did you go?” He asked a little too quickly.

He was trying to keep her attention on him rather than where they were going.

Bastard.

“I hid under some trash in an alley. It was too cold to get much sleep.”

“You look...clean.” It was almost an accusation.

“The shelter let me have a shower and gave me some clothes to wear.” She looked at a street sign as they passed it. “Where are we going?”

“Not far. It’s a private medical clinic.”

“I thought you said hospital?”

“A hospital is public, and I didn’t want to subject you to a crowd or the possibility of the press discovering you were there.”

“The press?” she asked. “The media knows I was kidnapped?”

“As you pointed out, we have a leak in our department,” he said as he came to a stop at a red light.

They were nearing the Harlem River.

“The VA hospital isn’t far from here,”

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