Page 100 of Tag
Harper looked up at me. “If I tell you to move her, you move her.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, which earned a flash of those green eyes. “Don’t ma’am me. I’m thirty-two.”
“Then yes, Harper.” I didn’t smile. Not here. But the corner of her mouth twitched anyway.
Faron’s voice crackled low in my earpiece.“Two at the service corridor. One more posted at ambulance bay. Not maintenance. Waiting.”
Waiting for who,I wanted to ask, but the answer was obvious.
“Harper,” I said, “does this room have a back exit?”
She shook her head. “Only the supply pass-through. But there’s a staff stairwell ten yards east. If we cut through Imaging, we can—”
The curtain ripped open.
The first guy took one step in and froze when he saw me. The second’s gaze skipped over Lindsey and landed hard on Harper, like he’d spotted the linchpin. He smiled without teeth.
“Wrong room,” he said.
“Yeah,” I answered, shifting my weight. “It is.”
Everything after that narrowed to slices.
Faron’s shoulder hit the first guy mid-spine from the blind side, and the man folded like a bad chair. The second reachedunder his jacket, and I was already moving, already closing the space. My hand met his wrist, torqued, pinned. A gun clattered under the bed and Harper kicked it hard enough to send it skidding into the hall.
Lindsey screamed. Aponi’s palm was on her shoulder in an instant, holding her in place, steady and soft.
A third man appeared at the doorway, face tattooed, eyes glass-flat. He saw the mess—his mess—tilt toward us and pivoted to run.
“Go,” Faron snapped.
I went.
The corridor blurred—bleach, shoe squeak, a crash cart left crooked against a wall. The third man shoved through the double doors toward the ambulance bay, but I had Idaho legs and a year’s worth of fury riding shotgun. I caught him at the hinge, slammed him into the wall, felt something in his shoulder give.
“You touch kids,” I said, breath hot in my throat, “and you walk in here like you own the place?”
He spat something I didn’t bother to translate and drove his head toward mine. I angled, let him hit my collarbone, and bounced his cheek off the metal frame. The fight went out of him on a hard exhale.
Sirens wailed outside—real security this time, not a page. I cuffed him with a zip tie from my pocket and dragged him back inside like yesterday’s trash.
When I reentered the bay, Harper had Lindsey’s hands cupped in both of hers, whispering something steady. The first guy lay face down with Faron’s knee between his shoulder blades, the second in a loose, ugly sprawl.
Detective Keane arrived ten minutes late and five minutes after the danger was over. He looked at the pile of men, atus, and lifted his hands in a gesture that said he’d pretend he brought the cavalry if we’d let him keep the paperwork clean.
“Appreciate the assist,” he said.
“Call it even when we get plates on the SUV and eyes on their stash house,” Faron replied.
Keane nodded, already dialing.
Harper finally exhaled and straightened. Up close, I could see the faint tremor in her fingers and the way she forced it quiet. She looked me over like she was checking for damage she’d be expected to fix.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” I said. Which was almost true. “You?”
“Also fine.” She paused. “I hate lying.”
