Every muscle in her body seized up and she couldn’t move.
The security guard kept his weapon at his shoulder as he stalked across the room. When he reached the window of the lab, he pointed his gun at the floor, presumably at Simon.
Ava covered her ears, but the gunfire had finally ceased.
Slinging his weapon over his shoulder, the man gestured to the door. “Open up. It’s okay now.”
Would it ever be okay? She’d just watched a crazed gunman, one of her patients, mow down her coworkers and had barely escaped death herself.
She stumbled toward the door and reached for the first lock with stiff hands. It took her several tries before she could slide all the dead bolts. Then she pressed down on the handle to open the door.
The man, smelling of gunpowder and leather and power, stepped into the lab. “Are you okay, Dr. Whitman?”
She knew that voice but couldn’t place it. Tilting her head, she cleared her throat. “I—I’m not physically hurt.”
“Good.” His head swiveled back and forth, taking in the small lab. “Are there any blue pills in this room?”
She took a step back from his overpowering presence. “Blue pills? What are you talking about?”
“The blue pills.” He stepped around her and yanked open a drawer. “I need as many blue pills as you have in here—all of them.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” She blinked and edged toward the door. Had she just gone from one kind of crazy to another? Maybe this man was Simon’s accomplice and they were both after drugs.
He continued his search through the lab, repeating his request for blue pills, pulling out drawers and banging cupboard doors open.
A crash from another area of the building made them both jump, and he swore.
Taking her arm in his gloved hand, he said, “We need to get out of here unless you can tell me where to find some blue pills.”
“I told you, I don’t know about any blue pills, and there’s no serum on hand either.” Maybe he was after the vitamin boost the agents received quarterly.
He grunted. “Then let’s go.”
“Wait a minute.” She shook him off. “H-he’s dead, right? Simon’s dead?”
The man nodded once.
“Then why do we have to leave? Maybe that noise was the police breaking in here.” Cold fear flooded her veins and she hugged her body. “Are there more? Is there another gunman?”
“He’s the only one.”
“Then I’d rather stay here and wait for the rest of your—” she waved a hand at him “—security force or the cops or whoever is on the way. That could be them.”
He adjusted his bulletproof vest and took her arm again. “We don’t want to wait for anyone.”
Confusion clashed with anger at his peremptory tone and the way he kept grabbing her. She jerked her arm away from him and dug her heels into the floor. “Hold on. My entire department has just been murdered. I was almost killed. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t even know who the hell you are.”
“Sure you do.” He reached up with one hand and yanked the ski mask from his head.
Her eyebrows shot up. Max Duvall. Another one of her patients, another agent—just like Simon.
“Y-you, you’re...”
“That’s right, and you’re coming with me. Now.” He scooped her up with one arm and threw her over his shoulder. “Whether you want to or not.”
Chapter Two
“Let me go!” She struggled and kicked her legs, but Dr. Ava Whitman was a tiny thing.
He could get her to go with him willingly if he sat down and explained the whole situation, but they didn’t have time for that. That could be Tempest at the door right now. He couldn’t even risk doing a more thorough search for the blue pills. He’d have to just take her at her word that there were none at the lab.
Maybe Dr. Whitman already knew the whole situation. Knew why Simon had gone postal. He couldn’t trust anyone...not even pretty Dr. Whitman.
Clamping her thighs against his shoulder, he stepped over the dead bodies littering the floor. When he navigated around the final murder victim in his path at the door of the clinic, Dr. Whitman stopped struggling and slumped against his back. If she’d had her eyes open the whole way, she probably just got her fill of blood and guts.