Hunter waited inside the sedan, watching Abbie walk into the front doors of the Kore Women’s Center in southwest Chicago. Once she convinced him there was no way to breach the computer system without her, he’d called Kore an hour ago and let Abbie speak to the staff to arrange for her admission.
Simpler than ordering a hamburger at McDonald’s for a woman with a rare blood type who was already in Kore’s files and willing to donate blood.
“Park across the street at that pharmacy and angle the car so I can watch the entrance to Kore,” Hunter told the driver, a longtime Thornton-Payne employee who chauffeured for Hunter’s father and Todd. One of the two drivers who could be trusted not to speak of anything that went on during a drive.
Hunter kept an eye on the entrance, fighting to stay in the car and not rush inside to keep Abbie in sight.
He thought he might never get over the look of shock on her face when he questioned her. She couldn’t have been more hurt if he’d backhanded her.
Her answers could be construed as suspicious if he wanted to lump Abbie in with all the women he’d known.
She was in a category all her own. His gut told him so.
What was he going to do with her after he got the files out of Kore?
Gotthard’s warnings pounded in the silence, but Hunter couldn’t make himself believe she was involved with the killer. He should have told her so before she stepped out of the car, should have kissed her to let her know the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.
Instead, he’d sat unmovable as a rock, unable to give her words of comfort. Gotthard’s intel had clouded his ability to see beyond the mission.
Abbie had pulled back after the questions, unwilling to let him touch her in any way, not even to help her from the ambulance to the sedan when they reached the parking lot. He’d refused to consider her suggestion that she pretend to be ill so he could stay once she was admitted. He’d been too angry at the idea of having to let her enter unprotected to realize he was slamming door after door between them.
Her silence should have been warning enough. She finally just listened to his instructions on how to contact him if she had any problem, nodding in reply. He’d kept up a steady monologue, trying not to let his face show how the pain scarring her eyes shredded his insides.
He avoided the topic humming between them like an angry wasp with no place to land.
She had trusted him not to hand her over to strangers and he’d wrecked that trust when he told her she couldn’t go to her mother after they left Kore. God knows he didn’t want to hand her over.
He’d never wanted to keep anything more than he wanted to keep Abbie, but more than that he didn’t want her harmed.
Which was why he hadn’t wanted her inside Kore tonight, but she’d trumped his moves with needing her blood to access the database. She’d pressed her point by reminding him she’d be safe with Kore’s tight security.
Abbie would walk into a burning building if that’s what it took to keep someone dear to her alive.
She loved without restraint.
What would it feel like to be loved that way?
Was that what Eliot had felt for Cynthia? Cynthia hadn’t dated since Eliot died, living quietly with her son.
Had she loved Eliot just as fiercely?
Hunter scrubbed his hand over his face, wiping away things he couldn’t be cluttering his mind with right now. His eyes strayed to his watch, which refused to help by moving any quicker. Three more minutes until he could walk into Kore.
Abbie was safe in there. No men walked around.
No windows on the first floor. The closest buildings were two-story office complexes.
Where was that killer? Hunter had decided Abbie was telling the truth. She didn’t know this psycho, which was why he had to figure out how the killer knew her. The JC killer had left his mark at four places tied to Abbie now that the Montana cabin had been added to the list. How had the killer found Hunter’s place that fast?
He needed Gotthard’s computer skills and Rae Graham’s puzzle-solving ability. If he hadn’t gone off the reservation hunting this killer he’d have their help and the full power of BAD behind him.
His watch alarm beeped. Hunter told the driver, “Drive me to the door.”
When the car reached the curb, Hunter straightened his jacket and stepped out, pausing long enough to tell the driver, “That’s all I need for tonight.”
He didn’t know how he was going to stay inside Kore all night to watch over her and access the computer system, but he was not leaving Abbie until they released her tomorrow morning.