“If you’re doing this because of my father’s decisions in Afghanistan,” she said, “the joke’s on you. He couldn’t care less about me. He never wanted me, and if you kill me, it will probably be some weird relief for him. In fact, he’s already disinherited me, you know. Wrote me right out of the will. Why? Because I joined the Army and he didn’t want me to.” She really needed to shut up, but chattering seemed to help. Help her anyway.

“I don’t need the sad details of your relationship with the man,” he said in her ear. “Just shut up and keep going. Down to the parking garage.”

Goose bumps pebbled her skin and she shuddered. Paused.

He gave her a harder shove. “Go.”

Most of the people who were being evacuated from the hospital were directed out of the stairwell at the street level. It looked like Gavin was right. They were evacuating the entire building. Helicopters thumped overhead, probably waiting to take surgical patients to a nearby hospital to finish the surgery.

If she continued down, no one would even notice. She obeyed and took the next flight of stairs down. “What is this all about?”

“We’re going to go to your place and get the package your brother mailed to you.”

“The package? What package?”

He hesitated a fraction. “The one your brother mailed to you.”

“I never got a package.”

“Right.”

He didn’t believe her. “It will turn up eventually.” Dr. Kilgore knew Dustin had sent her a package. Was he the one behind all the attacks against her? But how would he even know what Dustin had mailed? Unless Dustin had said something to McCandless and she had passed the word on to Kilgore?

The list of people she could trust kept getting shorter and shorter. And the parking garage door loomed closer and closer.

Time was running out and she needed to do something fast. Defense moves flipped through her mind and she picked a series she hoped—prayed—would work.

Sarah pushed through the door and chose the moment the pressure of the weapon disconnected from the base of her spine. Still gripping the bar of the door, she twisted and swung her leg in a round kick. Her heel landed on his forearm and her would-be kidnapper cried out, losing his grip on the weapon. It clattered to the concrete floor.

Sarah spun and palm-heeled the guy’s chin. His head snapped back and he stumbled sideways, landing on the bottom step in the stairwell. He recovered and dove for the weapon at the same time she snagged it and scrambled back. “Stop! Don’t move or I’ll shoot you!”

He froze. Then laughed. “You? Shoot me?”

Terror raced through her and she said the first thing that came to mind. “I’ve killed one man, what’s another?”