Jimena Grajales, just like his mother, was another bitch who’d cared only for her selfish needs and thought that he could be slapped aside, but he’d shown her who she was messing with. No stinking whore used and then abandoned him.

Especially not his wife.

Chapter 41

41

“Sleep well?”

“Yes.”

Rink eyed me with his mouth downturned. “Sure doesn’t look like it.”

In truth, my sleep had been disturbed by dreams of Jimena Grajales and her boy dying in the street. When I tried to help them, Jimena sat up and riddled me full of bullets. I’d woken lathered in sweat with the sheets twisted between my fists.

“I only got my head down for a couple hours,” I admitted.

“Here.” He passed me a waxed-paper cup the size of a bucket. “Just the way you like it: sump oil with an extra shot of espresso.”

I accepted the take-out coffee gratefully, taking a sip. It was scalding hot and tasted as bad as it looked, but it was just what I needed.

“That stuff’s gonna kill you.”

“Beats a bullet in the skull,” I told him, thinking again of my nightmare.

We were in a nondescript government car. It wouldn’t fool any criminal worth his salt, or Luke Rickard, but it didn’t matter. The car was only a means to an end. Rink drove to allow me both hands to control my super-sized caffeine fix.

The Cedars Medical Center, part of the University of Miami Hospital, is situated in the heart of the city and is a full-service facility providing acute care to more than five hundred patients per day. Alisha had been rushed there after Rickard shot her, but she’d been moved since. There was no way on earth that the FBI Hostage Rescue Team could protect the building or its occupants from an attack by a determined and resourceful killer like Rickard. There were far too many variables to contend with. Many people would die, thousands of dollars’ worth of damage would ensue, and possibly millions in lawsuits would follow. Instead, the seriously injured woman had been taken to a private medical center on the outskirts of Florida City, and a stone’s throw from the Everglades National Park. Smaller location, smaller numbers, easier to defend, that was the thinking behind it all.