Grunting, Harvey peeled the duct tape binding his ankles with his left hand. His right arm wouldn’t respond and he hoped the nerve bundle wasn’t irreparably damaged.

He sensed a presence behind him.

“I called nine-one-one.”

He looked toward the hotel room. A woman in a white bathrobe stood in the broken-out sliding-glass door.

“Ma’am, it’s best if you stay in your room.”

“I was an ER nurse for eleven years.”

“I can’t ask you to get involved.”

She stepped over the broken glass. “You’re dressed in SWAT gear. Are you a police officer?”

“No, ma’am, I’m not.”

“Good guy or bad guy?”

He managed a smile. “Depends on whose side you’re on.”

“I’d better control that bleeding for you.”

“There’s a trauma bag in the trunk of my car. I’ll get it.”

Ignoring the fire in his shoulder, Harv hurried toward his Mercedes. Halfway there he pulled his phone and made a call.

***

Nathan couldn’t close the distance. His feet were slowing him down and Montez appeared to be in good physical shape.

Twenty yards further ahead, the driveway forked. If Montez chose right, that would take him past the main entrance, with more light and the potential of being seen. Predictably, Montez veered left toward Gleason Road and disappeared from sight.

That forced Nathan to slow down and check the blind spot before continuing. Putting on the brakes made his feet even worse, but he had no choice. He crouched down and moved forward through a small landscaped area near an entrance gate. No sign of Montez. Gun first, he sprinted to the corner of the structure and used the cover of a large palm to peer toward West Mission Bay Drive.

Damn it. Montez continued running at full tilt, now more than a hundred yards ahead. And the police siren sounded closer. Not police. Fire department. He heard the distinctive blast of an engine’s air horn. Fire was better, they wouldn’t have guns. He knew something of procedure and believed they’d have to stage away until SDPD arrived. If Montez also knew that, he might take time to set up an ambush. Steeling himself, he began running again.

Nathan’s foot pain had reached critical mass. Some of the cuts had clearly opened wider during the run, making the pain crippling. Frustration flared and with it, anger. And a long-suppressed memory of being bullwhipped in front of a crowd of weeping women and children. The blind hatred at being helpless to stop it had consumed his soul, like fire on flesh. It was then that the other first emerged, subverting his conscious self and quite literally saving his sanity, and probably his life.

The other.