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He jumped out of the car and shouldered his way through the crowd, peering over everyone’s head. The EMTs raised the gurney and started wheeling it toward the open doors of the ambulance. A white sheet was pulled up to a woman’s chin, but not over her face. Mike’s gut knotted when a tumble of red curls spilled over the side of the gurney.
With his heart thudding in his chest, he made his way back to the illegally parked car with Claire in the driver’s seat, her head bowed.
He slid into the car next to her and slammed the car door. Punching his fist into his palm, he swore. “Damn. It’s Fiona. She looks badly beaten, but she’s not dead. Thank God, she’s not dead.”
Claire put the car in gear and squealed away from the curb, glancing over her shoulder.
She took the next turn hard and then gunned the sedan on the straightaway.
“Claire?” Mike drew his eyebrows over his nose. “Are you okay? It was Fiona on that stretcher.”
“I know.” She plunged her hand into the cup holder and swung a thumb drive from its ribbon. “But we got the goods anyway.”
Chapter Fourteen
Mike snatched the drive from her fingers. “How the hell did you get this?”
“While you were on the sidewalk, Madam Rosalee came up to the car window and gave it to me.”
“Madam Rosalee?” He drove the heel of his hand against his forehead. “Now I’m really confused.”
“She didn’t have much time to talk. You can imagine she wanted to get out of there, but she told me she’d had a bad feeling about Fiona when she left her place—that dangerous aura.”
“Yeah, or maybe she just eavesdropped on our conversation.”
“Whatever.” Claire flicked her fingers in the air. “She went to Fiona’s office on the pretense of delivering her astrological chart and told her that if she hung on to that thumb drive I gave her, she’d be in mortal danger. She assured Fiona she’d get the drive to me.
“Fiona told her to give it to us when we pulled up to the curb, that she’d wanted to leave the office early anyway since it was her last day before the holidays. Madame Rosalee stopped for coffee to wait for us when all the commotion started. Someone had discovered Fiona in the stairwell, beaten to a pulp, and called 9-1-1.”
“My God. They knew. Somehow they knew Fiona had taken that info. Maybe Trey Jensen placed a tracer on Correll’s computer.” He made a fist around the thumb drive. “But we got the info anyway.”
Claire bit her lip. “Whoever beat up Fiona didn’t find anything on her. They might believe they were mistaken.”
“I doubt it, Claire. They know she took something, and they may know that we have it. I just hope to God she pulls through.”
“H-how did she look?”
“Bad, had an oxygen mask over her face, but I didn’t hear anything about her getting shot or knifed.”
“Thank God for small favors.” She huffed out a breath. “After what Fiona paid to get this out, I hope there’s something on it we can use to nail Spencer for sure.”
“So do I. I’m also hoping there’s something about the Christmas Day attack. We need all the help we can get on that.” He tapped the GPS on the car’s control panel. “Do you know the way back to the Bennetts’?”
“I have a terrible sense of direction. Punch it in.”
Mike entered the address into the GPS and checked his watch. “We’ll check on Fiona later when they get her to the hospital.”
The voice on the GPS directed her to take the next turn, and Claire turned down the volume. “Do you think she told her attacker about the thumb drive? About us?”
“Fiona is a pampered admin assistant in a senator’s office.” Mike traced the edges of the thumb drive. “I think she told them everything and would’ve given up the drive if she’d had it on her, and I don’t blame her for it at all.”
Claire squeezed her fingers around the steering wheel as a sick feeling seized her gut. “But she didn’t tell them about Madam Rosalee, or they would’ve gone after her. She didn’t tell them about the handoff at five o’clock or we would’ve seen someone—emergency vehicles or no emergency vehicles.”
