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She pushed away from the console and let out a long breath. “I’m sorry.”
He jumped from his chair. “Don’t be sorry. Just tell me what the fuck is going on. My hospital is a war zone.”
A loud ding sounded from her laptop. She pushed back to the console and slammed her fingers into several keys.
He gripped the back of her chair and leaned over her shoulder. “What’s that?”
“An email with video footage from the mountain.” She clicked on the link. “I think the guy who clipped me in the forehead with his snowboard this morning was Logan.”
“What?” The news backed him up a step. “You said you recognized him, but I thought you were just trying to keep him talking.”
“Logan’s friends said he’d met a man in the parking lot of the ski resort who’d given him cash to do a job. I’m thinking that job was to hurt me. I asked a friend to procure the video so I canbe absolutely sure. The guy who clipped me had goggles and a helmet on, but the goatee and his build were the same as Logans, and the board he carried was a Shredder.”
Cannon stared at the video she fast-forwarded through. Between the speed and the white, glistening snow, his eyes burned. “It’s not a coincidence you wound up in my ER today, is it?”
“No.” She slowed the video and tapped on the screen.
Sure enough, the teen he’d known as Shred stood in the snow staring at Rosalie. When she reached for her snowboard on the rack, he pulled his out and whirled to hit her.
“What is this all about?” The postage-stamp-sized room only allowed for a few steps of pacing, but he did it anyway.
“Like Malgor’s card said, it’s his new game. He’s escalating. That means?—”
He jammed his hands in his pockets. “I know what escalating means.” It meant things were spiraling out of control like cancer when it reached stage four, and there was nothing left to do but put out fires and wait until the blaze consumed everything. “Is this another message? Like the roses?”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his fingertips against his throbbing temples. “I don’t get it. The roses were a direct message for you. Why target Annie?”
“I don’t know, but Annie wasn’t targeted at random. Logan was sent to shoot the snowman nurse. I didn’t see any other nurses in the ER with snowmen on their scrub tops. Did you?”
He shook his head as the door flew open and slammed against the wall.
Wulf filled the frame. His clenched jaw and angry gaze made the big bear—not the teddy sort sold in the gift shop, but the brown, deadly kind—appear even more formidable than usual.
“I was right. The sons of bitches tampered with the surveillance cameras.”
Cannon hung his head and whispered, “Fuck.” He slammed both hands on the console. “Fuck.” He spun to Rosalie. “I should have never listened to you. I should have paid the ransom and sent you on your way before any dead flowers or gunmen were sent to my doorstep.”
She pointed to the time on her laptop. “But it’s not midnight. Malgor’s pattern is to double the ransom if the deadline isn’t met. He never makes any moves before the deadline.”
“I’d say attempted murder is about as big of a move as you can get. Are we a trial for his new way of terrorizing?” The only trial Cannon should be worried about was the drug one they might lose. “You said it yourself that terrorists have no honor. Well, you were right. What makes you think he’d honor a deadline?”
Annie peeked her head in through the open door. “Dr. Ford, you’re needed in the ER.”
He tensed under the additional pressure. He didn’t bother to ask if another doctor could attend to whatever trauma was being brought in. Annie wouldn’t have summoned him if it wasn’t critical.
Rosalie grabbed his forearm. “Tonight would have happened even if you’d paid the ransom, Cannon. New game.”
“I don’t have the luxury of learning how to play. Clean your mess up before someone else dies.”
Thirty minutes later,Rosalie swiveled her head away from her laptop as the door to the security office opened behind her. “Find any evidence of who tampered with the security cameras?”
Wulf shook his head as he shrugged off his coat and threw it on the hook. It fell to the floor. As he bent to pick it up, Rosalie spotted the outline of his knife in his pocket. The air grew hotter as her scar burned.
Wulf’s not going to stab you. He’s one of the good guys.
She pulled at the collar of her soiled shirt and looked at the two other good men who entered the room. Cannon and Grady consumed the small space. The knowing glance between them narrowed the walls. “What’s with the look?”
