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“I need you to open the door,” she said.
Avers didn’t carry a weapon, and he frowned when Maria pulled hers. “You think you’re gonna need that?”
“I hope not,” she answered.
Lifting his master key card to the electronic pad, Avers unlocked the door and pushed it open.
“Stay behind me,” Maria ordered, having no problem now taking the lead. The weaponless Avers grunted his agreement.
Like the other band members, Teag had a luxury suite. Maria padded quietly into the foyer. An unnatural silence greeted her. Slowly, she crossed into the living room with her gun up and finger resting on the barrel.
When she turned toward the bedroom area, her brain momentarily stuttered.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Avers whispered from behind her.
The coppery smell of blood assaulted her noise. Although she’d seen her share of gore in Afghanistan, the dead body of a young woman, sprawled on a hotel room bed with her brains splattered on the wall, didn’t compute. After a second’s hesitation, her years of training took over.
“Step out, call for backup, and let me clear the room,” she said to Avers, slowly advancing toward the bedroom.
Maria’s pulse pounded and a bead of sweat trickled down her temple. Approaching the open bedroom door from an angle, she took a quick look into the room before pulling back. Her mind registered the lack of movement and another female body on the ground, deathly still with blood puddled beneath her head.
Cautiously, she entered the room and threw open the closet. Empty. Only the bathroom remained. Her stomach cramped with dread, not because she thought any threat remained in the room, but because she was terrified of what she was going to find.
When she turned the corner into the bathroom and saw Teag lying on the tile floor, a bright bloom of red on his chest, she thought she might throw up. Instead, she knelt by his side and checked for a pulse. Fully expecting to find none, she was shocked by the faint flutter against her fingertips.
“Avers! Help me! He’s alive!” she screamed.
The next few moments were a blur. Maria shoved her gun into her waistband, snatched a towel from the vanity, and pressed the white cloth against Teag’s wound.
“Hold this,” she ordered, nodding between Avers and the towel. “I need to check the women.”
“Police and rescue are on the way,” he responded, kneeling to take Maria’s place.
With shaking hands, Maria checked for pulses on each of the two still forms, taking care to disturb as little as possible. Nothing. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed Tank. He answered on the second ring.
“We have a situation. Teag’s been shot. Have our team cover the other band members and then get here to room 1510,” she said, rushing back to Teag’s side.
“On it,” Tank said. If he was shocked by her news, the former Ranger didn’t show it. She trusted him to jump straight into operator mode.
“He’s bleeding bad,” Avers said. A fine coating of sweat glistened on the guard’s forehead. “Not good,” he mumbled.
The seconds ticked by. Tank rushed into the room, beating the emergency crew by several minutes. He switched places with Avers, and when Maria glanced up at him, shock filled his normally controlled expression.
When noise filled the hallway, Avers hurried out to meet the first responders. The paramedics entered the bathroom, and Maria and Tank moved out of the way.
“GSW, right upper chest. No exit wound. Pulse faint,” Maria reported, a slight waver in her voice.
The medics worked quickly and efficiently, starting an IV line, hooking Teag up to a cardiac monitor, and intubating him. They loaded him quickly onto a stretcher and hurried out. Maria wanted to follow and ride with him in the ambulance, but she was the team leader and needed to interface with the police, make sure the rest of the band members were safe, and try to figure out what the hell had happened. She sent Tank instead.
“Do not let him out of your sight. I have no idea what’s going on, but I’ll keep you in the loop and get there as quickly as I can,” she instructed.
“Got it,” Tank answered and hurried out.
Maria introduced herself to the officers on scene and gave them all the information she had, which wasn’t much. The women had attended the show, joined Teagan for the after-party, and then accompanied him to his room. Maria had the list of approved backstage guests along with photocopies of everyone’s ID, so they were easily able to identify the two dead women. When the first detectives arrived on scene, she repeated everything again.
When the detectives finished with her, Maria dialed Cam. Heart in her throat, she told him what happened.
“Jake already heard from Fiona. We’re getting on a flight first thing in the morning. Are you okay?” he asked.
“I don’t…I’m not…” She stumbled over her words.
“You’ve given your statement to the police. Go be with everyone at the hospital,” he said.
“Did I miss something, Cam? Are those women dead, and Teag hurt, because I fucked up?” she whispered, unable to stop the tremor in her voice.
“Don’t go there, Maria,” Cam said, his voice soft and full of empathy.
But she couldn’t help herself. She’d been pissed at Teag. Had that distraction made her sloppy? The thought made her stomach churn, but, as she replayed the events of the evening, she couldn’t think of a single moment when she or the team hadn’t followed protocol. Didn’t matter, though. This had happened on her watch, and she wouldn’t forgive herself anytime soon.
