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The bag had a side zipper, rather than on top. The teeth snagged on her shirt sleeve and he tugged at it. Frustration gnawed at him under his skin when it refused to budge. He jerked so hard, the damn thing broke.
His team leader gave him an evil glare then shot a furtive glance at the book that had fallen to the floor. Beside it was a plastic wrapper.
Ian retrieved both, his gloved fingers slipping the items into an evidence bag. He set the bag on top of the doctor’s stomach.
Memories rushed back. The way she’d forced him to face his emotions after the hardest missions. How she’d refused his advances once it became clear he was desperately in love with her. She’d been the ultimate challenge—his greatest mountain to climb. Session by session, he’d worked on her as much as she had on him.
In his mind, he heard her laughter when he tickled her, once more saw her bare skin beckoning to him. The way she’d moaned his name, begged him to bring her to climax again and again, made his chest tight.
She’d been there for him each and every time he’d returned from a mission. She’d listened to all of his doubts and fears, and never once judged him. She’d lifted the burden of his childhood secrets, sharing that weight, and helping him get over a bad case of PTSD.
In the dark hours, after he’d accidentally killed her, he’d cried. Raged against himself. Nearly ended it all because of what he’d done.
“Leave it.” Ranger was glaring at him again. Ian hadn’t even realized he was still trying to close up the zipper. The guard held out a clipboard and Ranger took it, signing off on the form. “The autopsy report will be emailed to those listed within seventy-two hours,” he told the man, deadpan. As if he did this every day. “Hope the rest of your night is quiet.”
The guard groused as he accepted the clipboard. The short, fat man stood in the opening, the room too small for all three of them, plus the gurney. “Me, too. Fucking prisoners.”
Ian clamped his jaw. Poor guy, having to attend to a dead woman’s body instead of dozing off in front of the security cameras behind locked doors. Rough life.
Since the zipper was broken, he left the top of the bag’s material draped over her. Ranger gripped the other end of the gurney and they headed out. As they bumped over the cell’s threshold, one of her hands slid out from under the fabric.
Shit, even as a corpse, she just wouldn’t cooperate. He tucked it back next to her side.
The wheels made a soft swishing noise on the worn tiles. Other prisoners watched with vacant eyes as they whisked her away.
Ian was sweating by the time they made it through the multiple lockdown areas and out into the night. He didn’t miss Ranger taking a deep, steadying breath himself. Rumor around SFI had it that the guy had broken out of at least three, possibly up to eight various international prisons. Places so bad this one looked like an amusement park.
Together they loaded their cargo into the rear of the van disguised to look like the coroner’s vehicle. ‘Hell On Wheels’ someone had named the transport, and they all called her Hell. Still feeling the eyes of the guards on them and avoiding looking directly at the security cameras dotting the stations and fences, they climbed into the front and Ranger wheeled them out.
They had to cross several checkpoints, all of which went smoothly until the very last. The guard inside the hut not big enough to turn around in, read over their paperwork with a slow, deliberate eye. He asked for their IDs, even though he’d already seen them when they’d entered and had called a number to verify they were legit.
Ian thought he might pull his weapon, hidden in the door and shoot the guy, especially when the man insisted on seeing the deceased.
“I’m about forty-eight hours short on sleep,” he growled at the guard. “What the fuck you want to see a dead body for? That get you off, or something?”
Ranger shot him another quelling glare. “It’s no problem,” he ground out, before he exited the cab and walked the guard to the rear. He opened the double doors. “See? Only our corpse.”
Ian peeled his weapon from its hidden compartment when the asshole climbed in and shone his flashlight all around, ending with checking out Vivi by lifting the top of the bag and spotlighting her slack face.
The safety might haveaccidentallyflicked off his gun. He counted to ten, waiting, ready.
The doors slammed shut. Ranger returned to the driver’s seat. The guard handed him their IDs and the paperwork through his open window.
Ian slipped the gun down on the side of his seat, out of view.
“Y’all have a good night now,” the man said, tapping the side of the van twice and giving Ian the finger.
Ranger accelerated and Ian tucked the gun away. In silence, they drove, and as soon as they cleared the grounds, Ian shifted into gear.
The passenger door wasn’t the only one with a secret compartment. Flinging the top of the body bag off Vivi’s face, he slid the evidence bag into a container that would be incinerated once they were at HQ. A flip of a switch and he had enough light to see by. Inside his coveralls, he located the vial of adrenaline and removed a syringe from the medical kit Dr. Jaxon Sloan had sent along. SFI’s on-staff doctor should have been delivering the injection, but Beatrice had insisted Ian do the honors.
Now he understood why.
“You fucking should have told me,” he yelled at Ranger.
“Told you what?”
Ian grumbled to himself, calling Ranger every name in the book as he prepped Vivi’s arm and the syringe. “I will kill each and every one of you when this is over. Slowly. With great satisfaction at the amount of pain I will inflict.”
