Rescuing Baylee (Nightshade #3)

Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

With memories of the Rebellion so close at hand, Baylee didn’t believe what she heard at first. It had to be a flashback. An incredibly realistic one. More realistic than any other one she’d had before.

Then people began screaming, and three more shots echoed through the closed confines of the emergency department.

Baylee hit the deck, scrambling for cover. There was no cover, though, only concealment. The entire ED department was separated by privacy curtains. There was a central horseshoe shaped nurse’s desk which was the command center, and a few offices along the side of the room for the supervisors, and it was all circled with beds. She peered under the edge of the blue curtain. Feet were running helter-skelter as people realized they had nothing to hide behind.

Then a man’s voice rang out, screaming Spanish. It was kind of garbled, though, like he was crying.

She scanned the floor and spied a dark uniformed older man lying on the floor near the entrance to the ED. Hank the security guard blinked at her as she met his eyes, then they fluttered shut. Her heart sank as she watched him breathe his last breath. Hank had been a great guy, and he’d saved them several times from irate patients and relatives. She glanced down his body. His weapon was still in the holster. He hadn’t even had a chance to draw it out.

She heard the voice again, and she thought he said Catalina. Oh, God, he was looking for their patient.

The woman who had just died.

She watched the man’s feet. He wore black tennis shoes and was moving toward the far side of the room. As she listened, she heard him start swiping curtains back. People screamed, scared they were going to be shot.

Then she heard the ED supervisor’s voice. Dr. Grant was a good guy, though a little too cocky for his own good. He ordered the man to put the gun down, but the man responded with gunfire. Several nurses screamed, and she knew Dr. Grant was down.

Baylee scanned the area, praying she saw more security guard’s feet, or cop feet, but she didn’t. She also didn’t see the gang member’s feet. They’d disappeared on the other side of the central nurse’s counter.

Before she could second-guess herself, she crawled the fifteen feet across the floor to old Hank. “Sorry, buddy,” she whispered, and very carefully pulled the man’s sidearm.

What the fuck was she doing?

She looked up into the eyes of women she knew. Several of them were sobbing, hands clasped over their mouths to muffle the sound. They were hiding in the center of the horseshoe shaped counter, pinned down because they didn’t know where the gunman was. All he had to do was lean over the counter and he would see them. Kill them.

Adrenalin was pounding through her veins, and she checked the weapon. She pulled the slide back enough to make sure there was one in the chamber. It had a full mag in it and was ready to fire. Leaning out, she tried to catch a glimpse of the gunman. She could still hear curtains being swept back, and people crying out. It sounded like he was working his way back around, toward Catalina’s body.

Baylee’s heart thundered in her ears, and she had to fight away images of another surgical room, with other injured and dead people sprawled across the floor.

“Sir, are you looking for Catalina Hernandez?”

Baylee could have screamed at Dr. Mendez. What the hell was she doing?

“Where is my Catalina?” the man said, rushing toward the short woman.

Baylee could see him now. Hispanic, with dark hair and eyes, he looked ragged, his eyes full of tears. Blood coated his front, and he was staggering, like he was nursing a gunshot wound.

Dr. Mendez held her hand out toward the curtained off area. Baylee was glad to see that the others were gone. Even the baby was out of the incubator, and she wondered where they’d gone. They were beyond her line of sight. That was all that mattered. She had a perfect view of the scene taking place in the room, though, with Mendez off to the left a little. If she had to draw down on the gunman, she could do it.

The man neared the bed, his gun hand falling to his side. Baylee watched to see if he would set it down, but he didn’t. He cried out as he caught sight of the woman on the bed. Baylee had draped her belly with cloth, but blood had seeped through. They hadn’t even had a chance to close her up.

The man cupped Catalina’s face, crying, and he looked down her body. “Why aren’t you working on her,” he demanded.

Dr. Mendez took a step closer to the room. “She had two gunshot wounds. One through the abdomen and the second one higher, through her chest. I believe that wound is the one that killed her, going through her heart. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

She didn’t say anything about the baby, and Baylee wondered if he thought the baby died as well. Her heart ached for the man for a moment, until he turned and faced Mendez. “I don’t believe you. I think you gave up on her as soon as you realized she was a Tango.”

Baylee hadn’t seen any tattoos on the woman, but she hadn’t really been looking for them. Her gaze focused on the man’s forearm, and she could see the Tango Blast ink. The gang had a heavy presence in the Austin area, and with any violence that spiked up, they always proclaimed to be protecting their home turf. The gang traffic kept the hospitals busy.

“No, we didn’t,” Mendez said softly. “I swear to you, we did everything we could to save her.”

The gun wavered, and Baylee wondered if the guy would pass out before she had to shoot him. She could hope.

“Where’s the baby?” he demanded.

“Up in surgery. He was hit while in Catalina’s womb.”

The gang member blinked. And then the baby cried.

His gun hand had been lowering, but as soon as he heard the cry of the baby, he advanced toward the doctor, his face furious. As unflappable as Dr. Mendez was, she didn’t want to die. Crying out, she held both hands up, as if to stop the bullets from hitting her as the man drew down.

“You lied to me. Where is he?”

Baylee knew she had no more time. Bracing her right arm against the side of the counter, she lined up the sights and squeezed the trigger, praying the gun worked correctly. Two shots struck the gang member center mass, and he looked down at himself, disbelief in his expression. Time seemed to stop as Baylee let up on the trigger, waiting to see if she needed to fire more. After three long, heart-ripping seconds, the gang member slowly sank to his knees and toppled over, the gun still clutched tight in his hand.

Baylee came out from behind the nurse’s counter and secured the man’s weapon. Then she looked at Dr. Mendez. “Are you okay, doc?”

The woman, normally unflappable, looked pale. Her hands shook as she ran them over her face, and tears dripped down her cheeks. “Yes, Baylee, I’m fine. Did you shoot that man?”

“I did,” she said, voice grim.

“Thank you.”

Baylee looked down at the man, then knelt down to check for vitals. He was gone.

The baby boy wailing in the background seemed to sense that he was now an orphan.

Detective Landon Hunter walked into an incredible crime scene. He’d been in the emergency room of Dell-Seton many times for suspect interviews and the like, but he never expected to see it like this. Spattered with blood and injured people. As well as the dead.

The 911 call had come in twenty-five minutes ago that a gunman had charged into the department and started shooting people up, looking for his Jaina . His gang wife. She’d been caught in a Capirucha gang crossfire, and Chino Vega, male, Hispanic, twenty-seven years old, had followed her to the hospital. He’d shot seven people in the emergency department, killing three, in his search for his woman. He’d finally been taken out by a retired Army lieutenant.

Landon had seen many things in his career, but this was a lot. The crime scene was fucked, because the doctors and nurses were actively working on the injured. In the crime scene. There was no preserving anything here.

Luckily, he had a lot of witnesses. And he probably had video. He spotted the medical examiner leaning over Vega’s body. “What can you tell me, Simpson?”

The man looked up at him, shaking his head. “Seems pretty cut and dried, detective. He already had a bullet wound in his gut before he staggered in here. He was a dead man walking, trying to do as much damage as he could before he left this world. The guy that shot him put two in his heart, and he went quick. Excellent shooting, if you ask me.”

Hunter looked over the body. There were two gunshot wounds directly over the man’s heart, one inch apart. Further down his gut there was another wound. Obviously, Mr. Vega had been injured in the same shootout the woman had been. He’d been shot in two separate incidents.

“Crime scene techs have already bagged the weapons.”

“Where is the vet?”

“Couldn’t tell you,” Simpson said, turning back to the body.

Hunter glanced around, trying to figure out who was in charge of the medical department. Several people were talking with a shorter, dark-haired woman, and she motioned toward the ceiling, like she was giving orders to move people upstairs. He crossed to her.

“Are you in charge?” he asked.

The woman huffed out a resigned breath as she turned. “Yes, for the moment. What do you need?”

“I’m Detective Landon Hunter. I need the person who took out the gang member.”

The woman blinked and nodded over her shoulder. “She’s over there. Baylee saved all our lives, so you’d better not give her a hard time about it.”

Baylee? Was their shooter a woman? “Baylee what?”

“Mitchell. She’s a nurse on the peds floor, but she’s also part of our emergency pediatric trauma team.”

Hunter jotted down the name and title, wondering why the name sounded familiar.

“And you are?”

“Dr. Lillian Mendez. The Tango Blast member was just about to shoot me when Baylee took him out. Security is getting you a copy of the security footage now.”

Dr. Mendez explained her version of what happened. It was early in the investigation, but it sounded like this Mitchell had saved the day. Or night, as it were.

Several people joined Mendez in their appreciation for Mitchell.

“I knew she’d been in the Army, but I had no idea she could do all that,” one nurse said, shaking her head.

“I need to speak with her,” Hunter said. “Can you direct me?”

The nurse pointed toward one of the cleaner bays. “She’s the taller one with the ponytail.”

Hunter headed in that direction, but he paused as he caught sight of the woman’s lean back in blue scrubs. It suddenly hit him why he knew her name. The old woman downstairs in his new apartment building gushed about her like she was better than sliced bread. He knew exactly who she was, because he’d seen her in his apartment building so many times. He recognized the floppy ponytail of honey-blond hair and her shapely hips. And he’d wondered about her. Actually, he’d wondered about what she’d gone through to give her the incredible scar that ran down her face. It had faded with time, but it had to have been a devastating injury. And every time he saw her, he felt incredible anger for whoever had done it to her.

Hunter forced his feet to move, determined to remain objective even though his heartbeat had spiked.

“Baylee Mitchell?” he said, and she turned.

Hunter didn’t like being surprised by anything, but he felt a punch to the gut when her gaze met his. The woman had the prettiest moss green eyes he’d ever seen, even though they seemed a little cool right at this moment. Detached. He recognized the look. He’d seen it often enough in the guys he worked with, and even in his own face. It was the look of a person that had done something drastic and was now struggling with the repercussions.

She blinked and forced a slight smile. “Can I help you?” She tilted her head. “Wait, you look familiar. Aren’t you my neighbor? The new guy down the hall.”

He gave her a single, tight nod. “I’m Detective Landon Hunter. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

She glanced around the chaos and tipped her head. “Over here.”

She led him to an empty office and settled into a chair. There was blood on the knees of her scrubs, like she’d gone down to try to help the man she’d shot. As soon as she sat, she crossed her arms beneath her breasts, but she didn’t relax.

Landon cleared his throat. “I know this is a chaotic scene, but I need you to tell me what happened.”

Baylee took a deep breath, and he could see she was getting her thoughts in order. She didn’t fidget like she’d done anything wrong. From everything he’d heard, she’d done everything right, but he needed her perspective.

He allowed himself to look at her face, though, and despite himself, his anger stirred again. The scar was faded, but it was still a devastating mark that traveled down the length of her face. For the first time, he noticed the other scar that crossed over the bridge of her nose and went up through her eyebrow. He wanted to ask her how she’d been injured, but that was way beyond the scope of this investigation.

“Catalina Hernandez came in with two gun-shot wounds, one through her abdomen and one high in her chest,” she said, matter-of-factly, her voice steady and low. “In spite of our care, she expired on the table. We had to do an emergency C-section to rescue the baby, who also has a gunshot wound, through the arm. We were caring for the baby when Mr. Vega entered, shooting the security guard first thing. He continued to fire randomly, hitting several more bystanders. Killing Dr. Grant.”

Her gaze flickered, and she looked down at her lap. Hunter wondered if she’d known the people injured.

“Then he moved through the department, screaming for her. If anyone approached him, he shot them. When Mr. Vega was on the opposite side of the nursing counter, I scrambled across to H-Hank, the security guard, and took his weapon. We usually only have one guard down here. We should have had more tonight, because it was a full-moon.”

Her voice faded away for a moment, and he let her have her time. The stumble over the guard’s name was the only fumble. She must have known him and liked him. Then she refocused. “The guy circled back around. That was when Dr. Mendez caught his attention and showed him his woman. The nurses had snuck the baby into another bay. Dr. Mendez told Vega that he’d gone upstairs. But then he heard the baby cry out, and he got mad. He lifted his weapon, and I knew Dr. Mendez was dead if I didn’t do something. So, I shot him.”

“How many times?”

“Twice. In the heart. It was quick. He already had a wound through his lower belly, though. I haven’t heard, but he was probably already dying.”

Hunter nodded. “The ME called him a dead man walking. He had nothing to lose by coming in and shooting the place up. How did you know you could fire the security guard’s weapon?”

She shrugged lightly. “All Glocks are the same, for the most part.”

They were indeed. It was why the company sold so many weapons to law enforcement. The mags were interchangeable and the weapons themselves were almost idiot-proof. They were literally point and shoot. It was what Austin PD, and he himself, carried.

“And you have experience shooting?”

“I was in the Army for six years. And I was deployed for most of that time.”

Hunter looked at her, and before his brain could throttle his mouth, he asked her, “Is that where you got the scars?”

She lifted her chin defiantly. “Yes.”

Hunter appreciated her sass. He gave her a small smile.

Anger surged in Baylee’s gut at that smile, and she wanted to kick the big, handsome guy in the balls. She’d had such high hopes that the dude in the apartment down the hall from her would be cool, but every time she saw him, it was like he was fixated on her face.

And now that she’d met the man, he still seemed to be fixated. Why was he asking about her scar in the middle of this fiasco?

Mrs. Traeger, the lady who owned the apartment building they lived in, kept telling her he seemed like a nice man, but Baylee wasn’t getting that.

“Had you ever met Mr. Vega before?” the big detective asked.

“No.”

“Do you have any gang affiliations?”

She snorted. “No.”

“Do you know of any relatives of Mr. Vega?”

“No. When they brought the mother in, they said something about her family. But I know nothing of his family.”

“Okay. Can I get your legal information?”

Baylee reeled it off. “If we’re done, I need to get back to work. We’re down a doctor and a nurse.”

The detective nodded, but he stepped in front of the door before he opened it and met her eyes. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but it looks like this was a clean shoot. You did what you had to do.”

Some of the starch eased out of her spine, and Baylee nodded. “Thank you for that.”

It did help, knowing that he seconded her decision to take the gang member’s life. And other people had said the same thing. Once Hank had been murdered, no one else had stepped up. If Baylee hadn’t, she had a feeling more people would have died.

She didn’t say anything as she crossed through the doorway, brushing against his front. Tingles leaped through her, and for a moment, she glanced up at him. He was staring at her, but, for the first time, his deep navy-blue eyes were soft. He understood what she’d gone through. For a split second, she had the terrible urge to burrow into his arms. Then she straightened her spine and walked out.