Page 80 of Shadow of Death
Hunter nodded. “I don’t even know the full names of either of the would-be victims yet. Sean drove in with Sandy Whoever since the ambulance couldn’t take her. It was already crowded with two men on stretchers. He’ll brief us on anything he’s learned when we get there, though I’m willing to bet, even these hours later, the victim—Regan Whoever—is still in surgery. And as to the man who was trying to snag her with his partner—now just half a man, no pun intended—I have no clue. The partner said two snakes bit him. I have never heard of such a thing, but I’m not from Florida.”
“He might have hit a nest, I guess,” Amy said. “I don’t know. Where were the bites?”
“I don’t even know that—I knew EMTs were close, far more experienced than I, and I made it a priority to get to them as quickly as possible. And now—”
“Hunter, we need to find every hideout they’re using. We catch killers, but we aren’t getting to those who are ordering the sacrifices. Okay, so, even rational people sometimes wonder if we are looking at the end of the world. Plague, war, horrible things. Maybe it isn’t so strange that people cling to it when someone offers them Heaven, Nirvana, true immortality. You’ve been the one full of quotes—how about Joseph Goebbels and ‘if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.’”
He managed to glance at her and give her a smile. “Well, you know, a really big solar flare could knock us right out of the galaxy.”
Amy let out a deep sigh.
“Sorry! I’m just...tired.”
Amy was looking straight ahead at the road. She smiled slowly. “I’m tired, too. But, Hunter, there’s no choice on this. And I think we do know what’s going on here. We have three people. We have Hayden Harper and Don Blake who are missing. And we suspect Hayden might be involved. And why not Don? Carey Allen was found—”
“Thanks to you,” he said softly, “and you can be very proud of that.”
“Thank you. So, we both suspect something not quite right with Hayden. And with Don. Then, of course, we still have the head of that advertising firm, Mr. Barrington.”
“But he’s in Colorado.”
“Ah, but many CEOs operate from a distance.”
“True. Hey, I’m heading to the closest hospital—”
“Yep. I guess we’ll go through the ER and find out where our people are,” Amy said.
She made a left. They had reached the hospital. As she parked, she pulled her phone out.
“If you ping Sean, it will show he’s at the hospital,” Hunter said.
“Right. But if I call him, he’ll tell me where to go!”
“Okay, true.”
He waited for her to put the call through and watched her nod.
“We should go up to the second floor and the surgical waiting room. They are letting a limited number of people wait, and this is a special circumstance.”
“Regan Whoever is in surgery?” Hunter asked.
She nodded grimly. “The man who was trying to kidnap the young woman is Oscar Pitkin. He’s still unconscious. Apparently, he did hit a nest of coral snakes. The venom is a neurotoxin, and they’ve had to put him in a medically induced coma.”
“How did they find out who he was?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t get that far with Sean. Let’s go up and talk to him.”
They had to register to enter the waiting room, but apparently the woman at the desk knew they were coming.
Obviously, Sean had told them.
He was waiting in a corner of the room with Sandy. Hunter walked straight there and Amy followed. He introduced her to Amy, but didn’t use her title, just her name. And he didn’t call her a coworker, he called her a friend.
When Sandy saw him, she stood, tears dripping down her cheeks again. She threw herself into his arms.
“He’s still in surgery! They shot him! They shot him. How can such monsters exist, how can anyone be so stupid they believe they can cure sinners by torturing them? I’m sorry, I know that man is here, too, that he’s in a coma, but... It may not be a very godly attitude, but I can’t help it. I don’t care at all if he lives or dies, and the bad part of me wants him to die!”
“When someone has hurt you, it’s just human nature to want them to hurt in turn. It’s also human to rise above,” Hunter said. He grimaced. “I understand. But I think I’ll be happy if we can get him to trial and see he gets a nice long prison sentence.”
