Off the Grid (3 page)

“You think he’s violent. Is there a chance he’ll show up here?” All the protective instincts he possessed snapped at their leash. The junkyard dog compulsion so extreme his vision blurred.

“I doubt it.” Sophie’s lip curled. “Getting his hands dirty isn’t his style. Then again…”

“If he’s a problem, I need a name.” He tried to focus. This was crazy. He didn’t know what to do with the adrenaline dump. Except pull her close, then drag her out of here. To protect and def—

“Jason Drummond.” Sophie’s head bobbed in reaction to his slack-jawed disbelief. Her eyes wide with understanding. “I wish I were kidding. But she’s insisting Prince Charming and the heir apparent to all those lovely shopping malls and luxury hotels is the father of her baby.”

Now she had his attention in a whole different way.

“No.” Caleb shook his head. Not possible. The idea was ludicrous. “No way.”

Sophie grimaced at him. “Please tell me he’s not one of your country club buddies.”

Close enough, they belonged to the same gym, were friends of a sort, not information he cared to share at the moment. He hedged. “We know each other.”

“Oh, Caleb.” She looked straight at him, disappointment taking the lush out of her generous mouth. “Tell me if this is going to be a conflict of interest for you? If it is, you have to leave. Now.”

“It’s not.” No way in hell he was leaving her to deal with this situation all alone. He sidetracked her. “Who’s the other woman? Marnie? How’s she involved?”

“Marnie is…” She looked away and back again. “It’s complicated.”

Brilliant, neither of them was sharing the whole story. Caleb put her omission aside for now. He wanted a straight answer to his next question. “Is she dangerous?”

“Yesterday I would have said no. But earlier she pulled out a gun. She’s desperate. More so than usual. I can’t say for sure.”

Maybe he’d heard wrong, because what the—

Caleb commandeered her arm and pulled her further down the hall. “Pardon me? Are you saying she’s armed?”

She tried to shake him off but he held on. “Not anymore. I made her leave the gun outside.”

His hand tightened as his heart rate spiked. “Has she left the room?”

Sophie’s other hand went to her throat. She thought back. “I sent her for some water from the kitchen but I’m pretty sure she went there and came straight back.” She nodded, reassured. “No, she wasn’t gone long and there was no evidence she’d been out in the snow. Besides, if she had a gun she would have shot you already.”

“Good to know.” Because she was serious. She hadn’t said it to amuse or belittle. Caleb forced himself to think back to the parking lot and the undisturbed snow. His footprints had been the only ones out there. “Okay, tell me where she left it and I’ll go and lock it in my car.”

Explaining the details made her sad. It was in her pretty green eyes, the stoop of her shoulders. How she looked away and didn’t look back.

“I’ll take care of it.” Unable to resist his hand trailed over the rising phoenix inked into her forearm. Strong and soft.

“I need to get back in there.” She pulled away and his hand dropped. Worry clouded her eyes. She nibbled on her bottom lip. “I need to ask you another favor. It’s huge.”

“Anything.” He cringed on the inside. He didn’t make vague promises. He was careful to keep it simple. Always. The dim light of the hallway and the sweat of trauma must have fogged his brain.

“Marnie’s very close to Kellie. I’ve never seen her develop this close an attachment to anyone. I can’t rely on her to do what I need her to do if things go south. I need someone in there who can assist me with
whatever
comes up. I need someone who can contain Marnie if I’m forced to do something she doesn’t agree with. I need you in there, Caleb. In case something goes wrong.”

He was pretty sure he could handle Marnie the Ballbuster. But assisting with a birth wasn’t on his bucket list. This is what came of making reckless promises. Moot point. He wasn’t letting her go in there alone. Not with someone who might or might not be dangerous.

He nodded his answer. “But you have a Plan B for if something goes wrong? Medically? Right?”

“You are my Plan B, Caleb.” She smiled, patted him on the cheek. He stared down at her and Sophie laughed as she backed up toward the treatment room door. “Now, aren’t you glad you came to ‘check on me’?”

Nice. Now she makes jokes.
Good to know she had a sense of humor buried under all those ideas on how to change the world.

“Here’s hoping we don’t need to implement Plan B.” He tagged along after her retreating back, not daring to breathe until she was back inside and the door closed in his face. Then he remembered it was something he needed to do to remain upright. Deep breaths. Deep. Slow. Calm. Or he’d end up passing out in the hallway.

Babies were born every day. Women had been birthing babies since the beginning of time. Babies came out. Out places he didn’t want to think about in that context. Ever. But they did come out. Eventually. Didn’t they?

Caleb headed for the backdoor his flight response activated and sending out a high alert. It spread from his gut to his extremities causing them to bunch and flex with the need to hit the road running.

He didn’t know anything about delivering babies. Or how to wrap his head around the allegation Jason was the father. He knew the man. They’d gone to school together. They moved in the same circles. His wife was a dear friend. In seven days, at their annual New Year’s Eve bash, Jason was expected to announce his intention to run for mayor of Vancouver.

A blast of cold air blew snow in his face when he pushed the back door open. The sharp slap of winter woke him up. Bizarre accusations and the future of municipal politics could wait. One problem at a time. He had to help deliver a baby. In the Low Track. On Christmas Eve. In a small, rundown, last chance kind of place clinic. Because there was no way to get to the overcrowded hospital.

Cue the angels.

He grabbed some gloves out of his vehicle and left the engine running. He shuffled back through the snow to search for Marnie’s gun. The battered dumpster stood guard against the clinic wall, and what a wall it was. He stared, amazed. In the light cast from the street and his headlights, he studied the mural. It was spray painted by an artist who knew his stuff. A slow spinning earth hovered over winged hands. He moved closer, ran a hand over rough brick. Items flew from the globe into the atmosphere. The detail was incredible.

It made stalling a pleasure but wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He pushed back his hair and got to work. It didn’t take long to dig the handgun out of its hiding place. It was right where Sophie said. He wrapped his frozen, stiff fingers around the handle. Tested the weight then held it way out in front of him confident no one was watching his sissy act from the shadows of the blizzard. He didn’t know anything about guns and he wasn’t looking to change his lack any time soon. It could be loaded or not. He had no idea how to check and no desire to shoot himself in the foot.

Back inside his vehicle he opened the glove compartment and stuffed the gun inside, locked it. He pulled his hands out of stiff wet gloves made more for driving than warmth and rubbed some heat into them. Then he offered up a prayer. It was a night for miracles, after all. Baby miracles to boot.

Please, please, please no complications. Or blood. Amen.

He and the sight of blood did not mix. Bad things happened. Embarrassing things. He scrubbed a hand over his face. No passing out. No tossing his cookies in front of the womenfolk. He inhaled, blew out a breath. Game on.

Caleb skidded his way back toward the clinic. Wet snow clung to his clothes, his hair, it filled his shoes. He ignored the discomfort, pulled out his cellphone and flipped through his contacts until he came to the name he wanted. Jason Drummond’s number flashed up on the screen. He stared at it, thumb hovering over the call button. It couldn’t be true. Jason Drummond? The man was far from stupid. Or careless. Savvy when it came to the public and its opinions. With a care for being seen in the best light. In the last decade he’d gone from playboy heir to corporate development kingpin. But before that had come high school.

Boarding school, to be exact. There’d been a girl then too. Scholarship recipient Kimberley McKay hadn’t come from the usual moneyed background. She’d struggled to fit in, Caleb one of her few friends. Then she’d started dating Jason Drummond and everything had changed. She’d relished the perks. For a time. Two months in she’d come to him in a panic with a wild story about Jason drugging her. She’d asked for his help. Caleb had gone to Jason, asked him questions. He’d laughed it off, said he was the one who’d broken things off. She was upset, more than that she was unstable. He hinted at major mental health issues. Two days later she’d quit school in the middle of final exams and moved across the country with her parents. He’d never heard from her again.

His guilt at not keeping in touch had evaporated over the years, but he’d never forgotten. He paused, one hand clutched around the frozen door handle. Once he walked through the door there was no going back. He was all the way in. He’d either discover Marnie and her friend were lying or telling the truth. Easy enough to deal with the deception. The truth was a whole different matter. Bringing it to light meant challenging one of the most powerful men in Vancouver. If Jason Drummond had fathered a baby out of wedlock? A family empire built on the shaky stilts of strident conservative values was in danger of sinking into a swamp of scandal.

Turn around and he was all the way out. It was his choice. But not an option. He shoved his phone back in his pocket and pulled open the door.

Chapter Two

Caleb made his way down the hallway taking in all the details in an effort to drag it out. No anemic prints or watery vistas on these walls, but a litter of paper announcing the place and times for AA meetings, posters announcing a memorial march, free meals, and so on. And photographs. Hundreds of them: men, women, and children. Stapled to bulletin boards dedicated to “Have you seen…” Or “Last Seen…” scenarios.

Caleb searched the faces knowing he’d recognize no one. The hard worn expressions of the lost didn’t match the gloss and polish of his crowd. They didn’t travel in the same circles. For the first time in his life, facing this forest of lost souls and loved ones desperate to find them, he wasn’t sure it was a good thing.

He knocked on the treatment room door still eyeing pictures of the missing trying to commit some to memory. The people he knew didn’t disappear. They let you know exactly where they were, who they were with, and why you should care.

Sophie opened the door and moved back to let him in. Her expression did nothing to reassure. Eyes alert, mouth set, chin raised, she signaled a call to arms. He had nothing to bring to the situation except an aversion to blood. One foot in the door and his heart rate spiked. The woman on the narrow makeshift bed shuddered. Her moan made Caleb’s hair stand on end. He couldn’t resist asking if everything was okay.

Marnie focused in on him from her guard dog position beside her. Her scarred face shiny with perspiration. “You’d be screaming too. If you were getting ready to push a watermelon out of a hole the size of a walnut.”

He forced his rigid facial muscles to relax into a smile. “No doubt about it.”

She didn’t give an inch. “He shouldn’t be here.”

Sophie sighed. There were circles under her eyes. She dabbed her wrist across her forehead and Caleb’s chest tightened. She was worn out. “Well, he is. So, deal with it.”

“Does anyone object to me knowing who our patient is?” Knowing full well someone would.

“None of your business,” Marnie offered. “If you’re going to be in here, stand there and shut the fuck up.”

“None of us are going anywhere, so we might as well allow introductions.” Sophie put a gentle hand on her patient’s forehead and brushed a piece of her hair to the side of her face. “This is Kellie Andrews. Kellie, this is Caleb Quinn. He’s a friend and he’s here to help.”

Kellie lifted a tired hand, let it drop. Caleb tried to hide his shock at her age. Barely out of her teens, dirty and haggard, she wasn’t someone Jason would look twice at, let alone notice.

Marnie snorted as she reached into her pocket. Caleb braced but all she pulled out was a battered pack of cigarettes.

Sophie pointed to the pack of smokes. “Put them away or get out. Take your pick.”

The cigarette crumbled apart when Marnie jabbed it back into the worn case. “I’m not going anywhere.”

That made two of them.

“I’m staying.” He owed it to Sophie and to Jason.

The woman on the bed moaned. “Oh God, here comes another one.”

Sophie pointed at both of them. “Fine. Everyone’s staying?”

Caleb faced off against Marnie. It was obvious Marnie was protecting the woman on the bed and he wasn’t leaving without the woman in the polar bear print scrubs. Stalemate.

Sophie shot him a look. He nodded.

She reciprocated with a brace-yourself look. “Okay then. Make yourself useful.”

He shrugged out of his suit jacket and tossed it over a chair, same with his tie. In the process of rolling up his sleeves he made eye contact with Marnie. Her snarl contorted her scar and it brutalized her face. The effect was chilling. She knew it. A slow smile eased the ugliness but not her meaning.

Careful.

Caleb raised a brow and prepared to face off against a woman who’d seen her share of battles. Too skinny for her small frame, her clothes ragged and filthy, she was a poster child for the down and out. It also made her an unlikely candidate for white knight.

“Marnie. Over here.”

“Coming.” Marnie shifted her position never taking her eyes of Caleb. Somehow Kellie survived the contraction. He didn’t know how. Tension, compounded by a bout of nausea, had sweat pooling in places he’d rather not mention. Then there was a lull and Kellie closed her eyes.

“So, does someone want to fill me in on what’s going on?” Going on the offensive might get him some answers, and it beat staring at the unknown girl on the table. Scared, not to mention in pain, she looked too frail to deliver a letter let alone a baby.