Race Against Time. Sharon Sala

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      “Quinn, open your eyes now!”

      Quinn was trying, but her lids felt too heavy. After several moments more of struggle, she finally saw light and then the face of the woman beside her.

      She wasn’t Mrs. Treadway, and Quinn was no longer nine years old.

      “Good girl!” the nurse said.

      “Where...?”

      “You’re in Centennial Hill Hospital. You had surgery on your shoulder.”

      Quinn exhaled slowly as memories flooded.

      “Someone shot me. There was a baby...”

      “I don’t know anything about a baby. We’ll be taking you to your room in a few minutes. You can ask someone there, okay?”

      Quinn let herself drift, wondering if any aspect of her life would ever get easy. This time of year, people would be chattering about holiday plans, going home to a block-party barbecue and having family over on the weekend. It all sounded so good—so ordinary. She had never lived an ordinary life.

      And then the same nurse was back, patting Quinn’s arm.

      “We’re going to move you to your room now. You just lie still and we’ll do the driving,” she said and giggled.

      Quinn braced herself for motion, guessing it might hurt, and she was right. When they began wheeling her through the hall leading toward the elevators, she closed her eyes against the bright fluorescent light fixtures in the ceiling above and was drifting back to sleep when they suddenly stopped.

      “Quinn, you’re doing great. It was my honor to take care of you, and now Thomas will take you the rest of the way to your room.”

      All of a sudden Quinn was in the elevator with a stranger named Thomas. After what she’d been through, the thought unnerved her. Then she heard the orderly humming and relaxed as the car went up. When it stopped, Thomas put a hand on her shoulder.

      “Are you okay, ma’am?” he asked.

      “Yes.”

      “We’ll get you comfortable soon,” he said.

      The doors opened as he began to push her out into the hall.

      * * *

      Nick had chosen a seat near the door so he could watch the elevator, and when he saw the elevator doors sliding open and the end of a bed emerging, he jumped up and went to see if it was his patient. He saw her red hair first and was about to speak to the orderly when he heard footsteps running up behind him.

      The panicked expression on the orderly’s face was all the warning he was going to get. He pulled his weapon even as he was turning around. It was the man from the waiting room. He was running toward them with his gun already aimed.

      Nick jumped in front of the bed. “Get her back in the elevator!” he yelled and pulled the trigger.

      Thomas reacted quickly, catching the door before it closed and pulling the bed back inside just as gunfire erupted.

      Dev pulled the trigger as the cop was shouting. In his haste to get off the first shot, his aim was off.

      Nick leaned just the least bit to the left as he fired and saved his own life. The bullet from Dev’s gun grazed the side of his head instead of hitting him between the eyes, but for a moment Nick thought his head would explode from the pain. But it hadn’t affected his own aim. Shot in the heart, the gunman hit the floor. Nick was still standing and the man was dead.

      * * *

      When the two gunshots sounded only feet away from her bed, Quinn screamed in terror, certain she would die. When the orderly slammed the side of her bed against the elevator wall, she cried out again, this time from the pain.

      “I’m so sorry,” Thomas exclaimed, trying to get around her bed to the button to close the door.

      And then Quinn saw the cop from Homicide move into her line of vision. There was blood running down his face, and he was holding his gun in one hand and the elevator door open with the other.

      “You’re bleeding!”

      Thomas turned, saw the blood running down the cop’s face and leaped forward.

      “You’ve been shot!” he said.

      Nick’s head was pounding. He ran a finger through the groove the bullet had left in the side of his head and shuddered. That was close. Too close.

      “It’s just a graze. Are you two all right?” Nick asked.

      “Yes,” Thomas said.

      “Then get her to her room, stat,” Nick said and began helping the orderly get the bed back out of the elevator.

      Nurses were running toward them. They already knew he was a cop and that he was there to guard a witness in one of his cases, so there was no mistaking what must have happened.

      Nick flashed his badge.

      “Get her to her room and stay with her. Don’t let anybody in but the police,” Nick said.

      One nurse grabbed Nick by the arm.

      “Are you hit anywhere else?” she asked.

      “No.”

      “You need to get to ER. I’ll go get a wheelchair,” she said, then hesitated when she glanced at the shooter and the blood spilling out onto the floor beneath him.

      “What about him?” she asked.

      “He’s dead. Forget me right now and get her out of the hall. He may not be the only one after her.”

      Quinn was scared. The man standing at the foot of her bed was bleeding, and everyone was running madly around her.

      “What’s happening?” Quinn cried.

      Nick heard the fear in her voice and turned around. Their gazes locked, and for a heartbeat everything faded. It was just him watching her eyes fill with tears.

      “It’s okay, Miss O’Meara. You’re safe.” He grabbed the orderly by the arm. “Move her now!”

      After that, panic ensued as the RN on duty began issuing orders to put the floor on lockdown.

      “Step aside!” Thomas yelled. “Coming through.” He rushed her down the hall and into her assigned room.

      Nick was watching them go when the thundering sound of running feet echoed up a stairwell. He turned with his gun already aimed, only to see a team from Hospital Security coming through the exit door and out onto the fourth floor with weapons drawn.

      “Las Vegas Police!” he shouted and held his hands up with the gun in one hand and his badge in the other.

      The first guard to reach him immediately took him by the arm.

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