21 Hours: A Suspense Thriller by Dustin Stevens

Author:Dustin Stevens [Stevens, Dustin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-09-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Watts waited a moment for me to hit the passenger seat before dumping the money bag in my lap. The dead weight of $50,000 landed with a thud against the front of my jeans, a momentary swell of nausea rolling through my stomach. It receded just as Watts slammed the car into gear and peeled away from the parking lot.

"Should I leave the flasher up top?" I asked, my voice neutral. Unlike her coworkers and underlings in the precinct, I wasn't afraid of her. I was just happy to be doing something again.

"Leave it," Watts said. Her hands deftly maneuvered the steering wheel as she hooked a left back to the hospital.

If possible, the route was more deserted than an hour before. There was a reason people working the 3:00 a.m. shift were said to pull graveyard duty, because that's exactly what the world was.

Lifeless.

With the flasher leading the way above us, Watts cut through the night, ignoring traffic signals and the lanes painted on the road. During normal daytime hours, the drive between the two places took 14 minutes. Earlier, she'd covered the ground in 10. This time it was more like 6.

We slammed to a stop in front of the main door. Watts left the car in the drop-off lane, turned on the caution lights and grabbed the keys from the ignition. I slid out opposite her, flipped the switch on the flasher but left it suctioned to the roof.

No reason to wake a hospital full of sleeping patients.

Also no reason to be too hasty in taking it down. We might need it later.

I kept the money bag in my right hand as we went. Already, there was a plan forming in the back of my mind. I prayed it wouldn't come to that, but knew better than to rule it out. That's just kind of how the night had gone so far.

"Alright, so we're back to the beginning. What's the plan?" I asked, the two of us falling in side by side. Together we cut a path for the ICU, both oblivious to the loud sounds of our shoes echoing through the halls. We each had more important things on our minds, and there wasn't anybody around to tell us to quiet down.

"We're going to go talk to your sister again. To her in-laws. There has to be something," Watts said. She, too, was beginning to show signs of strain. I guessed she was fast approaching a full 24 hours on her feet, punctuated by several stiff jolts of caffeine. Her mouth was drawn into a tight line, and her eyes were bunched, revealing crow's feet at the corners.

I glanced at the clock again as we swung past the ICU nurse's station. We were now just inside 10 hours and counting.

Single digits. Something needed to break, and fast.

"Little bastard cost us three hours," I muttered.

Watts grunted some form of response and continued speed-walking. Her fists were balled tight, and the tail of her jacket swung back and forth as she headed for the final corner and made the turn.

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