The Enraged (A Jonathan Quinn Novel) Read Online Free

doctor looked as if he was about to say no.
    “Please,” Quinn pleaded.
    The man hesitated for several seconds, and finally said, “Follow me.”
    “We’re coming with you,” Liz said.
    The doctor held up his hand again. “Better only one.”
    “It’s not open for discussion,” Liz told him.
    Apparently realizing it would be useless to argue, the doctor led them to a room on the second floor. Quinn was allowed to enter first. The hospital bed was all but hidden from view by four nurses, some monitoring equipment, and a couple IV stands.
    One of the nurses turned as he approached. “ No deberia estar aqui ,” she said.
    “It’s all right,” the doctor told her, also speaking Spanish. “Let him see her.”
    The nurse’s eyes narrowed in disapproval as if some sacred law had been broken, but she stepped to the side.
    Quinn moved all the way to the bed and looked down at Orlando.
    She looks so small , he thought.
    She wasn’t big to begin with—five feet tall and barely a hundred pounds on her heaviest days, but now she looked…diminished, like she would float away if a breeze blew through the room.
    “Hey,” he whispered as he touched the hair above her ear. “You’re going to make it, but you need to fight, and be strong like you always are.” He skimmed her cheek with the back of his finger, her skin so pale and soft, and then leaned down and kissed her on the lips. “I love you. You better damn well come back to me. Understand?”

CHAPTER 4
     
    EIGHT DAYS LATER
    SEPTEMBER 1 st
    WASHINGTON, DC
     
    M ISTY BLAKE STARED out the window of her apartment. She’d been there since a little before five a.m., when she’d given up trying to sleep. In front of her sat yet another untouched cup of coffee, cold and forgotten. She was dressed in the same T-shirt and gym shorts she’d gone to bed in, the same clothes she’d worn the day before. The same clothes she’d worn since the day Quinn had called her and told her Peter was dead.
    Misty had been Peter’s last assistant at the Office, working with him right up to the end of the organization as they’d closed everything down and were then transferred in different directions. Their relationship had continued even after she started her mindless job at the Labor Board. To Misty he was still her boss, and anytime he needed help, she was there.
    When she’d gone to Peter’s house at Quinn’s request almost two weeks earlier and discovered the signs of Peter’s kidnapping, she had been terrified she might never see him again. But Quinn was one of the few other people in the world Peter fully trusted, and Quinn had said he would do all he could to bring Peter back. She had taken hope in that.
    But days had passed without any news, and the terror had returned, eating her up and turning her into a nervous wreck. When she finally heard Quinn’s voice, for a second—just a second—she allowed herself to hope again.
    “Misty, I’m sorry. He…he…”
    Silence.
    “He’s dead,” she said.
    “Yes.”
    In that instant, her terror was replaced by a deep dark hole that seemed to go on forever. She remembered asking a few questions, remembered hearing answers, too, but what she didn’t remember were the words. All that stuck in her head was that Peter was gone.
    The fact that there was no funeral made it worse. There was no closure to her grief, no outlet to pay tribute to the man who had not only been her boss, but often a second father. So she’d taken bereavement leave from her work for an unspecified relative’s death, locked herself in her apartment, and mourned in solitude.
    Now, when the doorbell rang, she didn’t move.
    It rang again, this time followed by a knock.
    She looked up at the kitchen clock—9:18 a.m. Go away , she thought.
    There was no knock after the third ring, only the quick sound of whoever it was rubbing something against wood below her peephole.
    She almost let it go, but pulling off what had been left there—an advertisement,