Ryan's throat burned as the tequila ran down it from the bottle he was holding, but he didn't care, he didn't even notice. How could things have gone so badly wrong? The question repeated itself over and over in his mind, while his ears were assaulted by the music of Aerosmith, which was blasting out from the expensive stereo system in his room. The plan had been simple, thought up by him, and refined by the three of them, him, Crash and Lewis - there was no reason why it should have gone wrong, not to such an extent.
It was bad enough that his sister was still alive – her continued existence meant there was still a barrier between him and certainty of inheriting his father's fortune, but at least she had no idea that he was involved in her kidnapping. Worse was the news that his partners had been caught by the police; it was only a minor comfort to him that, according to the constable downstairs in the library, both men were unconscious and seriously hurt, one of them having been shot and the other hit by a car.
Lifting the bottle to his lips, he swallowed more of the burning liquid while he considered his problem. His first thought was that he should find a way to sneak into the hospital and deal with Crash and Lewis, before they could wake up and reveal his involvement with the kidnapping. He had trusted Crash with taking care of his sister and collecting the ransom, half of which was to go to him, a trust that had clearly been misplaced, but he didn't trust him to keep quiet now that he was in custody. Similarly, he was sure that Lewis would sell him out at the first opportunity, though for different reasons to Crash.
Lewis, Ryan knew from what Crash had told him, had been having doubts and spending too much time with Alice – as far as Ryan was concerned, he should not have spent any time with her. The moment he woke, and the police spoke to him, Lewis would tell them everything he knew, to protect Alice from his partners, and the possibility that they might try again to kidnap her, or worse.
Crash, on the other hand, would spill the beans to the police to save himself.
Ryan guessed, with a grim certainty, that the first words out of Crash's mouth would be 'I want to make a deal', and he didn't doubt that the police would be more than happy to agree to one, which might even include immunity from prosecution, once they heard what Crash had to say.
Ryan would have liked to believe that both of his partners would die before they could wake and cause him any more problems; he didn't think his luck was that good, however. Since he had no intention of just sitting back and waiting for the police to come for him, he pushed himself to his feet, dropping the bottle on the seat behind him to spill its contents, not that he cared about that. From the top drawer of his desk he grabbed his switchblade, which he shoved into a pocket on his way out of the room, though only after he flicked it open briefly to check the blade was still sharp. It was a nice weapon, with a good, five-inch blade, that he was sure would come in handy.
The front door swung shut with a bang that was loud enough to draw the attention of the two constables at the gate. Ryan was oblivious to the curious looks as he made his way around to the garage so he could get behind the wheel of his mother's silver Jaguar XK8, the car he hadn't long returned home in. He was in less of a fit state to be driving than when he left the club, but he didn't care about that, nor did he care that there were multiple witnesses to him driving under the influence, and without a license; all he did care about was fixing his problem.
The crowd in the road scattered as he raced through the gates opened by the constables – he didn't doubt that that would end up in the papers and on the news, but that was something else he didn't give a damn about that, he had far more important things to worry about.
How long it took him to get to the hospital, not to mention how he managed to get there without crashing his mother's car, Ryan didn't have a clue. Not a single instant of his trip through the streets sank into his brain, and he only became aware of things around him again when he got out in the car park at the side of the hospital.
As he squeezed past a middle-aged couple, the wife/girlfriend supporting her partner, who was hobbling and wincing with every step, he realised he didn't have a clue where to find either Crash or Lewis. A large sign on the wall at the rear of the foyer solved that problem, however – it told him on which floor each department could be found. Since he knew from the constable at the house that both of his partners had been seriously hurt, he came to the obvious conclusion that they were in the ITU, which, according to the sign, was on the third floor.
His next problem was not knowing which room or rooms Lewis and Crash were in, but that was solved when he reached the ITU and saw a uniformed constable outside one of the rooms, obviously on guard. Solving that problem, however, only led to another – how he was to get past the constable and into the room. He retreated to a vending machine he had passed and bought himself a very inferior cup of coffee and a Mars bar, both of which he consumed while considering his dilemma. His thought processes were blurred by the alcohol he had drunk that night, but by the time he reached the end of his coffee he had an idea, one he hoped would work.
Tossing his rubbish into the nearest bin, he smoothed the creases in his iridescent shirt, rounded the corner, and strode briskly down the corridor. He stopped when he reached the constable, and looked pointedly at the door under guard.
"Can I help you?" Constable Flowers asked of the man before him. He assumed he had found his way there by mistake, and was probably there with a friend, who had gotten injured while out clubbing.
"Yeah, I'm Ryan Keating, Inspector Stone asked me to come down and take a look at the two men they caught, to see if I recognise either of them," he said, glad he was able to keep any hint of an alcohol-induced slur from his voice. "There's some suspicion that one of them might be a former employee of my father's, but the inspector doesn't want to disturb him."
Flowers considered what Ryan Keating had said for only the briefest of moments before nodding; from what little he knew of the situation, there was nothing wrong with what he had just been told. "If you can identify them," he said, "it'll be a great help. There's a third kidnapper still out there somewhere, apparently, and the inspector is eager to find out who these guys are in case they can lead to their partner." As he spoke, he opened the door so he could enter the room ahead of Keating. "They're both still out of it, and the doctor can't say when they'll wake."
Ryan paid almost no attention to the constable as he followed him into the room, he was far more interested in getting his switchblade out of his pocket without being noticed; unfortunately, the sound of the blade locking into place drew the attention of the constable, who started to turn, forcing him to take immediate action.
He reached around to clamp a hand over the man's mouth, to keep him from raising an alarm, at the same time he raised his knife to stab it down into the constable's neck, where it joined the shoulder. His hand smothered the constable's cry, which was equal parts an exclamation of pain and a plea for help. Blood spurted when Ryan yanked his knife free, some of it hitting him in the face, then he stabbed the blade down again.
The constable went limp, and Ryan quickly lowered him to the floor. When he tried to pull his knife free, he found that it wouldn't move, it was stuck, and wouldn't shift, no matter how hard he wrenched at it. He gave up on his efforts to retrieve his knife after a few moments, and vented his frustration by kicking the constable in the ribs; since the action prompted no reaction he concluded that the man at his feet was dead, which suited him.
After delivering another sharp kick to the uniformed figure, who remained unmoving, he made his way to the nearest of the two beds. Without hesitation, he yanked the pillow out from under the unconscious Lewis' head and placed it over his face; with a determined look on his own face, Ryan pressed down on the pillow. He didn't know how long it would take for him to suffocate his former partner, but he figured the machine Lewis was connected to would tell him when he was dead, so he kept an eye on the monitor, watching the line that showed the heart rate.
What he hadn't thought of, and what he realised he should have, was that the machine would sound an alarm when Lewis' heart-rate dropped below a certain level. Because his thoughts were still clouded by alcohol, he was caught by surprise when the alarm suddenly sounded, filling the room with noise. The pressure he was exerting on the pillow lessened as his mind raced, and he tried to decide what he should do; his options were limited, and quickly became reduced to just one as the door burst open to reveal a nurse, who stood there, looking in shock from the pillow he was holding over Lewis' face to the immobile form of the constable on the floor.
Ryan froze, just like the nurse, startled by the arrival so soon after the alarm began, but he was the first to recover. With a sudden, savage move, he hurled the pillow across the room; despite the strength with which he threw it, he realised the pillow was unlikely to harm the nurse, except in the most bizarre of circumstances, but that was not his intention. All he wanted from the pillow was a distraction, and that was exactly what he got.
As the nurse raised her hands to bat away the pillow, she took her eyes off Ryan, who took advantage of her lack of attention. He barrelled into her, his shoulder lowered as though he was on the rugby field and heading for the goal line, and threw her back against the doorframe. She collapsed to the floor as Ryan raced from the room and down the corridor to the stairs he had ascended not long before.
Ryan hurtled down the stairs as rapidly as possible, his footsteps echoing loudly. Several times he slipped and almost fell, each time he caught himself just before he went tumbling head over heels. It would be better and safer for him if he slowed, but he had no intention of doing so, not when he could hear the shouts of alarm coming from the floor he had just left, and thundering footsteps approaching the stairwell where he was.
The door he had just passed was thrown open to crash into the wall with a boom that snapped Ryan's head around in time to see a uniformed security guard appear on the second-floor landing. The guard lifted his radio from his belt to his lips the moment he saw Ryan to report his discovery, at the same time he moved to give chase.
Ryan thought about stopping and dealing with the security guard, but quickly changed his mind and increased his speed. He leaped the last half dozen steps and reached out for the bar on the door. He threw open the door and left the stairwell at a run, almost colliding with the security guard who was hurrying towards him; he twisted sharply to avoid the hand that reached out for him, which brushed past his sleeve, making his heart lurch at the close shave. Adrenaline flooded his system in response to the fright as his fight or flight reflex was triggered, giving him the impetus to race away down the corridor towards the foyer and the exit.
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