Free The Enraged (A Jonathan Quinn Novel) by Brett Battles Page A

stairs. “Good night.”
    She was nearly across the room when Quinn said, “Hold on.”
    The files. It had been one of the Office’s job files that helped Quinn figure out what had happened to Peter, Nate, and the others Romero kidnapped. Misty had found the information for him. Only it hadn’t been a physical file, but a digital one. She had found it in…
    “The Office archive,” he said. “You accessed it from Peter’s place?”
    She shook her head. “It’s not located there.”
    “Where is it?”
    Again, she looked uncomfortable, the secrets she’d promised to keep fighting against desire to help. “It’s…it’s hidden in—” She stopped and gaped at him. “My God. You’re thinking that’s it, aren’t you? It didn’t even dawn on me.”
    “I’m not saying that’s it. I’m just saying that we should at least see if Peter’s message works on it.” He stood up. “Maybe there’s a computer here. We can check right—”
    “We can’t,” she said. “Peter was the only one who could log on remotely.”
    “So we have to go where it’s stored?”
    “Yes. But they won’t be open until the morning.”
    Quinn’s brows furrowed. “Open? Where did Peter store it?”
    “Library of Congress.”

CHAPTER 9
     
    ISLA DE CERVANTES
     
    N ATE WOKE IN a sweat. It wasn’t the first time. In fact, since getting off Duran Island, he seemed to always wake up drenched.
    It was his dream, the same one every night. He was back on the island, racing through the jungle, looking for a way out of the tangled mess. But the vines and bushes and trees seemed to go on forever, trapping him more times than not, and twisting around his arms and legs to keep him from moving onward.
    He would yank and rip at the plants holding him in place. Sometimes he would get an arm free or even a leg, but invariably he would wake up with a start, not having been able to break away.
    In the real world, the world of the hospital room where he slept, his sheets would be soiled from his imaginary flight, the top one often pushed to the foot of the bed, or wrapped around his waist or legs.
    Usually, he’d find Liz sleeping in the chair a few feet away, unaware of his ordeal due to her own exhaustion, but even in the semi-darkness he could see tonight the chair was empty.
    Careful not to pull too much at the welts across his back, he turned so he could check the clock on the nightstand.
    Eleven seventeen p.m.
    Liz should have been there. She was always in the room by ten at the latest.
    He glanced at the bathroom, thinking maybe she was using the toilet, but the door was open and the room beyond was even darker than the one he was in.
    Where was she?
    His condition was not one that required being hooked up to an IV or a pulse monitor or an oxygen tube, which was good, given how active he’d become in his sleep. Surely he would have ripped any needle right out of his arm the very first night. He swung out of bed and hopped over to the closet. As he’d hoped, his prosthetic leg was inside. Once it was fitted in place, he went over to the door and pulled it open.
    Light from the hallway rushed in. He blinked until his eyes adjusted to the brightness, and then looked both ways, wondering where Liz might have gone. The only person he saw was one of the night nurses, sitting at a station down the hall, her gaze focused on her desk.
    He headed over. Though he wasn’t trying to be quiet, she didn’t hear him until he was only a few feet away. She jerked up, one hand clutching her chest, as the other accidentally brushed the book she’d been reading onto her lap.
    “I’m sorry,” Nate said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
    “You shouldn’t be up,” she said. Like all the medical staff he’d come in contact with, she spoke to him in English.
    “I’m looking for my friend. The woman?”
    “Señorita Liz?”
    “Uh, yeah.”
    The nurse smiled. “She is sitting with your other friend.”
    “Which other