Free Pestilence: A Medical Thriller by Victor Methos Page B

have a daughter.”
    The man smiled, tucking the gun away into his waistband. “She ain’t your daughter no more, man. She government property now.”
    The men fled the cage, leaving Howie bleeding and in pain on the soft ground, the corpse of the guardsman next to him like a bad dream.

19
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Ian glanced at her as she drove. She had calmed down a little, and he didn’t get the impression she was constantly searching for an escape, although that should have been her only thought. She had seen his face. She couldn’t expect to survive. Then again, for some reason, he kind of liked her.
    “What’s your name?” she said.
    “My name?”
    “Yeah. You asked me my name. What’s your name?”
    “Ian.”
    “ If I looked at your driver license, is that the name I’d see?” she said.
    He grinned. “No. It’s not. But it might as well be.”
    “So what happens now?” she asked.
    “You drive me around , and you drive me around some more. Then I let you go.”
    “That’s it?”
    “That’s it.” He looked out the window at the commercial area they were in. Some of the office buildings bordered on being qualified as skyscrapers. “You see that building there? The tall one with the blue lighting?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Stop there.”
    As the car pulled to a stop in front, he got out first and then waited for her by the hood of the car. She paused a moment in front of the open door. This is it, he thought. She was going to make a run for it. He slipped his hand into his suit coat. Her eyes went wide, then she shut the door and came to him.
    He took her arm and led her into the building. The glass building was fifteen stories and had a nice atrium with a security guard. Gardenias and petunias in fanciful vases sat on glass and wood tables. He smiled at the security guard and squeezed Katherine’s arm, prompting her to smile and say hello. Smart girl, he thought.
    He pushed the button on the elevator, and the security guard rose from his table and started over.
    “Oh,” she said, “ My uncle’s working late. We’re trying to convince him to come eat with us.”
    “Who’s your uncle?” the guard said.
    “Robert with Gem Mortgage. They’re on the seventh floor.”
    The guard studied them. He rolled his eyes and returned to his desk, to whatever website he’d been looking at. When the elevator opened, they stepped in and didn’t speak until it closed again.
    “How did you know that man worked here?” Ian said.
    “I looked at the directory when we walked past it.”
    “Hm m,” he said, impressed. “You saved that security guard’s life.”
    “Rather than take five seconds and spare his l ife, you just wanted to kill him? Why would you do that? Don’t you care if he has a family? What if he has kids?”
    “They might be better off growing up without a father.”
    “Is that what happened to you?”
    “No.” He checked the magazine in his firearm before holstering it again. “My father was a raging alcoholic that lived to a ripe old age. Until I was sixteen years old, he would beat me and my mother a few times a week so badly we’d have to go to the emergency room. We couldn’t keep going to the same one because the cops would get involved, so eventually, we were driving two and a half hours to go to a hospital or clinic that hadn’t seen us before.” He glanced at her. “So like I said, they might be better off.”
    She stared at him, holding his gaze. “You’re lying.”
    He chuckled. “My parents live in Iowa and couldn’t be a nicer couple.”
    “Do they know what…”
    “What I do for a living? They think I’m some mid-level bureaucrat.”
    She kept her eyes forward , on the doors, as the numbers on the dial above them slowly increased. She didn’t say anything until the elevator had stopped and the doors opened. When they stepped off, she said, “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
    “Only if you don’t do as I say.”
    “No, you’re going to kill me