Chapter Thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

T he waiting room that had once been empty was now filled with more people than it could comfortably hold. The OZ team had arrived. After introductions to Olivia’s teammates were made, Ash herded the OZ team into a corner.

A few minutes earlier, a nurse had come by and announced that Hawke was still in surgery and was holding his own. Knowing he was still alive and fighting gave everyone a moment of ease.

Now, Ash wanted answers, and Xavier was ready to focus on finding the bastard who’d tried to kill them.

“Tell us everything,” Ash said.

“We were at the restaurant. Since we’d pinpointed that the shooter had worked in the kitchen, we wanted to get more specifics. We were just about to end the last interview when the guy mentioned that a woman had been there earlier, asking the same questions. Described Jazz to a T.”

“Jazz?” Gideon’s brow furrowed, and he sent a look at both Xavier and Ash. “I thought she took some time off.”

“Yeah,” Xavier growled. “So did I.”

“Okay, let’s get back to Jazz in a minute,” Ash said. “What happened next?”

“We walked out the door, headed to our vehicle. We’d parked in the alley behind the restaurant. I was about three yards from the car when I heard the shot. Bullet hit the brick wall in front of me.”

“So the shooter missed you?” Eve asked. “Seems odd for a professional hit.”

As a trained sniper, Eve would know.

“If I hadn’t bent down to pick something up, he would’ve made a good shot to the back of my head.”

“What’d you pick up?” Serena asked.

“A penny.”

Any other time, he might’ve been slightly embarrassed to explain to the team what had been a sentimental move. But since it had saved his life, he had no problem saying what had made him bend down. Thanks, Mom, he whispered in his head.

“And that’s when you heard the first shot?” Gideon verified.

“Yeah. I heard another as I dropped to the ground and rolled beneath the car.”

“Where was Hawke?” Eve asked.

“Slightly behind me and to my right. The instant I was under the car, I turned to see that he’d been hit. I grabbed him and pulled him under the car with me.”

“So there was another shot while you were getting under the car?” Eve said.

Frowning, Xavier closed his eyes and forced himself to relive those brutal seconds. Opening his eyes, he nodded and said, “Two, then I turned. Then one while I was grabbing him. Another one after we were both beneath the SUV.”

“And Hawke was only hit once?”

“Yes.”

“So either the shooter wasn’t very good or…” Eve said.

“Or what?” Xavier asked.

“Or you were the target and not Hawke.”

“Hawke was already down, so the shooter likely wanted to focus on me. Maybe he didn’t?—”

A sound behind them had a dozen eyes focused on the door that had just opened and the weary-looking woman dressed in scrubs who appeared.

“Mr. Hawthorne’s family?” she said.

Olivia quickly stepped forward. “Yes?”

The woman gave a tired smile. “He lost a lot of blood and had to have multiple transfusions, but he should make a full recovery.”

A collective sigh of relief swept through the room.

“And the bullet,” Olivia said, “left no lasting damage?”

Her brow furrowing, the surgeon shook her head. “He wasn’t shot. A projectile—likely a shard of brick— was embedded in his carotid artery. It took hours to remove all the pieces and repair the damage.”

So the shooter hadn’t gotten even one bullet into either of them. That made no sense.

After reassuring Olivia that she would be able to see her husband as soon as he was moved to a private room, the doctor left. The room exploded with cheers, and a flood of relief rushed throughout Xavier’s body. Though he was not usually a pessimist, a huge part of him had believed he had lost his friend.

The celebration lasted for about five minutes, and then Olivia called out to get everyone’s attention. “Thank you all. Hawke, Nikki, and I are blessed to have so many people care about us. You’re all family to me, and I love you all. But now, please go and find the people who almost killed my husband. I’d like to have a talk with them.”

Every adult in the room gave her a nod of approval. They were family, they loved fiercely, and part of that ferocity was bringing justice to the wicked.

The OZ team went back into operations mode. Earlier, Olivia’s coworkers, Dylan Savage and Cole Mathison, had returned from the scene of the shooting with photographs of where Xavier and Hawke had been attacked and where they believed the shooter had been positioned.

Now, Ash gave Dylan and Cole a searching look. “You guys mind going back to the scene with us?”

“Not at all,” Cole said.

“We’re here to help,” Dylan said. “Put us to work with whatever you need.”

Thanking them with a nod, Ash swept his gaze over Xavier, Gideon, and Eve. “Let’s get to the scene and see what we can see.” He then turned to Serena, “I need you to?—”

“Find Jazz,” she finished for him.

“Yes.”

“That might be a problem.”

“Why?”

“I can’t track her anymore.”

Ash blew out an explosive curse. “She removed her tracker?”

Her expression one of worry, she nodded. “So it would seem.”

Xavier pushed aside the questions of why she would do something so out of character and said, “What about her phone? Can you track it?”

“The last ping shows it was in a motel here in Seattle.”

So she had checked out of the hotel and gone to another place in the city? None of this was making sense.

“You know the motel’s location?” Xavier asked.

“I’ll text it to you. But that’s where things begin to get weird.”

Hell, they were already off-the-charts weird. “Why?”

“Her phone hasn’t moved in days.”

Yeah, that was odd. Jazz wouldn’t leave without her phone, and she wasn’t one to sit still. Of course, since he had no idea why she had stayed in the city, maybe it wasn’t that weird.

“Also, she disabled the GPS on her phone.”

“Since she removed her personal tracker, that’s not that big of a surprise.” He frowned in confusion. “So how are you tracking her phone?”

“When everyone started taking out their personal tracking chips, I wrote a program specifically for our phones. I added a fail-safe so I can track you guys even if the GPS has been disabled or the phone’s turned off.”

Xavier remembered when Serena had asked to see his phone a few months back because she’d needed to update something. “You didn’t tell us that.”

“No.” She grimaced an apology to the group. “Sorry, I figured I would only have to use it under dire circumstances.”

Xavier nodded, not one bit resentful. “This could well be one of those times.”

He sent Ash a look, already knowing what the man was thinking before his boss said, “You and Gideon head to the motel. Find out what the hell Jazz is up to.”

He headed to the door, aware that Gideon was giving Eve a brief kiss before following. They were going to get a straight-up explanation. If not, then he and Jazz were going to have a no-holds-barred argument.

Either way, he was going to get some answers.