The Blonde

2:56 a.m.

Sheraton Hotel, Fifth Floor

Diet Coke guy had Kelly’s head in his arms, and he was surrounded by other guests who had popped out of their rooms to see what the screaming was about. He looked up at Kowalski. Disappointment washed over his face when he saw that Kowalski wasn’t an EMT. That quickly turned to rage when he recognized him.

“Hey! What did you do to her?”

Kowalski knelt down to examine Kelly. She was still breathing, but unconscious. Blood had spurted from her nose, ears … and yeah, he could see a little rimmed around the bottoms of her eyes, too. Diet Coke guy had some of it on his hands and lips.

“What’s your name?”

“Brian.”

“Brian, did you give her mouth-to-mouth?”

“She wasn’t breathing. I saved her. And I asked you, What did you do to her?”

Kowalski sighed. “Spare me.”

Brian tried to shove Kowalski backward, and it would have been impressive, had he connected. But Kowalski caught him by the wrist, taking care not to touch any of the blood, then twisted. Kelly’s head bobbed in the guy’s lap as he jolted.

“Ow!”

“See this? My girlfriend here’s got AIDS. She’s maintaining, but she passes out like this all the time when her T-cell count gets low. Wash off all of the blood you can. Scrub hard. Rinse your mouth out, too. You’ll also want to get tested.”

Brian turned white. Good, let him be afraid. Might be the thing that saves his life.

Truth was, whatever Kelly White was carrying, he’d probably already picked it up with the mouth-to-mouth thing. That’s what chivalry gets you these days.

Kelly’s head was gingerly lowered to the hallway carpet. Brian stood up, trying not to touch anything else, himself especially, then backed up and elbowed the up button on the elevator.

“Go ahead, wash up. I’ve got it from here.”

Kowalski looked around the hallway.

“Go back to your rooms, folks. She’s going to be okay once she gets hooked up to an IV.”

He had a decision to make: Take her now, or later? He wasn’t sure Kelly had a chance of making it down to D.C., as planned, without medical attention. Her breathing was shallow, and that much blood from the head was never a good sign. With the multiple distress calls of the past few minutes, the Sheraton was going to be swarming with uniforms. It was going to be tough carrying her out of there, past all of that. And his most recent instructions from his handler covered bringing her in alive, not dead.

The only chance she had was to let the EMTs take over from here. Hook her up, get her breathing stabilized. He wasn’t equipped for any of that.

Kowalski could come back for her later. From the hospital or the morgue, if it came to that. Either would be easier to breach than this hotel in the next ten minutes. City EMT response times varied; he remembered reading that Philly had arguably the worst in the nation. Tonight, he hoped to be proven wrong.