A Prince's Ransom: Kidnapped by the Billionaire (30 page)

“The Coronary Care Unit is on the third floor—talk to the nurse at the desk. She can give you more information and update you on his condition.”

“Thank you,” she answered and hurried toward a sign that directed her to an elevator, where she mashed the button anxiously and darted inside once the doors opened. She crossed her arms over her chest and shook a bit as the elevator started up, wincing and shutting her eyes tightly as it opened on the next floor up. Please let him be okay, please let him be okay… As soon as the elevator opened on the floor she needed, she did all she could not to run out, looking for the CCU unit and the nurse’s desk, which thankfully wasn’t too far away. And no one else was busy at the desk as she hurried up.

“Hi, I’m Tobin Emerson—”

“Jack Emerson’s daughter? I’m glad you made it.” The nurse stood and moved around the desk, taking her toward a waiting area. “So, I’m sure the nurse downstairs told you that your dad’s been taken to surgery. The paramedics picked him up from a restaurant downtown. He’s been given drugs to reduce any blood clots, and he was awake long enough to give them information about his medical history, and to tell us to call you. But he did pass out in the ambulance, and while we got him stabilized, once we determined for certain that it was a heart attack, the doctors determined it was best we immediately go ahead with the coronary bypass surgery.”

Tobin sunk into a chair, shaking. “S-so… so what now?”

“Right now, all we can do is wait while the operation is underway. I will inform you of anything that happens as soon as I know about it. Is there anyone else we should call about the heart attack?”

“Uhm… uhm, no, it’s just me and him,” she answered, almost numb, only to look up quickly. “The doctor operating—who is he?”

“Dr. Collins is the best cardiac surgeon we have on staff. He’s going to take really good care of your dad, don’t you worry. So just try to relax. It will be a few hours before the surgery is completed.” The nurse—Sarah, her nametag said—smiled at her reassuringly and patted her on the shoulder, then stood and moved back to the nurse’s desk. Tobin leaned back in her chair, trying to keep herself calm.

Trying to keep calm while waiting for hours, sick with worry, was not a fun pastime. There was nothing Tobin could focus on instead, when she was all by herself in the waiting room. Occasionally, a text message came in from Kate or Lisa, asking how her dad was, but that didn’t do all that much to be helpful. No, if anything, that just made her feel even more uncertain because she hadn’t heard anything in ages. The nurse came over occasionally to ask how she was doing and to bring her coffee as the sun started to sink behind the buildings of the city, but it seemed to Tobin that even Sarah was worried about not having heard anything. That made her feel so much better, even if it was nothing but her own paranoia.

For dinner, she feasted on junk food from the vending machines and really, really bad coffee, eventually buying a few bottles of soda for caffeine intake instead. She paced up and down the hall in front of the nurse’s desk, at least when no one else was around to glare at her. She tried to figure out the codes that were barked over the public announcement system. Every moment she did any of this was another that made her want to charge into the operating room and demand to know what was going on. Tobin knew perfectly well that that was a really stupid idea, but the desire didn’t really go away as she tried not to stare at the clock.

Finally, it was nearly eleven at night when someone who looked like a doctor emerged from the doors that said “Authorized Personnel Only” and moved to the nurse’s desk. Tobin had been leaning over her knees, literally twiddling her thumbs and tapping her feet in exhausted aggravation and worry, but she looked up instantly. Sarah smiled with relief and pointed to her, and Tobin surged to her feet and moved toward him before he’d had the chance to come to her.

The doctor was a handsome man, with brown hair several shades darker than her own and intelligent blue eyes that greeted her tiredly, but reassuringly. “Hi, you must be Ms. Emerson? Nice to meet you. I’m Dr. Kevin Collins. I’m sorry I couldn’t speak with you before the surgery began, but we had to act quickly,” he said, and she shook his hand.

“It’s alright. It’s nice to meet you too—but I assume from the fact that you’re out here that the surgery is over? Is my dad okay?” She was way too worried and tired for pleasantries right now.

“He is. He’s being moved to a private room in the Intensive Care Unit as we speak. The surgery was successful, but we’ll be monitoring his vitals and activity levels for several days before he can be released from the hospital.”

“Oh, thank God,” Tobin breathed, shutting her eyes and feeling tears sting at them. She had avoided crying all these hours she had been waiting, but relief threatened to overwhelm her. “Thank you, Dr. Collins. I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to him. But you expect him to make a full recovery?”

“At this point, we do. He’ll have to take it easy for a while, and he’ll probably be on several medications to monitor his cholesterol and everything, but he took to the bypass very well in these early stages.”

“Thank you… can I see him?”

“He probably won’t wake up for another hour or so, and even then he’ll be groggy, but if you would like to stay until then, you’re welcome to. I can fully understand how worried you must have been. Come, I’ll show you to his room,” Dr. Collins answered, and she followed him through the halls.

Like most hospital rooms, it was nothing special, but Tobin was glad to see that it was private—a perk that was probably afforded by her dad’s retirement benefits. As she stepped into the room, though, she felt her heart thunder anxiously to see how pale he was, still asleep, and the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor was comforting when it reassured her that he was still breathing. She moved to his bedside, finding his hand and holding it against her, taking a deep breath to calm herself.

“As I said, you are welcome to stay until he wakes up, but once he does and you can speak with him for a bit, you should go and get some rest yourself. You look as exhausted as him, Ms. Emerson,” Dr. Collins told her quietly from over her shoulder.

“It was… a very long day,” she answered softly. It felt like years ago that Aaron had been sneaking out of her apartment this morning. “Thank you again, Dr. Collins.”

He smiled at her, then turned and left. Tobin grabbed another chair and pulled it up next to her dad’s bed, comforted by the warmth in his hand as she held it, waiting for him to wake up.

As Dr. Collins had said, it was another hour before he had any sign of stirring. Relieved of a majority of her worry, Tobin was nearly asleep by the time his hand twitched in her own, but then she was blinking back the sleep and looking at his face. Though his hair had long since turned almost entirely gray, from out of a pudgier face than her own were matching dark blue eyes, looking exhausted and a bit confused as he looked around the hospital room. She smiled, though, and touched his shoulder gently to get his attention.

“Hi, Dad,” she greeted him softly, and Jack looked up at her, still confused, but smiling in turn.

“Hey, sweetheart. What’s going on? Where am I?”

“The hospital. You had a heart attack earlier. They had to perform surgery.”

He frowned a little bit. “Surgery?” His voice was concerned, and she nodded.

“You’re going to be okay, though. The doctor said everything went fine. But you’ll have to stay here for a while, so that they can make sure everything’s as it should be.”

“Mm… really? What time is it?”

“A little after midnight. The surgery took a long time.”

“What surgery was it?”

“A coronary bypass. I told you that you need to be taking better care of your cholesterol—and I’ll definitely be checking to make sure you take the medicine you’re prescribed when you’re checked out,” Tobin told him firmly.

“Hmph. You sound just like your mother,” he grumbled.

“Good. Maybe then you’ll listen.” She leaned over and kissed his forehead, and he sighed and sunk into his pillows a bit more. “Now try to stay awake for a little bit. I’m sure the nurse will want to talk to you for a couple of minutes before you go back to sleep.” Jack nodded, and she stood, heading out into the hall and catching a nurse who was passing on her rounds, telling her that he was awake. Tobin followed her back inside as she checked his medication and IVs, and asked him questions about how he was feeling. She said he was doing great and that he should get some more sleep.

Tobin sat back down when she was gone, catching his hand. “You’re really feeling okay, Dad?”

“Just groggy more than anything, like I had way too many beers during the Super Bowl. How long you been here, sweetie? You look about as exhausted as I do.”

“A while,” she admitted, “but I’m not going anywhere. I want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine… and you have work tomorrow, I’m sure, right? Go home and get some sleep,” he told her, lifting his hand a little bit to brush her cheek.

She frowned at him. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to be all alone all day tomorrow.”

Jack smiled at her gently. “I’ll probably just be sleeping the whole time anyway, Tobin. The nurses’ll call you if anything changes. Go and get some sleep, and I’ll see you after work tomorrow. Alright?”

She hesitated, meeting his gaze for a long moment, even though he was close to drifting off again, still affected by the anesthetics and the surgery. Hospitals had always reminded her of her mother’s sickness—and she was sure they did the same for her dad, those last few months of watching her waste away. She didn’t want to leave him alone, but she did have work tomorrow. Kate couldn’t do everything by herself. “Alright,” she conceded at last. “But if you need me or anything, just ask someone to call me and I will be here. I promise.” Tobin stood, leaned over to kiss his forehead.

“You got it, sweetie. Just you see, I’ll be fit as a fiddle when you come back.” She smiled, but before she could say anything, he was obviously half asleep, and she sighed. She left the room and stopped at the nurse’s desk to make sure that she would be called if anything changed. With that confirmed, she made her way back to the elevator, and to the doors that led to the parking lot.

Almost blinded with exhaustion, it took her a few minutes to remember what floor she’d parked on, but every level was pretty much empty by now except for a few cars that probably belonged to the night staff. There was a part of her that would have been extremely nervous about how eerily quiet it was as she saw her car at the far end of the floor she was on and started walking toward it, but she was just too damn tired. Her cats would be making a racket at the door, wondering where she was. Or, rather, wondering where their dinners were. And after being locked out of her bedroom all night. Tobin smiled. They would not be happy felines.

She started fishing for her keys, repressing a yawn. A moment later, she frowned when they weren’t immediately obvious and stopped walking, pulling one strap off her shoulder to search through it a bit better, and then smiling triumphantly when she found them. Tobin pulled her purse strap back onto her shoulder.

The sound of her keys hitting the cement seemed deafeningly loud, as they fell from her fingers. She felt her throat constrict painfully as something hard was pressed into the small of her back. She stood ramrod straight, not daring to move. A second later, she flinched when someone’s breath, smelling unmistakably of alcohol and cigarettes, brushed against the side of her face.

“You make one sound,” a deep, rough voice murmured into her ear, “and I shoot you. Understand?” Tobin didn’t move. The object dug deeper into her back and tears flared in her eyes. “Understand?”

Desperately, she nodded, and the pressure eased up a bit. Another guy moved behind her and scooped up her keys from where they had fallen on the floor. She couldn’t tell how many were behind her. The one who had spoken yanked her purse off her shoulder, and the feeling of what had to be a gun subsided only long enough for her hands to be pulled behind her back.

Tobin gasped slightly in pain as a zip tie almost cut into her wrists, but swallowed any further sound as the gun returned—even when a burlap sack was pulled roughly over her head, and she was shoved toward her car.

The rough burlap sack made her quivering breath condense against her lips. She tried to see more than shapes and shadows in the darkness around her, but through the thick, coarse threads, there was no real use in that. A burlap sack, though, really? Wasn’t that just for mobsters in movies? Then again, she added to herself in a frightened squeak, that might well be where she was right about now. The plastic ties were chafing her wrists painfully, and it felt like if she tried to pull on them again, she would cut open her wrists. The air around her smelled musty, and the floor she sat on was cold and hard. It seemed like it was a warehouse of some kind.

There were footsteps echoing on the other side of the room, and she turned her head a little bit toward the sound, although that didn’t help her with seeing them any. No, the movement only seemed to make the guy watching her step nearer and press the hard barrel of the gun against her temple again. Another, silent reminder of what would happen if she made the slightest noise. She shut her eyes tightly inside the sack and tears streamed down her cheeks. She was going to die.

After a few seconds, as the footsteps drew closer, the gun was pulled away from her face, and she let out a small breath. She could hear the men speaking to each other in hushed tones a few feet away, too quiet for her to make out—or necessarily want to make out, when she had no idea what they were going to do with her. But then one of them sharply growled something at another, and drew close enough that she could feel his warmth near her. Tobin jerked away, but that didn’t stop him from tearing away the burlap sack that covered her face and dropping it on the floor. He held a gun too, even though she was pretty sure he wasn’t the one who had been guarding her. Through her tears, she slowly turned her head upward, feeling her stomach twist into nauseous lumps as she took in how in how tall he was—and how obviously muscular, like he could break her arm without any sort of strain.