Lifting the blanket, I saw the tube snaking over my leg and into the plastic bag I'd wear the rest of my life. "You'd better call the nurse."
He craned his neck, observed the bloody fluid spilling into the bag. "Ah, Christ."
CHAPTER 24
Sam threw open the door. "Higgins, get the—Higgins? Daniels!"
He ducked back into the room, flattened himself against the wall and drew his weapon with such speed I hitched my breath. Pushing the door shut with his foot, Sam put a finger to his lips. He turned the bolt lock and rushed to hit the nurse call button.
My stomach lurched as he spun my wheelchair and rolled me into his bathroom.
"Under no circumstances do you open this door. Not for anyone but me." He leaned into my face. "You remember the safe word? Good." He started to pull a second gun from his ankle strap, but I gripped his arm, shaking my head. "Okay, but if we get separated for any reason, find your way to the chapel. Every hospital has one. Find it and hide. And say a prayer. For both of us."
A press of his lips to my forehead and Sam was out the door.
I flipped the metal lock and listened as the outer door opened and shut. Without Sam to protect me, without my legs to run, let alone make my way to the chapel, the room felt smaller, the air dense. Worse, my last vision of Sam was his wide eyes conveying disappointment in me.
Moments later, the outer room door squeaked open. My arm reached for the lock, ready for his call.
"Agent Fields?" Baritone.
I dropped my arm. The doctor could help me, I thought, glancing to the bag.
Then the door creaked again. "Sir," said Sam, panting. "No agents at their posts."
"Including Agent Fields. I sent the others to find our missing witness. Did you see anything, hear anyone?"
Bile rose in my throat. I didn't dare call out for Sam if Baritone wasn't who I thought he was.
"Nothing," said Sam. "Thought you were at your cabin for the annual trip."
"They called me back early. I'm moving her. Today."
"Thought Higgins and Daniels are supposed to move the package tomorrow."
"Troy's out," said Baritone. "I called second shift to assist in moving Larson to an interim location. Now this." A call came over a radio and Baritone answered. "Copy that. Search the stairwells and the dining hall."
"How the hell did Troy get out? He's a murder suspect. A cop killer, for crissake," ranted Sam.
"It's called bail, Agent Fields."
Agent Fields is Sam?
Baritone continued. "New York's DA won jurisdiction, and someone in NYPD leadership vouched for him. Once a cop, always a cop."
"NYPD doesn't stand by cop killers. Or post bail."
"No, some rich lawyer pulled that off. Convinced a judge the guy was too wounded to pose a flight risk."
"Fuck. Moving her now only gives him an opportunity to strike. Puts us right where he wants us: on the run. He'll come for her, limp or no limp. Boss clear the move?"
"I'm getting more questions than answers from you, Agent Fields, and I don't need to explain operational changes to a probie. I'll tell you exactly what you need to know, when you need to know it. And if you've done anything to jeopardize my operation or my investigation, I'll take your head off myself. I'm sick of your rookie mistakes. As far as I'm concerned, they wouldn't be after her if you hadn't drawn a line straight to her door. Now get out there and find our witness. And remember, Agent, the merit of a man is shown by his actions under pressure. Whether you belong with the Bureau is yet to be proven."
A woman's voice called, "You rang, unfortunately." Nurse Bonnie's sass was easy to recognize.
The men yelled "What?" in unison.
"Don't waste my time, gentlemen."
"Wait." Sam pounded on my door. "Jules, it's me."
I dreaded re-entering the cloak-and-dagger chaos with Troy on the loose and allies unclear. But the urine bag was filling, and for all I knew my life was bleeding away.
"You had her this whole time." Baritone's voice couldn't get lower. "Son, you got more than explaining to do."
Sam pounded harder. "Max," he said, and I turned the lock.
He pushed through to check that I was okay. I held up the blanket for the nurse, but my eyes were on the tall man with pâté-colored skin and a short, wiry mustache.
Bonnie rolled my wheelchair toward the bed. "Get her flat." She swung open the door and yelled, "Call Doctor Ramsey, stat."
"I thought you were a doctor," I said to Baritone as I studied his round eyes, flared nose, his thin lips that disappeared into a line when he stared at me. Gray flecked his black hair, which barely left his scalp it was cut so short. Definitely Special Forces.
Baritone glanced to Sam, who shrugged, and crossed his arms, his piano fingers hiding behind his suit coat. "I'm Special Agent in Charge, Captain Reynolds. And you're in the wrong room, Miss Larson."
"As far as I know, visiting hours don't close till nine." Sam's team leader or not, I wasn't in the mood for being bullied. That and the pain kept me squirming in my chair. "Come back with a warrant if you want me under house arrest."
Bonnie ripped back the sheets. "Go." I thought I'd jump out of my chair, the pain was so unrelenting. Till I remembered my legs were on strike.
"On three," said Sam, and the two men grabbed my shoulders and legs. "One, two, lift."
A cold wave washed over my face and my head fell back.
"Careful," urged Bonnie as they lowered me onto the mattress. My head rush eventually subsided and my wits returned. Bonnie already had my gown up to my chest. "Where's the pain, sweetie?"
"My gut," I whispered. "My stomach. I don't know."
A male nurse appeared at my side, hooked an IV to my arm, and then attached that to a bag swinging overhead. He flashed a smile and scooted out of the way. Or was pushed, as Reynolds leaned toward me.
"I don't expect you've asked her the questions yet, Agent Fields," said Reynolds.
"Jesus, can't that wait?" I said through gritted teeth.
"Move." Bonnie slipped past Reynolds and stuck a thermometer under my tongue.
Huffing, Reynolds came round the other side of the bed. "I've been waiting weeks to talk to you, Miss Larson. What I need is a description of the bomber." Reynolds watched my every tick, while Sam subtly shook his head behind his superior. "A face, a voice, a name, anything you noticed."
I blew out the thermometer. "He looked like my door and went boom."
Nurse Bonnie took up the thermometer and cursed to herself.
"You were right, Agent Fields." Reynolds crossed his arms again.
Sam's chin came up. "She's feisty."
"She's recalcitrant." Reynolds gave Sam a look that could burn through steel, then turned back to me. "If you want our protection, Miss Larson, I suggest you learn to cooperate."
"Permission to belay questioning," said Sam, "until the patient is stable. Technically, she's still concussed. And medicated."
Reynolds swiveled his gaze toward Sam. "And technically, I'm still in charge here, Agent Fields. I don't have time for games. We need to know if she saw the bomber, and we need that information now. She's being released today."
"Not likely," said Bonnie under her breath. She finished sticking pads to my chest and inserting wires one by one into a monitor. I was getting plugged back into the grid. The beeping began and the race was on again.
"I need to know exactly what and who you witnessed that night besides Troy," said Reynolds. "Where you went, what you did, who you spoke to."
"I'm a little indisposed at the moment." My words came out slurred, as if the thermometer was still between my lips. Without being sure what Sam had or had not told his superiors about that night, I didn't dare begin explaining. Especially since I wasn't sure I could focus much longer. Even my breathing started to feel forced.
I watched the other nurse, who returned to confirm he'd paged Ramsey. He started to tilt then sway. I blinked and he stood still again.
"Both of you, out." Bonnie unlocked the bed brakes, whipped the sheet up to my chest, and then her colleague helped roll my bed into the hall. A metal bar suspended fluid bags above my head, and a cart rolled next to me, echoing my slowing heart rate. I felt like a parade float.
Daniels merged with Sam, jogging alongside my bed. We were moving fast, away from Reynolds, away from Sam's room. Yet my mind moved slower. I wanted sleep.
"I got her," called Ramsey, whose sloppy ponytail nearly fell out as she jogged toward us. She took a hard look as Bonnie revealed the urine bag.
"Pressure's ninety over sixty," said Bonnie. "Pulse, sixty-nine and dropping."
"Sam," I slurred.
"You're stuck with me now," said Ramsey, flattening her palm over my abdomen. She tapped a circle on the back of her hand so the vibration passing through her bones reverberated into my internal organs. I groaned. Then she pressed on my gut and my innards felt like they'd explode. I wailed holy hell.
"She's distended," said Ramsey. "Page OR. Order a CT scan pronto and a couple liters of B positive. They must have missed shrapnel. Who the hell moved her?"
Sam leaned into view and I reached for his hand, but Bonnie reined in my arm. "Stay still, sweetie, he'll be here when you wake up."
"This is a hospital, Agent, not a rec room," said Ramsey to Sam, an edge to her voice that made me wonder if she'd let him be at my side when I woke. If I woke. "Try to do your job without making mine harder. We have a saying among doctors: first, do no harm. Learn it."
Bonnie leaned over my face, holding my head as I sucked air, trying desperately to keep down my stomach contents. "Doctor, she's spitting up blood."
Bonnie and Ramsey exchanged looks.
Sam ran alongside the cart near my feet. He looked at me with deepening worry lines, stroking my leg, which I couldn't feel. He shifted and pulled out his phone, checking the number.
"Fields here." Then his face turned white and he looked at Ramsey. "Why are you at the clinic?" He glanced at his watch. "What kind of fire, arson or explosion?" Sam stepped away from the convoy, out of my sight line.
Ramsey paused. Her eyes turned black as she followed his movements and her lips parted to speak. My monitor bleated faster.
"Doctor Ramsey." Bonnie gripped my shoulders. "Doctor!"
Ramsey swung around, refocusing on my face.
"Pulse is eighty-nine and rising," said Bonnie. "She's tachy."
"Damn it. At this rate she'll arrest before we reach OR." Ramsey yelled down the hall, "Get me a crash cart." Then she got in my face. "Julie, I need you to calm down and breathe. Control yourself."
I replied by burping more blood.
"Get that damned surgeon on the phone," said Ramsey.
Bonnie dropped my shoulders to run off and Sam took her place, mouthing words over me, but his face was growing too blurry for me to read his lips.
"This is where you get off, Agent," Ramsey said as we hit double doors with a
whoosh
, vacuuming us into a quiet ward framed in glass.
We took a hard right. Sam slapped his hands on the opposite side of the glass. His wide eyes were the last image I saw.
***
My head felt heavy as I sat up. Beyond the orange Jell-O square wiggling on my food tray sat a pair of black military-style boots, propped on a hospital chair. The man's legs disappeared behind the bed curtain, but the veiled sound of snoring alerted me to the culprit. Sam had snored louder but with the same cadence at my apartment. Before it blew up.
I made to get off the bed. Then an unfamiliar burning hit. I pulled away the fuzzy knit blanket. Thin scabs dashed down my arms and waist to scrapbook my injuries, but the knives in my side and belly were gone, though their echoes still cautioned my movements. My stomach felt mostly smooth, save for a pink incision that ran from my navel to my bikini line, which looked sealed but was still puffy at the edges. Further below, plastic tubing ran between my legs. The catheter was the source of burning.
Yanking the tube free seemed a good idea till it triggered a whole new level of cramping in my groin and down my thighs. The fallacy of the quick Band-Aid pull entered my mind.
I hate hospitals.
When I'd extracted the last inch, I threw the tube over the bed rail, peeled the urine bag from my leg, yanked out the IV in my arm, and ripped off the tabs on my chest. Finally, I was untethered.
Near the window, Sam purred, his hands tucked into his armpits for warmth in the arctic room, while his head leaned past the width of the chair. Dead asleep. I threw the knit blanket over him. Another hour of rest would do Sam good and give me time to shower.
Nurse Bonnie entered, found the clipboard that I'd reviewed and tossed onto the bed. Sam jerked awake with the sound of the door clicking shut. On seeing his favorite nurse, he dropped his head back to sleep, while Bonnie examined the bag hanging over the railing and held up the tube that led to no one.
She poked her head into the bathroom, then flipped on the overhead lights, as if the room was dark in the middle of the day. Panicked, she searched corner to corner, then gasped.
Sam stretched into a yawn and, seeing Bonnie's alarmed face, shot off his chair. He ripped back the bed curtain to find the bed empty. She pointed her stubby finger at the window behind him where I stood.
Sam swiveled, and his jaw dropped.
I looked down. Stark naked. "Woops. Might need another blanket, nurse."
Bonnie bumped into the door as she fumbled it open. "Doctor, Doctor Ramsey, she's walking."
Agent Daniels poked his head into the room and froze when he saw me in full buff. He straightened, keeping his face blank, and pulled the door closed. I giggled to think I'd made a Secret Service man uncomfortable.
Sam wrapped the blanket around me. "Welcome back, Gibraltar."
***
"Incision looks healed," said Doctor Ramsey as I tucked my T-shirt back into my waistband. "That was a pretty big splinter. You were holding out on us."
"What can I say, I like souvenirs."
"We assume it was somehow affecting your ability to walk. But we'll never really know, will we?" Ramsey half-smiled, the best I'd ever seen from her. Having signed the discharge form, I handed the clipboard back to her. "You still need to be careful about your diet to avoid swelling. Bland is good."