Frontline (38 page)

Trenton’s lips meet mine. The passion in our kiss and the way our hands grab onto each other solidifies our words.

Our celebration is cut short due to more pressing matters. The five of us climb over the embankment and return to Denim and Randall.

Denim launches herself at Chris, her hands coated with Randall’s blood. “Thank goodness you’re okay!”

I crouch beside Randall. He’s still breathing, but also still unconscious.

“Did you guys get Kedrov?” Denim asks.

“He’s at the bottom of the bay.” Sean opens his suit jacket, revealing a knife. “I made sure of it. Now all we gotta do is get out of here. It won’t be long until the police show up.”

Chris jogs over to the Cadillac and returns with a cell phone.

“Hurry, please,” I say. “We need to get Randall and my father to the hospital.”

Chris and Denim trade hesitant glances.

“What? What is it?”

Sean bows his head.

Kelly’s chest deflates with her long exhale. “Sara . . . your father . . .”

The emergency room at San Francisco General Hospital isn’t very busy. Rows of empty plastic chairs line the walls and stretch through the middle of the polished tile floor. Magazines sit on coffee tables in neatly stacked piles. An administrator plucks handfuls of multicolored file folders from a cart and shoves them into large metal drawers behind the admissions desk.

It’s quiet enough that I can concentrate on each separate pain I feel, trace them back to their sources, and find out exactly how many places I’m wounded. Thick gauze covers my elbows and knees. There won’t be any skin on them for weeks. In my right ear, continuous high-pitched ringing blares deep inside the canal.

I stay close to walls and railings when walking as my balance is all but gone. Other than some burns on the left side of my body from the grenade explosion, a twisted ankle, a concussion when the back of my head hit the concrete, and numerous other scrapes, bruises, and cuts, I’m no worse for wear.

I didn’t notice any of these injuries until I limped through the emergency room doors. Nothing felt more important this morning than ignoring my own state and praying with everything I am that everyone else would be okay.

My own wellbeing has never taken a backseat to the needs of others in my personal life. It never had to. I had no siblings growing up, only a few good friends, and my mom and dad took care of everything else. After all these years of being sheltered, my time to put myself in harm’s way for people I care about finally arrived. Despite the pain each injury brings, and the lasting scars, I’d do it again. Scars earned defending the people you love are badges worth bearing.

I hobble along the corridor, trying to keep out of everyone’s way. Doctors, nurses, and volunteers rush past me on their way to patients much more in need of their help than I am. If they’re unconcerned about me, I know to take that as a good sign. There might be a life after this whole crazy ordeal after all.

Can the same be said for my father?

I slide open the glass door to his room and limp inside. A battery of machines surround his bedside; glowing digital displays measure a series of ever-changing numbers, each one gently beeping or clicking as they all work together to keep him stabilized.

He sits propped against a thick pillow. A white plastic neck brace cushioned with an interior of soft black foam clamps to his shoulders, surrounds his neck, and spreads beneath his jawline and chin. Bandages circle the top of his forehead, cover his hair, and stretch over the side of his face struck by the butt of the rifle, masking his ear, eye, and even part of his nose. His other eye stares ahead, open, but unfocused. I wonder if he even knows I’m here until I squeeze his hand and feel it squeeze back.

“How are you?” I’m tempted to whisper so I don’t startle him, but I’m afraid he can’t hear me. I can barely hear myself.

“Never better.” A smile emerges beneath the bandages. We share a chuckle.

I squeeze his hand harder and choke back the lump in my throat. My prolific tear ducts are parched from being emptied so many times over recent weeks. And really, what is there left to cry about?

“Where is everyone?” he asks.

“Trenton is in a room down the hall. Chris and Sean are with him. Kelly and Denim checked into the hotel across the street so they could get some sleep.”

“So everyone’s okay, then?”

“Randall took a lot of shrapnel and he has a bad burn from a grenade. He’s in surgery right now and isn’t due out for a few hours.”

“A grenade. Jesus.” My father sighs. “Any word from your mother?”

“Trenton sent a plane for her. She’ll be here pretty soon.”

My father tries to shake his head, but the neck brace keeps his posture locked. Even dry, shallow coughs cause him to strain against its tight hold. I lift a cup of water from the bedside table and aim the straw between his lips. He relaxes as the water races up the red-striped plastic tube into his mouth.

“I’ll go get you some more,” I say when he drains the cup.

“Let the nurse do it.” He winks his one good eye.

“You’ll die of thirst waiting for these ones. Though they seem very competent, it’s like they’re on vacation around here.”

“We west coasters are more chilled out than you New Yorkers.”

“I forgot just how much.”

I notice a jug of water refreshed with ice sitting on the table at the foot of his bed that I didn’t see when I walked in. I refill his cup from it and lift the straw to his lips again. He gladly drinks more and then releases the straw, stifling a hiccup.

“I’m sorry I made such a mess of everything, kiddo.”

I set the cup down on the bedside table. “Trenton is going to take care of it, Dad. Everything is going to be okay.”

“No, it’s not. You said your mother was on her way.” My father only manages a half-hearted laugh before his face darkens. “Sara, I broke the law. I worked with a terrorist to help smuggle weapons into the country. That’s not something Merrick’s money can make disappear.”

Every reassuring thought that passes through my head sounds like something we both need to hear, but one by one, they fail the most important criteria: None of them are truthful.

“We can’t have come this far only to lose now. Kedrov was the hard part. He’s gone. That’s over. If we can take down a terrorist, we can handle the FBI, right?”

It might be the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever said, but my father does what I knew he would all along: He pats my hand and stares at me out of his one good eye, hiding all the doubt he feels deep inside of him, far away from me. “You bet, kiddo.”

So much for my dry ducts. Tears stream down my face, igniting each cut and scab under their salty touch.

“Don’t cry, Sara. We’ll make it, like you said. We always do.” My father’s voice sounds weak now and his eyelid droops, the medication from the IV pulling him back into unconsciousness.

“Why can’t you let me be the strong one this time, Dad?”

His grip weakens around my hand while his breathing softens into a slow, easy rhythm. “I’m your father, Sara. That’s my job.”

I wait a few more moments to make sure he’s resting comfortably before I continue my journey down the hall. It’s not hard to guess which room belongs to the illustrious Trenton Merrick. Two Tin Men I’ve never seen before stand at attention outside the door.

Chris and Sean guarded my room from the moment I was admitted. It took some major pleading with them to let me visit with my father alone. They’re waiting for me at my final destination, though. We agreed upon that.

“Like, who does he think he is?” says a voice from behind the nurses’ station in a stern whisper. It comes from a short, middle-aged nurse, rifling through paperwork, but keeping both eyes on Trenton’s door and the two Tin Men outside of it. “In my entire professional career, I’ve never been talked to like that.”

A younger nurse, dressed in loose-fitting powder blue scrubs, sits in a chair next to her, eating a sandwich. “Shut up, they’ll hear you. Remember what we were told this morning
—he gets what he wants. He’s rich. And if anyone at the hospital discloses he’s here, or the woman and two injured men he came in with, they’ll get canned.”

I can’t help but sympathize with the staff, knowing firsthand how testy their
VIP
patient can be.

“They don’t pay me enough to put up with him,” replies the older nurse. “Thankfully, he’s insisting on signing himself out AMA and into the care of his private physician, which is why he hasn’t been transferred upstairs to an inpatient unit yet. And the plan is to move his friend in surgery to a New York hospital for post-operative recovery. They won’t be bothering us here much longer.”

One of the Tin Men takes notice of me approaching Trenton’s room and hurries over. “Miss Peters, allow me to help.”

There existed a time in the very recent past when I’d consider it odd if a man I’d never met before not only knows my name, but also offers to assist me. Surviving the sharp learning curve of Merrick Industries has taught me to tolerate a whole new level of weird. Now I take it for granted. It must be how the First Lady feels around secret service agents.

Each step makes my twisted ankle feel like a nail is being driven into it. I take his outstretched hand and lean into him as he helps me the final few paces to the door.

“Thank you,” I say as he pushes it open and guides me a further few steps inside.

Sunlight streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows, igniting the room in a hot, white light.

Trenton lies on the bed, covered only to the waist by a blanket. Square white gauze taped to his shoulder staunches the gunshot wound, which has opened again and leaked a small circle of blood onto the dressing.

The same pale yellow that colored his complexion at the cabin has returned. Sweat soaks his forehead and chest. His head is bandaged on account of the beating he took from Kedrov. No concussion, apparently. I’m not surprised. Thick skull and all . . .

Chris and Sean sit in two visitor chairs near Trenton’s bed, their backs to the door.

“The Feds aren’t saying what types of weapons and explosives were in the crates,” Chris says to Trenton. “They’ve got their recovery team in the bay right now. I don’t know if we’ll ever know.”

“Sara,” Trenton says with sweet satisfaction as he notices me hobbling toward his bed. Then his face sours. “You are not to bargain with Chris and Sean to give you time alone, nor will you walk around unaccompanied again. They will escort you from now on, do you understand?”

“You may be able to order the staff around here, Mr. Merrick, but I’m not so easily commanded.” My tone is stern, but I smile.

It takes a few seconds
, but Trenton’s face finally breaks into a grin, too.

Sean and Chris rise from their chairs and hold their hands out to help me the last few feet.

“May I?” I motion to the edge of Trenton’s bed.

“Please.” He turns to Chris and Sean. “Could you . . .?”

“We can continue this later,” Sean says. “While Sara is with you, we should probably go check on the girls. You know, back at the hotel.”

Trenton smirks. “Take your time.”

Bold grins chased with a hint of mischievousness light Chris and Sean’s faces as they hurry from the room.

“How are you feeling, Sara?”

Trenton takes my hand and guides me down onto the mattress beside him. His naked torso is so unexpected, I’m suddenly very conscious of the way I look: bare beneath a thin hospital gown tied securely in the back, scarred arms and face pocked with cuts and scrapes from flying shrapnel, my hair a bird’s nest of frayed strands and tangles. However, the heat I feel in my cheeks is the one sensation I’m attuned to and it supersedes the rest.

I’m definitely feeling better.

“Isn’t it my job to ask you that question?”

“It’s about time I got some decent medical care from an accredited professional.” Trenton scowls. “The nurses here couldn’t treat a hangnail.”

“Be nice.” I lean over him to take a closer look at the superficial cuts on his face. “I can’t believe there’s nothing else seriously wrong with you. That was quite a fall you took from the container, not to mention the gunshot. You’re very lucky.”

“We make our own luck in life, Sara.”

“Not when we fall from flying sea containers that, seconds later, fall on us.”

Trenton beckons me to lie down next to him. I pull my matted hair behind my shoulders, snuggle close to his burning body, and rest my head on the pillow. His right arm wraps around my shoulders.

I prop myself up so I can look him straight in the eye. “What happens now? Are we safe?”

“Kedrov’s dead, his operation has been exposed. I’m cooperating with the FBI on my end. I don’t think we have anything else to fear.”

“Don’t
think
?”

“Kedrov was already on thin ice with his backers. This incident will have them washing their hands of him and lying low to avoid investigation. Sean essentially did their dirty work for them.”

“It all seems too easy.”

“You think jumping with a sprained ankle into a sea container dangling in mid-air is easy?” Trenton’s grin looks so wide and bright it’s hard not to feel entirely assured.

“And my Dad?”

His smile eases, but doesn’t disappear. “Chris had no choice but to tell the Feds what happened
—it seems we left too big of a trail at the port. But the local police and media are none the wiser. It’s being labeled a Russian counterfeit smuggling operation gone wrong.
Knockoff designer goods aren’t big news compared to weapons and explosives.
Kedrov has been named publicly, but no one else.”

“So my dad is going to prison?”

“No. I told the Feds he was working with me undercover. They’re mad, but I’m taking all the blame. Ultimately, they’re just glad Kedrov’s operation is finished—at least with Kedrov at the helm.”

After my recent behavior toward Trenton, this outcome is far more than I deserve. He deserves something from me, too. “Trenton, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What?” His tone still sounds casual, but he can’t hide the hint of concern on his face.