Meant to Be (32 page)

“
It’s not bad,” he
croaked.

“
Well, you helped save a
life. At least it wasn’t in vain.” Angie turned to say something to
Jackie, but it felt like everyone else at the table sucked in a
deep breath. Rad’s head turned slowly toward Wynn, and the
expression on his face showed new hope mixed with heightened
desperation. It was heartrending.

Wynn closed his
eyes.
So help me God, Angie, if you are
pretending to know something or are lying, I will kill you with my
own two hands.

“
I went to school with a
doctor who works at Walter Reed, so I know they took good care of
you.” Angie went on talking, changing the subject from doctors to
stories of her college years, apparently taking great delight in
seeing how engrossed everyone was in what she was
saying.

After knocking off the last of his
drink and setting his empty glass down unsteadily again, Rad leaned
back in his chair and put his arm carelessly around the back of
Angela’s chair.

“
So you going to do a
follow-up story or anything?”

“
On what,
honey?”

Wynn put his hands under the table as
they curled into fists. He had never hit a woman before, but Angela
was testing him. Severely.

“
Oh, that spy.” She picked
up her glass and took a sip. “I haven’t thought about it, but
that’s a good idea.”

She set her glass down. “On second
thought, it’s probably impossible.”

Everybody’s gaze zeroed in on
her.

“
Why?” A flicker of
tortured agony crossed Rad’s gaze and then vanished.

“
She’s got a new identity
now. A new life. Don’t you think? That’s what they do with people
like her, right?” She turned to Jackie and winked. “I mean, she
could be just down the street right now and who would
know?”

Rad leaned back in his chair and
laughed. It was superb acting because everyone knew how much he was
hurting.

“
We need to get going.”
Wynn stood and pulled out Heather’s chair. He knew the longer the
night went on, the more anxious Rad would become, but they had to
go slow. One wrong move, and Angie would clam up. The interrogation
could continue another day when minds were clearer and they had a
plan in place.

“
Already?” Angie looked at
her watch.

“
Come on, Rad, I’ll give
you a lift.” Wynn helped Rad out of his chair, and then handed him
his cane. “You okay to walk? I don’t want you falling and breaking
that.”

“
I’m fine.”

“
I can give you a lift to
the hotel if Wynn’s car is full,” Angie said. “I practically go
right by it to get home.”

The hustle and bustle of everyone
grabbing their belongings and pushing in chairs stopped as they
waited for Rad to answer. They all knew he was pretty well plowed.
Getting information out of Angie was one thing. Going to bed with
her to get it, another.

“
Wynn will take
me.”

Rad never had a problem sleeping on a
rattling, old C-130, or in a hard bunk bed in a barracks, or even
on the cold, hard ground in the middle of winter. But try as he
might, he couldn’t seem to fall asleep in the five-star hotel room
in Washington, D.C., that Wynn and Heather had booked for
him.

He tossed and turned, trying to quiet
the voices in his head and to stop the images that appeared from
the deepest recesses of his mind. It felt like he was watching a
television set that kept changing the channels and wouldn’t turn
off.

It probably didn’t help
that he had consumed too much alcohol at the restaurant, and the
room was still spinning. But the whiskey had been the only thing
stopping him from picking Angie up and throwing her out on the
sidewalk. The fact she felt no remorse for her actions just added
to his anger. In
her
mind, jeopardizing an American life was an indirect
consequence of breaking a big story. The ends justified the
means.

But now he had to figure
out if she knew anything or was just playing him. It didn’t take
any great knowledge of her character to know she’d string someone
along if it meant getting what she wanted—and she’d made it pretty
clear tonight she wanted
him
.

He reached for the remote
control and turned on the TV, hoping the background noise would
help him sleep. How much more of this could he take? He’d pursued
every lead and called in every favor from friends he had in the
DOD, CIA, and DHS ever since he’d awakened at Walter Reed. Now that
he’d been released he planned to bang on doors—or knock
down
doors—of politicians
who wouldn’t give him the time of day on the phone. He even
intended to make an unannounced visit to Senator Gerald
Powers.

But maybe none of that would be
necessary. Maybe the one who had caused the whole tragedy, would be
the one to help him find Lauren. He continued going over everything
Angie had said, wondering if she had dropped a clue they all had
missed.

Rad closed his eyes and tried again to
relax. One of the sequences that kept replaying in his mind was the
time he’d gone for a spin in the wheelchair at the hospital.
Deciding to explore, he’d taken the elevator to the upper floor and
run into Dr. Bradley in the hall. She’d seemed flustered to
discover him there and had even escorted him back down. It hadn’t
seemed like a big deal at the time, and even now, he couldn’t
figure out why his mind kept rewinding over that event.

After getting up and doing a couple of
shots from the room’s private bar, Rad finally decided it wasn’t
the hotel room or the bed. His brain was trying to work something
out, something that didn’t fit. He may as well accept it and let it
do its thing.

At about at 0700 he sat straight up,
breathing heavily. Getting dressed, he slipped out of the hotel and
took a taxi to Walter Reed.

Chapter 31

Dr. Bradley juggled the
cup of coffee in her hand as she rummaged through her purse for her
key card. As soon as she found it and swiped her office door, she
felt a presence over her left shoulder.

“
Here, let me get that for
you.”

Michael Radcliff pushed the door open
with his left hand, and with his right hand, the one holding his
cane, he gently but firmly pushed her through the door.

“
Radcliff.” She said his
name as calmly as she could because he appeared like a mountain to
her. She could sense his power and vitality and knew better than to
challenge or question him. Instead, she kept her voice light, even
though she was scared to death. “I could have sworn you were
discharged.”

“
I was.”

Putting her purse on the desk, she
shrugged off her jacket. “So you miss us that much? I’m
flattered.”

“
I learned something
interesting last night.”

The way he said the words made Dr.
Bradley’s heart pick up its pace. “Really?”

“
I ran into my ex at a
restaurant.”

Dr. Bradley could feel his eyes
probing her, so she tried to keep her face expressionless. “Is that
right?”

“
She mentioned she knew
you.”

Dr. Bradley considered pretending she
didn’t know who he was talking about, but one look at his face told
her that would be a mistake. “You mean Angela? Yes, we’ve met, but
we—”

“
Actually it sounded to me
like you went to school together.” Rad corrected her.

“
Oh, well. That’s a big
school so—”

“
And that you were
sorority sisters.”

The room fell silent for a moment as
Dr. Bradley tried to decide how she could call security without Rad
knowing. She bit her lip and looked away.

“
Funny, you never
mentioned it.” He crossed his arms and stared at her with slanted
eyes.

“
To be honest with you, I
didn’t know my college years would be of any interest to you.” Dr.
Bradley forced a laugh but could not bring herself to meet his
gaze.

“
If we’re being honest
then I have to admit she didn’t actually tell me that.” Rad leaned
down and looked her in the eye. “I was just guessing.”

Dr. Bradley’s head jerked up. “Okay,
you can stop with the games.” She took a deep breath to calm her
nerves. “What do you want?”

“
Who’s in room
313?”

Trying to catch the breath his
question knocked out of her, Dr. Bradley walked over to her desk.
“A lot of patients come and go here, Radcliff. I don’t have the
rooms memorized.”

Rad grabbed her by the arm and led her
back out the door. “It’s right down that hall, to the left, at the
end.”

“
Oh, that one,” she said
weakly as she turned back to her office.

“
Yeah. That one.” His
voice was low and serious. “I couldn’t sleep last night and
remembered the day you gave me the wheelchair and I went exploring
on my own. Remember that?”

“
Vaguely.”

“
Only vaguely? Because you
seemed pretty nervous when you saw me on this floor.”

“
I was surprised, that’s
all.” She laughed nervously. “I mean, really, I just didn’t expect
to see you up here.”

“
Okay, let’s cut to the
chase.” He stood in front of her and hit the floor with his cane as
if agitated. “Why is there a guard in front of the
door?”

“
I don’t know. She’s not
my patient.”

The doctor couldn’t help but notice
the expression on Rad’s face at the use of the word ‘she’ and
realized he had come here only on a hunch. Angela must have said
something last night that had gotten his wheels turning and Dr.
Bradley had just confirmed his entire theory.

“
But you’ve seen
her.”

Dr. Bradley bit her lip. “Yes. We have
rounds. I’ve seen the patient in that room.”

“
I want to see
her.”

She looked him straight in the eye.
“No. You probably don’t.”

“
I’m a big boy, Dr.
Bradley. I can take it.”

“
It doesn’t matter if you
can or can’t.” She went back to the desk, sat down, and fingered
through some files. “I don’t have the authority to get you in
there. Those guards weren’t placed there by me.”

Rad put one hand on the back of her
chair and one on the desk, and bent down with apparent effort. “Was
she shot?”

The look in his eyes and the tone of
his voice startled her.

“
No. Why?”

He pulled himself back up and dropped
into a nearby chair with a loud sigh, as if a tremendous weight had
been lifted from his shoulders. “When I was shot…” He paused,
apparently trying to keep his voice from quivering. “I thought
maybe she was hit too… that I had gotten her killed by running
through the gunfire.” He choked up again and paused. “But I was
just trying to save her.”

Putting his head in his hands, he sat
breathing heavily, rubbing his temples as if trying to clear the
images from his mind. “They worked on me on the helicopter—not her.
I thought she was dead.”

Dr. Bradley stood and put her hand on
Rad’s shoulder. “I’m sorry you thought that. They were working on
you because you were bleeding to death. She had critical injuries,
but not the type that could be treated on a helicopter. All they
could do was try to get her stabilized.”

She sat back down and stared at the
mountain of a man who had appeared so frightening a few minutes
ago. Now he seemed on the verge of tears, an emotional wreck caused
by the anguish he’d been living with without telling a soul. She
leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “She’s got a traumatic
brain injury. She’s been in a drug induced coma to help her
heal.”

Rad stared straight ahead. “She
doesn’t have any family. No one to visit.”

“
Yes, I noticed that.” Dr.
Bradley leaned back in her chair with a pencil in her hand, tapping
it on the desk. Then she stood. “There is nothing I can do that
won’t jeopardize my license. I’ve already disclosed more than HIPPA
rules allow. I’m sorry.”

Rad continued to stare at the wall on
the opposite side of the room and nodded, but his mind seemed
elsewhere.

“
But sometimes the guard
goes outside with me for a smoke.” She glanced at her watch. “Right
around now.”

Rad’s gaze slowly returned to hers,
and the look on his face made her want to wrap her arms around him
and comfort him. They burned with want and need and a yearning she
had never before seen in a man’s eyes.

She pulled out a piece of paper and
wrote #1833 on the page, underlining it twice even though she knew
he understood it was the keypad code to get through the door. Then
she grabbed a cigarette and a lighter from her purse. “I hope the
hell you’re out of this hospital by the time I get back in about
ten minutes.”

Rad waited for the sound of the two
voices to disappear down the hall. He’d grabbed a white lab coat
from Dr. Bradley’s office, and although it was snug, hoped it
helped him fit in. Walking to the door, he took a deep breath and
tried to prepare himself for what he was going to see.