by Cindy Dees
“Liam Kastor?” Rahm asked as Liam climbed out of his truck.
“That’s me. Agent Zogby?”
“Just Zog. Or Rahm. I’m not a badge flasher.”
Liam wasn’t sure if that meant the guy had an FBI badge and chose not to show it, or that the guy was a civilian. Zog drove the van while Liam rode in the torn vinyl passenger seat. Liam directed him across town to Sloane’s house, and the FBI man parked out front.
“What’s the plan...Zog?”
“You’ve got the keys and permission to go in, right? That’s what Stefan Roberts told me.”
“Correct.”
“I’m gonna go in and pretend to fix the air conditioner and heater while you put on this monkey suit and help me.” The guy held out a cheap brown jumpsuit that would fit over his street clothes. “Ideally, you’d have some work boots to wear, but we’ll chance it. Just pull the jumpsuit down so it covers up your shoes as much as possible.”
“Got it.” Liam crawled in the back of the van, sat on the hard ribbed floor, and wrestled on the uniform.
Zog eyed him critically. “Pull the baseball cap down lower. Good. Keep your face turned away from the cameras as much as you can without being obvious about it. And watch what you say. The cameras may have an audio pickup.”
Liam nodded his understanding and yanked the cap down practically to the bridge of his nose.
“Here. Carry this.” Zog thrust a grimy bucket full of tools at him. They climbed out and headed for the kitchen door at the back of the house.
Liam let them in, and Zog made a beeline for the thermostat on the wall in the dining room. He popped the cover off and fiddled with the electronics inside. “Gotta look at the base unit,” he announced.
They piled upstairs to the slant-ceilinged office. At one end of the space was a short door that turned out to lead to a partially finished attic space.
“Perfect,” Zog breathed.
Frowning, Liam watched the guy get down on his hands and knees and crawl for the corner over the front door. Flashes of light indicated that Zog was photographing something. When the guy backed up and headed for the other side of the open space, Liam estimated that Zog was on top of the camera in Chloe’s room. More flashes of light.
“Hand me that zipped pouch in the bottom of the bucket,” Zog muttered.
Liam passed it over and was startled when the technician went to work, quickly attaching wires to something in the corner.
“’Kay. Done,” Zog announced.
Liam opened his mouth to ask what the guy had found, but Zog waved him to silence. They tromped downstairs. Zog replaced the thermostat cover while mumbling something about being glad it was just a fuse that needed replacing and chuckling over how they were gonna be able to charge for a full-service visit. Then they piled into the van and drove away from Sloane’s bungalow.
“Well?” Liam demanded.
The stoner persona dropped in an instant, and Rahm spoke crisply. “State-of-the-art surveillance and transmission system. Someone’s nearby monitoring the camera feed, or else there’s a remote unit nearby where the data is being collected, forwarded to another location, and possibly recorded for later viewing. Either way, your stay-at-home mom has some serious hardware in her attic. Stuff’s practically military grade.”
“But why?” Liam blurted in frustration. “She’s a mom.”
“You sure about that? There’s a good twenty grand in gear installed in that house. We’re talking a top-drawer private security firm or the FBI. They’re the only types who have access to that kind of tech besides the military.”
Suddenly, Liam didn’t know anything at all about Sloane. Who in the world would bring that kind of juice to spy on her? And why?
The van pulled to a stop beside his pickup truck back at the station.
“Here,” Zog said, holding out a flash drive and a cigar-box-sized box with an antenna sticking out of it. “You’ll need these.”
“What are they?”
“Plug the antenna unit into an electrical outlet and plug that flash drive into your computer, and you’ll see the exact same feed as the cameras. I cloned the whole system for you.”
Liam sputtered. He didn’t want to spy on Sloane! He only wanted to know who’d done it. “Is there any way we can track who’s picking up the signal?”
“I planted a signal tracker at the house, but I’m gonna have to go back to the bench in my lab and catch an outbound batch burst of data before I can give you a location. Give me, say, twelve hours? I doubt the surveillance batches are going out any slower than that.”
“Fair enough. Thanks for all your help, man.”
Zog said soberly, “I hope you find the answers you’re looking for.”
So did he. It would kill him to have to take Sloane down if she was mixed up in something nefarious. And Chloe—that kid couldn’t end up back in her father’s hands. Could the Coltons be convinced to sue for custody—
Slow down, there, Tonto. Sloane isn’t convicted of anything yet. Innocent until proven guilty, buddy.
Please God, let Sloane not be tangled up in something illegal.
Chapter 5
There was panic. And then there was panic. When the pulmonologist ordered Chloe moved to intensive care, Sloane learned the true meaning of the word. Her poor baby was barely conscious and hooked up to so many monitors and machines she barely looked human under all of them.
An ICU nurse introduced herself briskly and quickly walked Sloane through what all of the machines in the room did. The one that Sloane fixated on was the emergency call button. She was to hit that if Chloe quit breathing.
Oh. My. God.
The nurse finished with, “Is there a family member I can call for you? Someone should probably be with you. In case.”
In case Chloe died.
Sloane’s knees buckled out from under her at that point, but thankfully, a chair was behind her. “My brother,” she whispered. “Fox Colton.”
“Right. Have you got a phone number for him?”
Sloane couldn’t remember her own name right now, let alone Fox’s phone number. Numbly, she held out her phone to the woman. The nurse thumbed efficiently through her contact list and dialed the phone. Sloane listened to the call, numb.
“This is Joanne Carter down at the hospital. Your sister asked me to notify you that her daughter has been admitted to intensive care—
“Yes. Of course, I’ll let her know. Yes, sir. We’ll see you soon.”
The nurse opened her mouth, and Sloane interrupted. “I caught the gist of it. Thank you.” She didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. Didn’t want to think about anything so mundane as a phone call or her brother coming to be with her. She wanted a freaking act of God. A miracle. An instant fix for Chloe’s lungs.
For this nightmare. To. Go. Away.
Fox looked almost as lost as she felt when he barged into the intensive care ward about ten minutes later. He hugged her hard. “What can I do, sis?”
“Pray.”
“Are you gonna be okay?”
She shook her head. “If she doesn’t make it...I’ll...” She shrugged and her voice strengthened. “I’ll go with her.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s have no talk like that.”
Yup. That was it. It was simple, really. She couldn’t live without Chloe. Decision made, a strange calm came over her.
Fox eyed her warily and picked his phone out of his pocket.
“Don’t you call Mara,” she warned him.
“I wouldn’t think of landing that circus on your head.” Fox muttered into his phone for a moment and then looked up at her. “But I am going to tell Mom what’s going on. She’d kill us both if we didn’t. But I’ll make it clear you don’t want company right now. Fair enough?”
Sloane nodded reluctantly. Family would have i
ts due. Fox ended up making two phone calls, as it turned out.
Standing by Chloe’s bed, hovering over the oxygen tube to make sure Chloe left it alone, she felt Liam’s presence in the circular ICU ward before she saw him.
Had he been who Fox had called first? What on earth had prompted her brother to do that? Or maybe Fox had just wanted his best friend here for moral support.
It was as if a piece of the Rocky Mountains had entered the space, big and calm and solid, when Liam walked into Chloe’s room. He murmured a low greeting to Fox, and the two men stepped outside to have a quick conversation.
Then only one of them returned behind her to the room.
Arms went around her, cradling her back against a rock-solid chest, and a whiff of pine and cold, clean air told her she hadn’t been wrong in identifying Liam as the one who’d returned.
He didn’t say anything. He seemed to know that she had no words for her terror, that she dared not give voice to the awful possibilities staring them in the face. She leaned back against him, and for just an instant, she let him carry her burden for her. The relief was staggering. She drew one full, deep, cleansing breath.
God. If only Chloe could get one breath like that.
The crushing weight of her terror and helplessness landed back upon her chest. But she’d had that moment. It had given her the strength to bear a few more minutes in this hell. Liam had given her that strength.
He stood behind her for a long time, just holding her gently, his arms wrapped comfortingly around her middle. The top of her head barely came to his chin, and his broad shoulders enveloped hers with easy strength. She stared at Chloe lying so still and small in the bed, willing each rise of Little Bug’s chest to happen. Counting breaths.
When she reached a hundred, she started counting again.
Eventually, she let out a wobbly breath.
“She has your strength. She’ll be fine.”
“You can’t know that,” Sloane snapped.
She started to apologize, but Liam cut her off, saying, “I’m issuing blanket forgiveness for absolutely anything you say to me in the next twenty-four hours. You let fly with anything you need to get out of your system, okay? I get it.”
“How do you know what I’m going through?” she asked curiously.
“My father died last year. Slowly and painfully. It was hard to take sometimes. Every now and then, I had to scream and yell and be completely irrational, and let the rage and grief out.”
“I’m not ready to grieve yet,” she ground out.
“Nor should you. Chloe’s fighting. She’s got a crack medical staff fighting with her, and she’s got her whole family sending her prayers and good energy. And she’s got you, Sloane. If mommy love counts for a damned thing in this universe, then Chloe’s going to be just fine.”
Sloane squeezed her eyes tightly shut as they burned with tears. She could handle just about anything in life except compassion. Go figure.
Liam finally turned her loose and stepped outside to have a quiet word with the nurse monitoring Chloe’s vitals at the computer station outside the hospital room.
Sloane overheard him ask, “How long till we know anything?”
The nurse’s voice drifted in through the open door. “Chloe needs to make it through the night. The kids we’ve seen fight this tend to claw their way back or go downhill within about twenty-four hours.”
“Is there anything, anyone, anywhere can do to help Chloe that’s not already being done?” Liam asked.
“No, sir. Our pulmonologist is one of the best in the country. She went to Harvard Medical School, and she specialized in pediatric infectious disease. You could not have a more qualified professional fighting for your daughter.”
Liam didn’t correct the nurse’s mistaken impression that he was the father.
Interesting.
But then, neither did Sloane.
* * *
It was a long night. Longer than the night she’d spent in labor alone, waiting for Chloe to be born, while Ivan flew to Las Vegas to gamble and pick up women.
At least this night, she wasn’t alone. Liam never left her side except to fetch her cups of water and coffee. Other members of her family came and went in carefully orchestrated shifts that smacked of Mara’s organizational skills. But Liam was the constant.
That and the labored, rasping sound of Chloe’s breaths, each one a monumental effort for her little body.
The pulmonologist came by every hour, then every half hour. As the infection reached a crisis point, the doctor stayed in Chloe’s room, sitting on a stool on the other side of the bed from Liam and Sloane, her gaze locked on the monitors reporting Chloe’s oxygen levels and respiration rate.
Liam didn’t say much. He suggested she splash water on her face. Take a walk around the ICU bay outside Chloe’s room to revive the circulation in her legs. He might have fed her some food, but Sloane had no memory of eating.
She wanted to scream and hit things, to fight and rage against what was happening to her child. But there wasn’t a single damned thing she could do to make it better.
At one point, Liam dragged her into one of the family respite rooms.
“What are you doing?” she protested. “I need to get back to Chloe.”
“Do you need to punch me? Go ahead. I’m big and tough. You won’t hurt me.”
Even though that was exactly her impulse at the moment, Liam saying it aloud shocked her into stillness.
“Go ahead. Make a fist and bury it in my gut. I dare you.”
She gasped instead as if he’d punched her in the gut. She managed to choke out, “What am I going to do?”
“You’re going to do what you always do. You’re going to charge full-steam ahead and do everything you can for your daughter. You’re going to be her rock tonight, and you’re going to will her to fight this off. She’s your child. She has your will to live. Believe in that.”
It helped to hear those words spoken aloud. Leave it to Liam to cut right to the core of the matter. Tonight’s fight was a simple one. Life or death.
And she would be damned if she let her daughter succumb without putting up the mother of all fights.
Steadied by Liam’s clarity, she took a deep breath, donned her emotional armor, picked up her mommy sword and marched back into battle for her baby’s life.
She sat down beside Chloe’s bed and very carefully took Chloe’s hand in hers. The tiny fingers wrapped around her index finger and hung on. Weakly. But by God, Chloe hung on to her.
She willed strength into her child. Willed stubbornness and fight into her. And she sent all the love in her heart into that tiny hand clutching hers.
Sloane’s entire world narrowed down to just those tiny, labored breaths.
In. Gasp. Out. Rattle.
Pause.
Please God, let her draw one more breath.
Another gasp. Another rattle.
Thank God.
Please God. Just one more.
Don’t take my baby from me.
The universe narrowed down even more.
In.
Out.
One breath.
Two.
Three.
If time had ever existed, Sloane forgot what its passage was. The long hours of this night were never going to end.
On the one hand, she begged the clock to run faster. For Chloe to reach the end of this nightmare. To be released from her suffering. But on the other hand, she begged the clock to stop. In this second, Chloe was still alive. Sloane would be all right with living in this one second, suspended here forever, knowing her baby was still in the world.
But then the second hand ticked.
And time moved on.
Toward what fate for her baby, she didn’t know.
* * *
Liam had experienced some difficult situations in his career—fatal car crashes, making death notifications to family members. But nothing had prepared him for the nightmare of waiting helplessly for a tiny child to live or die. How Sloane wasn’t collapsing into a heap on the floor, he had no idea.
Fox left to go tell Russ and Mara what was happening, and at Sloane’s request, to insist they not descend upon the ICU. That was why he went in person to talk with them. It was the only way to assure they didn’t barge in here and stress out Sloane even more.
The only thing he could do was stand vigil with her, offering silent support. Although she seemed barely aware that he was there, so intently was she concentrating on her daughter and the epic battle the two of them were waging against the virus.
Every time he stepped out and came back with a cup of water or some coffee for her, Sloane clutched his hand convulsively for a second with her free hand before taking the drink. It was the only outward sign of her agony.
The hours crawled by.
Finally, around daybreak, Chloe did something new.
She coughed.
It was a bare breath of sound, a tiny puff of exhaled air. But the pulmonologist leaped to her feet and listened intently to Chloe’s chest through a stethoscope. Liam realized he was holding his breath and forced himself to exhale.
“She’s breathing a little more deeply,” the doctor announced.
Sloane reached for his hand without looking away from Chloe and squeezed his fingers so hard he could barely stand the discomfort.
“Is that good news, Doc?” Liam asked, voicing the words Sloane clearly could not.
“If she can continue to cough and to start clearing her lungs, she’ll be headed in the right direction.”
Sloane did collapse then. Her legs just went out from under her, and she went down to the floor. Liam bent down quickly and lifted her up, looping a strong arm around her waist. “Lean on me,” he murmured.
