An Aria for Nick (Christian Romantic Suspense) (Song of Suspense)
Page 28
"That's tempting, but I have patients I need to check on." She poured a fresh cup of coffee and set it on the table in front of him, then filled a plate, bringing that to him as well. "Watch those two in there. They glare at each other like they're about to duke it out," he said as he started shoveling food into his mouth.
Carol sat next to Henry and took a sip of coffee. "They're both in love with him," she said.
Henry rubbed his eyes again, no longer dreading going to work that day. "That's great. Well then, you have fun today." Carol laughed and patted his hand.
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ARIA stepped around the chair where Jen had finally fallen asleep and reached over to feel Nick's forehead. She was so worried that he would start running a high temperature, and felt some control when she constantly checked. As soon as her hand touched his skin, his hand came out of nowhere and grabbed her wrist. She gasped in surprise at the contact, then looked down and saw his eyes were open.
She knelt down by the bed. "I'm so glad you're awake, Nick. I've been so worried," she said as she kissed his forehead.
"Where am I?" he asked in a hoarse voice.
"You're at Carol's house. Jen brought you here early this morning." He started to shift his body, but the movement brought an involuntary moan from him, and she saw the sweat bead on his forehead. "Henry said not to move," she said as she put her hands on his shoulders to keep him still. "Do you want some pain pills?" Nick nodded and leaned his head back with his eyes tightly closed, obviously fighting the pain his movement caused.
As Aria reached behind her for the bottle of pain medicine, she saw Jen jerk awake. Her eyes immediately sought out Nick, and a flash of concern crossed her face when she saw him awake. Aria ignored her and opened the bottle, pouring out two pills. She turned back to Nick and put a pill against his lips until he opened his mouth, then she gave him some water through a straw. He seemed to gain some control back and opened his eyes again.
"Where's Jen?" he asked.
Aria felt pain slice through her heart at the question, then slowly stood and moved out of the way. "She's right here. I'll leave you two alone." Her whole body ached as she walked to the door, and when she turned back to look at him, she saw Jen leaning forward and reaching for his hand. She opened the door very gingerly, as if it would break if she wasn't extra careful, and walked out of the room, turning for the stairs. She obviously wasn't needed in there, and a shower and bed were what she needed now, she thought.
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NICK watched Aria leave, and fought off the impulse to call her back to sit beside him and hold his hand. Instead, he turned his head toward Jen. "Are you completely out of your mind?" he asked in a weak voice.
"I made sure I wasn't followed, Nick. You needed medical care, and I couldn't take you to a hospital, so I was kind of out of options. Who shot you, Nick?"
"Who do you think?" he spat.
"Did you see the shooter?"
Nick shook his head. "Close range silenced subsonic. Not too good adjusting for depth perception with night vision yet."
"Looks like he was good enough to nick you, Nick."
"It was at least his fifth shot."
Jen sat back a bit, "Well that's just sloppy."
He closed his eyes for a moment and fought off another wave of pain, then opened them back up. "Carol has a kid. A little girl. You put them at risk."
"How?"
"Did you change cars?"
"No." When his eyes narrowed, she swallowed and said, "I didn't want to move you. Actually, I didn't think I could have moved you. I'm kind of half the girl I once was in terms of upper body strength." She squeezed his hand, but when he didn't return the gesture, she let go and sat back in the chair. "I disabled the tracker then drove for two hours. I would have known if I'd been followed."
Nick could feel his consciousness slipping away, but there was more he needed to say, so he shifted a little, and as the pain attacked, his fatigue was pushed into the background. As soon as he had his breath back, he opened his eyes again. "That was a NISA car, Jen. They didn't need to follow you. They probably already know where we are." He saw tears fill her eyes and cursed quietly to himself. He needed her to shift her focus from herself to the situation.
"What reason could they have for tracing you?" she asked him.
"To find Aria. She knows what they're up to, and she knows who they are." He could feel himself slipping away again, but he didn't have the strength to fight more pain, so he let himself drift as helplessness claimed him. "You need to protect them, Jen. I can't do it. You need to follow my original plan."
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ARIA was sitting at the table in the kitchen, staring at her laptop screen, not really seeing what was on it when Carol walked in. "Did you get Lisa settled in?' she asked.
"She was excited. What six year old doesn't want to play with horses for a week?" she said as she opened the refrigerator and started to dig around in it. "I told her I'd be back for her birthday party." She grabbed a ginger-ale and pulled out a chair next to Aria.
"Where did you tell them you were going?"
"I said I would be unavailable due to an attempted murder case that's recently come to light." She popped the top on her ginger-ale and took a swallow. "So that I wouldn't get caught in a lie, every time they asked me a question I told them that I really couldn't discuss it."
Aria shut the top to her computer and pushed it away from her. "Do you have to do that often?"
"Leave her?" Carol asked. When Aria nodded, she shook her head. "I've only had to do it once or twice in the past two years." She took another sip of her drink and asked, "How's Nick?"
"He woke up a couple hours ago," Aria said, rubbing her temples.
"What did he say?"
"First he said, 'where am I," then he said, 'where's Jen'." Aria crossed her arms on the table and rested her head there.
"Then he fell back asleep?"
"No, then I left the room so that the two of them could have some privacy."
Carol paused for a few heartbeats. "Aria, from what I can gather about Nick, he is going to think about the situation before he thinks about letting you sit there and hold his hand. Of course he would want to see Jen first, unless you've suddenly developed mad ninja skills and connections at NISA." She looked at Aria more closely. "Have you been sitting in here pouting this whole time?"
"No. I took a shower first." Though she'd prefer a little sympathy right then, she knew Carol was right and started to feel a little foolish.
"Why don't you go sleep, then go back in there and tell Jen to get some rest."
Aria nodded and stood slowly. "Thanks, Carol. I'm sorry I came barging in here like this. We kind of disrupted your life a little."
"Maybe it needed a little disrupting," she said, then waved her hand at the door. "Go sleep. I'll wake you at two. That will give you a good three hours."
The thought of that made Aria's whole body long for the bed, so she nodded. "I'll see you in a couple of hours." She turned and headed for the stairs, ignoring the door underneath them as she made her way up.
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Chapter 31
"MY friends assure me that there are girls in your establishment that are truly virgins. I must say what a relief it is to find a place that doesn't try to cheat their customers," Nick said with a leer as he addressed the woman sitting in front of him. Human traffickers disgusted him. If the place wasn't an impenetrable fortress full of armed men, he would have simply slit her throat and been done with it, but since he had no reliable backup nearby, he decided to play it safe. He hoped that the contacts he'd established over the past five weeks were reliable.
"You must know how hard it is to come by true virgins in Thailand. If that is what you want, you must be prepared to pay, Mr. Vincent," she said, taking a sip of her tea.
"I can assure you, madam, that I am prepared to pay handsomely."
"Very good then. It will be three thousand dollars. American, of course."
"What makes you think there are American girls here?"
"My friends would not lie to me, would they?"
She stared at the money, and he was sure that she had to keep from licking her lips. "Two thousand more dollars." She took the money and made it disappear with almost mystical speed. "I assume you want a young woman?"
"The younger the better, madam." Nick stood to follow her and slung his duffel bag over his shoulder.
"What is in the bag, Mr. Vincent?"
"Just some toys." He opened the bag revealing ropes, handcuffs, and whips, among other things. "I prefer that my women remember me."
"You must not leave any permanent marks on her body."
Nick looked visibly shocked. "I am well aware of the investment you have, madam. Do not insult me again."
"I do apologize. Please, follow me." She led the way up a winding staircase, down a hallway that had several closed doors. Nick could hear nothing as they passed the rooms, and he was certain that they were soundproofed. She opened a door near the end of the hallway, and stepped back so he could enter. "You have one hour, sir. A thousand dollars an hour after that."
"An hour is all I need, madam." He stepped into the room and she shut the door behind him. At first he couldn't see anyone in the room, but as he opened his bag and knelt down, he could see her huddled in the corner, almost behind the bed. She was watching him with wide, terrified eyes, and he cursed to himself when he thought about the evil this thirteen-year-old girl must have witnessed in the last several weeks.
He moved to stand with his back to the bed and looked up, seeing a vent directly in his line of vision. There was a chair in the corner of the room, and he pulled that over so that he could stand on it and reach the vent. He quickly unscrewed it and removed the cover, seeing the camera there. He shook his head and waved his finger as if to say, "tsk, tsk," and disabled the camera.
A thorough check of the room showed no more cameras or microphones. He emptied his bag then walked around the bed until he was in front of the girl, then he knelt down to eye level with her. A petite girl with blonde hair and brown eyes — it was impossible not to make a connection to Aria Suarez in his mind.
His heart ached a little as he recognized her from the picture he had stared at hundreds of times in the past five weeks. "Hi, Mary. My name is Nick and I'm friends with your daddy. He sent me here to get you out."
Her eyes filled up with tears and she nodded her head. "I need you to do something that's probably going to be pretty scary, but it's the safest way to get you out of here."
She nodded again, and he ran a hand over her head to comfort her. "For now, though, we'll just sit here for a few minutes. Don't worry, Mary, you'll be safe in just a little while."
She nodded.
He said, "I need to ask you some questions, okay?" She nodded again. "Who is Sawback? Who's Sawback, Mary?"
She whispered, "My horse."
Nick nodded. "That's right. Sawback is your horse. That's good. What did you do in Fredericksburg last June, Mary? Do you remember?"
"I was in my aunt's wedding."
Nick smiled. "That's good, Mary. Very good. Last question. What is a mocha frappe milkshake, Mary? What is that?"
Mary sat up, "That's my favorite milkshake at Dave and Busters."
Nick nodded and kept eye contact. "Your daddy told me to ask you all those questions to make sure it was you, Mary. Now I really believe you're the girl your daddy wants me to help. For this to work, you have to believe that I am here to help you. Do you believe me, Mary?"
She nodded quickly, a tear streaming down her face.
He waited and watched the time go by while he spoke to her about everything he could think of, and when it had been forty-five minutes, he said, "Okay, Mary. You have to trust me more than anyone you've ever met, okay?"
She nodded again, and he wished she would speak to him again. He held his hand out and when she took it, he saw the burn marks on her wrist from the ropes that had bound her. Combat had given him similar scars on the palms and backs of his hands. He walked her over to the bag and knelt down again. "Make yourself as small as you can and climb into the bag. You have to be very still. Don't move even a muscle, don't make a sound, and in five minutes, we'll be out of here."
CAROL intended to persuade Jen to take a break so she carried a cup of coffee and a plate with a sandwich and some chips on it to the room. She already missed Lisa, but Carol knew her daughter was in good hands at her grandparents' house.
She opened the door without knocking and stepped in before she realized Jen wasn't there. She set the plate and cup down then did a quick walk-through of the house, looking for her. When she opened the garage door and saw that the car was gone, little fingers of fear began to work their way up her spine. She wanted to wake Aria, but couldn't figure out what good that would do, so she went back to the bedroom to sit with Nick until it was time to wake her up. Maybe Jen would be back by then.
As soon as she sat down, she looked at Nick and saw that his eyes were open, staring at her. She'd always thought that he had the most powerful eyes. "Hey Nick. Pushing the limits of my hospitality, aren't you?"
He almost smiled, and she felt pretty confident that he would live. "Carol. What day is it?"
"Tuesday. It's only about noon." She wished she knew how to check a pulse or something, thinking that she should probably be doing nursely things.
"Where's Jen?"
"I don't know. The car's gone."
Nick nodded. "Good. How long ago did she leave?"
"I've been gone all morning, so I'm not sure. You don't want her here?"
"I don't want the car here. Where's your little girl, Carol?"
The little fingers of fear slowly grew into full-blown fists. "Do I need to worry about something, Nick? I've never been really good with surprises."
"Not if she got the car out of here in time. Where's your kid?"
"Gone. Safe. Grandparents' house."
"Good." He closed his eyes then opened them again. "Can you get me another one of those pills?" She nodded and opened the bottle, pouring out two. "I only want one. I don't want to be knocked out."
"Henry should be here in a few hours. He said you might need more blood."
"I probably lost a lot." He opened his mouth for the pill, then let her raise his head to sip from the straw. Then he leaned his head back on the pillow and she watched sweat bead his brow from the exertion of that small movement. He said, "I hate being weak."
"Oh Nick, you're about the most un-weak man I've ever met. Even when you were a kid sporting all those cuts and black eyes."
The smile that he fought back earlier actually showed up that time, and she felt like maybe she'd accomplished something. "I had on a holster yesterday. I don't remember, but see if I put my pistol back in it," he directed. Carol found the pile of clothes, but the holster was empty. "It must still be in the car," he said. "Do you own a firearm?"
"Yes. I have a revolver. Do you want it?"
"Yes." She started to leave the room, but he stopped her. "Wait, Carol. Where's Aria?"
"She's sleeping," she said. He hid his reaction carefully, but she was still able to see the faintest flicker of disappointment cross his face. "I never would have been able to get her to lie down if she'd known Jen was gone." She opened the door. "I'll go get my gun. Do you need anything else?"
"Ammo." Nick answered, and she shut the door behind her.
When she came back downstairs a few minutes later, she opened the door and saw that he was already asleep again. She lifted the sheet and put the .38 Special Remington revolver against his leg on the far side of his body, letting it touch his leg so that he would know it was there, then sat back down in the chair and opened the book she'd grabbed off her night stand when she got the gun, and settled in.<
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SOMEONE was touching his arm, and he grabbed the hand and opened his eyes. For an instant, he thought it was Adam. Then he remembered where he and something about his circumstances and decided this must be Henry.
"I think with reflexes that quick, I can safely say you're going to pull through," Henry said with a smile.
"That's nothing. You should see me on a trapeze," Nick tried to joke, but he hurt too much to be convincing. Henry finished hooking up the IV line to the needle that was still in his arm, and attached it to a bag hanging over his head.
"How would you appreciate your pain, Nick?" Henry asked.
"I don't like it much," Nick admitted.
Henry grinned. "On a scale of one to ten?"
Nick relented, "Probably worse than giving birth from what I gather but so much better than a kidney stone."
"I hear that," Henry agreed. "So would you rate your discomfort at about a six or as a seven?"
Nick nodded, his eyes closed. "Honestly, it hurts almost as if I've been shot."
Henry studied him, happy he was in such good spirits, then he also nodded. "We'll call it at least an eight. It's easy to see you've had your fair share of comparisons. Have you considered retiring, giving your body a break?"
More and more every day, he thought. "What is that?" he asked, indicating the banana bag.
"Amoxicillin. A common antibiotic. And a whole bunch of vitamins. Don't worry. I won't knock you out. You seem to be managing the pain pretty well," Henry said as he sat in the chair.
"That's easy to say on your end."
"Want another pill?"
"No. Do you have any aspirin?"
"I have ibuprofen and acetaminophen. I'd rather you alternate doses of each every 3 hours. Aspirin might make you bleed a bit more than you'd like and doesn't mix well with ibuprofen," he explained as he dug through his bag.