“Christ, Lilly.” I clutched my chest. “Don’t do that when I’m with a patient.”
“Enter a room noisily and wait quietly for you to finish up? Yeah, that was a real jerk move.”
I hooked the bag back up. My heart was pounding, and I half-expected Mr. McComb’s eyes here to pop open. I was not a girl designed for secrets.
“What couldn’t you wait to tell me?” I said. “Don’t you have your own rounds?”
“I finished my rounds already,” she said. “I thought I’d just come by to chat. I didn’t expect to find my newly innocent friend being suspiciously jumpy to see me.”
“I’m no jumpier than-” I turned around. “Wait, what do you mean, ‘newly innocent’?”
Her smile danced on her lips. “Exactly what you think it means.”
“They closed their investigation?” My breath stopped in my lungs.
“That’s right.” She laughed. “You really shouldn’t look so shocked.”
“This is relief, Lilly. Relief.” I tried to pick her up in a hug, which didn’t really work given that she was taller and bigger than me.
She patted me on the back. “So now that it’s all over, you going to tell me what happened?”
“I lost my access card, and I got it back,” I said. “That’s all I know. If you want to ask my card some questions, I’d be happy to let you.”
“I think Calix might be a more interesting subject,” she said, smiling to herself. “I mean, how crazy is it that the item the card was used to get affects his case? And, he ends up dating the girl who lost the card.”
I glanced out the hall to make sure no one was hearing this. “Life is weird,” I murmured.
“Uh huh.”
“Still, if you could keep me and Calix on the down low for now, it’d be better. People might get suspicious.”
“Oh, come on.” She wrapped an arm around me and led me out. “I’d never want to see you hurt. I just want to make sure you’re not getting into even worse trouble.”
I felt light as I looked around at the bustling beeping corridors. Everything seemed bright and white and clean. Even the clouds of ammonia we walked through seemed to have a pine scent. This place was mine once more.
“I can take care of myself,” I said.
“Good,” Lilly said. “Cause you’ll need to be taking care of me soon, too.”
I looked at her confused. She was biting her lip though, looking like she was barely containing an explosion. My heart filled my chest.
“Oh my god,” I said. “You’re pregnant?”
She nodded vigorously. I wrapped her in another tight hug. Then, I though better and patted her belly to apologize.
“You ran a test here?” I asked. “It’s all confirmed?”
“Well, I mean there’s a little guy in there, but I shouldn’t even be telling you for another month or two. It’s crazy how many pregnancies end on their own. But I figured I’d need you anyway if that happens.”
“You’ll have me for anything.” I squeezed her hand and nearly cried with laughter. The relief was making me so giddy. “Especially, now that I’m not going to jail.”
“Jail?” Her eyes narrowed on me.
“It’s a joke,” I said, as we entered the nurse’s station. “I’m just super overwhelmed and grateful. You’re the bearer of amazing news today.”
“Well, you don’t owe me a thing for the case thing,” she said, dropping into a chair. “If you really want to thank someone, you should thank Lem.”
“Lem Sygard?” I asked.
“Apparently he had some say in getting it shut.”
“I see.”
“Maybe he’s not the jerk you make him out to be.”
“I didn’t say he was a jerk…”
But, I had certainly thought it. Even in the ER the other day, I kinda wanted to see Lem’s arm twisted again. Only, he hadn’t done anything to earn it this time. In fact, he might have been coming down to give me the good news.
I kept dwelling on that even as I finished my rounds. I went out to lunch with Lilly and a couple other nurses. A little crow toddled around the table cawing for handouts. Lilly cawed backed, glowing with the sun and her hidden truth.
I should have been in a happy mood, too. Instead, I just felt guilty. I was going out with the guy who had got me in trouble to begin with, and I was hating on the guy getting me out of it.
Sure, he was still probably trying to get on my good side. At best, this was an apology for the way he’d grabbed my arm that one time. But if I was looking for a guy to shield me from actual danger, then Lem was doing a whole lot better than Calix overall.
He just didn’t make me feel the same way that Calix did when I caught sight of him.
Was it just that I found Calix hotter? Was I really that shallow? No, there was more there. Calix and I came from similar worlds. Lem came from someplace far above. I could never be so close to him.
In any case, Lem wasn’t going to win me over. I liked what I liked. But he did deserve my thanks.
After we got back to the hospital, I went over to his office. The room was neat and sunny and the floor seemed to sparkle. His cases and computer and stationary were all lined up on one end of his desk. The only things on his walls were his framed diplomas from Emory and UChicago.
But his leather chair was empty. Of course, he’d be busy. He liked to keep track of everything with his patients. He was probably off recording more notes on his phone.
I went in to leave a note for him to come talk to me. I almost felt bad littering the dark wood with a post-it.
“Rosa?”
I jumped back as if I’d been tagging the desk with a gang sign. Lem stood in the doorway, arms barring the sides, his white overcoat slightly parted, just like his mouth.
“Oh, you’re here,” I said, trashing the note. “No need for this then.”
He moved in, still mostly at the doorway. His long narrow nose and thin face seemed to hone in on me.
“Was that for me? Is there something you need with a patient?”
“Actually, I just wanted to talk. I wanted to thank you.”
“Ah.” His mouth flattened into a smile. “I guess Lilly told you.”
“She mentioned that you helped get my case thrown out.” I came out from around the table. “Is she right?”
“She’s not completely wrong.” He looked annoyed a second. “She’s also not as discreet with information as she promised she’d be. I was hoping to share the news with you myself.”
“Well, I don’t know the details.” I swayed in front of him like an eager student. “I’d love to hear that from you.”
He looked painfully shy a moment. There was none of that arrogance I’d seen on our one date. Yeah, I could see how some girls would find this cute. It was charming, as long as he wasn’t crushing on me.
“I’m afraid it was just a matter of exercising my privilege,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “My family name gives me a certain amount, and I thought I could at least do some good with it. I’d seen how stressed you’ve been the past few weeks. Just eager to finish your shift and get out.”
“Well, you weren’t wrong about that,” I said, chuckling. Of course, part of it had been Calix, but I certainly wasn’t going to remind him of that.
“Anyway, it didn’t seem that they had anything solid on you. There were some talks about having an outside consultant poring through video tape to corroborate elements of your story, but it seemed like an unnecessary and useless expense.”
My breath came shallow at the thought of what that would reveal, but I nodded and said, “Yeah.”
“So I simply made a statement on your behalf and asked that this witch hunt end.”
“You stood up for me?”
He snorted. “I suppose you could call it that. Let me tell you, it was quite the ferocious campaign I had to mount to wear out the retirees and comatose that make up the board of this hospital.”
I burst into a l
augh. “Yeah, that sounds like quite the challenge.”
“In any case, they voted to remove you as a suspect.”
“Wow, I really can’t thank you enough.” I shook my head. “So the case is finally over.”
“Oh, no.” He frowned. “The case is still very much on. They need to determine protocol for preventing another entry. They also still need to investigate others who might be responsible for the breach. There are other suspects.”
His gaze sharpened to a needle. I chuckled again, but even I could hear how hollow it sounded.
Lem slid past me to his desk and typed on his computer.
“There’s Mr. Black, of course,” he said.
This was not what I came in here to discuss, but I couldn’t just run now. “That would make sense,” I said.
“Have you noticed anything strange about him?”
“Oh, I don’t know much…”
“Rosa, I don’t need to be treated with kid’s gloves. You’re dating him. It’s fine. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I’d heard quite enough of that from Lilly. “I’m fine,” I said. “I appreciate your help, but I can handle that avenue of my life.”
“Of course. I was just wondering if you thought he could have taken the bullet.”
I made a show of thinking hard, then shook my head. “I don’t see any reason he would.”
“No? No relation to criminal activity?”
Lem looked at me quite intently, his long fingers steepled together. He knew the answer. I had seen Calix’s file and that was clean. He must have read some police dossier about Calix’s family.
“His brother and father might be up to some stuff,” I said. “But Calix is clean. He’s a soldier.”
“Well, his father is certainly a character of interest. The police have a small drawer of files from monitoring him. His brother actually walked away from the family several years back. One could imagine what he saw that drove him to it.”
“Hmm,” I nodded, trying to find a graceful exit. This was not how I wanted to learn my boyfriend’s biography. But I didn’t want to leave on a bad note.
“And there’s more than just the family,” Lem said, typing something more. “They have known ties to a criminal biker gang known as the Storm’s Soldiers.”
Ok, that was enough. “Lem,” I said, still gently. “That’s all interesting. I can ask Calix more about it, and maybe we can catch up later. I mean, he’s not a criminal, so there’s really nothing else that I can tell you now.”
“So you’ve never talked to him about his father or his old gang?”
“No.” I was more than prickling with irritation now. I needed to leave before I said something stupid.
It must have been obvious. Lem pinched his forehead, looking very tired a moment. “Rosa, I’m not trying to annoy you. I just want to make sure you’re safe.”
“Safe from what, Lem?” I sighed.
“What is the acronym for Storm’s Soldiers?”
“Acronym? SS?”
That tripped something deep in my memory. I thought a moment but couldn’t dig it out.
Lem looked at me curiously. “You don’t remember from world war two history?”
I looked over Lem’s dark, narrow features a moment. Then, it all came rushing back.
SS, that was Hitler’s death squad. The ones that went around to villages murdering everyone who they didn’t want to transport to camps. Why would a biker gang have that acronym?
Oh, no.
My arms went very cold.
“Wait,” I said. “SS is probably a common acronym. It could mean a lot of things.”
“Not in this instance.”
Lem flipped around his monitor. It held an old, ugly webpage with black background and white font. A rolling banner up top read, ‘White Pride Worldwide.’
Below was a black and white picture of a bunch of bikers, all clad in leather and denim. They stood shoulder to shoulder, with faces grim against the sunlight, and their hands outstretched in a Hitler salute.
And right there at the very edge of the screen, was a big, young, good-looking guy: Calix.
“No,” I whispered.
“It’s him.”
For once, I had no words.
But from the volcano rumbling to life inside me, I knew I was going to find them soon.
CHAPTER FOUR
Calix
I got the text as I went in to the armory that afternoon.
Rosa: Change of plans. Let’s get dinner first today.
The change didn’t bother me. Her phrasing was unusual though. Rosa always expressed herself, but she let me take charge. It was an arrangement we both enjoyed.
Still, we’d only been together a few weeks. It felt like I knew her for a lifetime, but that was wrong. The girl was full of surprises. Perhaps this was just another aspect of her personality I hadn’t yet discovered.
I texted her back with consent and ventured into the shielded bunker.
Private Raynor greeted me inside, looking like a reed fighting the wind. He had a grinding smile and shifting eyes.
“What?” I asked, swiping in past the side door.
“We’re not alone today,” he whispered.
He ticked his head at a far corner of the room, ten rows of storage down. I couldn’t see anything through the aisles of weaponry but shadow and concrete.
Another private emerged from behind the far aisle. He was rolling a tray racked with rifles. He tossed me a quick salute and moved on to one of the other requisition counters.
“What’s the plan?” Rayner hissed.
“The plan is to do our job,” I said.
There must be some heavy training exercise planned for today. I wouldn’t have heard about them all. Fort McPherson was big.
“But what about our operation?”
I gripped Raynor by the skull and tipped him up so he could see the camera at the top of the room. I didn’t look.
“This doesn’t affect us,” I said. “I’ll do my thing and you do yours.”
I was supposed to be deep into arranging the next gun skimming operation. I knew how to account for cameras and how to handle company. I couldn’t handle human stupidity. There was plenty of time anyway.
And, in truth, I was grateful to have a reason to not work on the shipment.
“You think we should try recruiting him?” Raynor asked. He peeked at the guy from around the line of concrete dividers separating requisition windows.
“No.”
“Three eyes are better than two.”
“No.”
I went and sat before my computer. Two already seemed too high. I had handled the last shipment on my own. The main aim of involving Raynor was to bind him to the cause.
I caught him steaming a bit from the corner of my eye. He was too eager. It was why I had recruited him. But he just wanted to get some revolution started. He didn’t stop to ask about the ends. It rubbed me wrong more and more.
Maybe it wasn’t him who turned out to be different. Maybe I was seeing him through different eyes now. He reminded me too closely of who I’d once been. I had never been dumb, but I had been fervent once. I could have never imagined myself urging my father to be patient.
I clicked through the falsified inventory records I had made, studying my handiwork. It was a slow, methodical process to cover it up at every level. I had made plans to streamline it so I could move onto other tasks. Things like building up a bigger network on the base.
Thinking of recruits now only reminded me of Montego’s crime scene pictures. Keeping my promises to my father was one thing. But I didn’t have the will to expand the cause.
The only fire left in me came from Rosa.
My shift finished up, and I took leave. Soon, I would be recovered enough to be clear for full duty. I wouldn’t be granted so much time away from the base. The only way to see Rosa more than once a week would require a huge step in this relationship.
It was crazy. It was t
oo soon. It couldn’t be kept secret.
And yet, as I roared towards the twinkling spires of Atlanta on my bike, it kept returning to my mind.
Rosa had asked me to meet at The Varsity. It was not even a diner, but a greasy fast food place downtown. Atlanta held it up with pride, but I hadn’t been there in decades.
I walked in and the air felt like a curtain of oil. But there was also the sizzle of grilled onions and the meaty aroma of beef. This place would do ok for a night.
I found Rosa seated in the back corner of the back room. She must have come from the hospital, cause her round eyes were dimmed. Her hair was held back in a defeated ponytail, and her blouse was dark and wrinkled.
She still looked gorgeous.
The hard wooden tables around were mostly empty. The only other person in the room was a black teenager, and he had earbuds in.
An uneasiness hit my stomach. The isolation looked familiar.
“What are you doing here?” I asked as I sat.
She looked irritated. “I picked this place.”
“I mean this table. Why not closer to the food?”
She cleared her throat. Right then, I knew it wouldn’t be good. “I’m actually not very hungry.”
I held a deep breath. She must have rushed over from the hospital. There were only a few things reason I could see as a cause.
“Was there more trouble over your keycard history?” I asked.
“Actually, no, the opposite. They absolved me of all responsibility.”
“That’s perfect,” I said. “That should clear your mind.”
She studied her fingernails absently. “Yeah, it should, shouldn’t it?”
The calm troubled me more than any rage. She looked like the tide receding before a tsunami.
The silence ticked on. I strove for some way to keep the walls from crashing. I wondered if I could propose my idea from the ride here, but I was not equipped for it. It was a crazy thought, but I felt crazy thinking about what could be going on in her mind.
“Just tell me what you found out,” I said.
“Found out?” She laughed roughly. “Not even what happened or what I learned. ‘What I found out.’ You must have a lot of secrets to dig up if you’re not even sure which one would make a girl like this.”
Little Dark Secret (Storm's Soldier Book 2) Page 3
