She stared at him. “Are you serious?”
“I talked to my contact at the Bureau again, and the things they suspect they’ve done—”
“I know. I heard it from their own mouths.” And Andrew had essentially confirmed the offhand comments about rape and corpses. “It didn’t stop us from going into that house. This is no different.”
“You didn’t go into the house alone. You had me watching your back.”
“Griff, I appreciate that you’re worried about me, but I’ve been on my own—”
“Bullshit.”
She stopped, shocked. “What?”
“You’ve never been on your own. Not like this.” He struggled to keep his voice down. “You’ve been a waitress in a diner and a professional in a high-rise. You’ve never been on the run, messing with lowlifes, going up against ruthless people with no consciences.”
Anger burned away all her fatigue, replacing it with empty space filling quickly with household current. Thanks to their efforts last night, she was able to seal it off without any popping and smoking.
“You think I’ve never been on my own? I sat by myself at my first husband’s funeral because his family didn’t like me. I moved across the country by myself, several times. And when that plane went down, my entire life became the epitome of ‘on my own.’ ” She blinked back furious tears and forced herself to be honest. “I couldn’t have gotten through most of this without your help, and I’m insanely grateful for it. But no one did my physical therapy for me. No one took on the burden of harnessing this condition, this thing that I have inside me.” She flicked her fingers, sending sparks flashing into the air. “No one created the bakery for me, or set me on the path to finding Big K. I appreciate you like hell, Griffin, but I don’t need you.”
The words echoed, winging back to her with all the hurt that burned in his eyes. She sucked in air, appalled at herself. “I’m sorry, Griff. I’m—”
“Tired. Yeah, I know.” To her amazement, he eased closer to her, tugged her into his arms. “And I know you’re scared, and whatever Laine said made it worse. You hate feeling helpless, and I know you’re going to respond by racing headlong into danger, damn the consequences.”
She listened to his voice rumbling through his chest into her ear, and wanted to soothe the rawness in his voice. How could one person know her so well? How could he know her, and not leave her?
Like flipping a switch, the thought shut down her emotional center. She went cold and empty, and even his body heat couldn’t penetrate it.
He seemed to sense her withdrawal and backed up. “If I could stop you, I would,” he continued, tilting her head up with his hand under her chin. “But I know I don’t have a chance in hell. So please, just wait for me.”
She wanted to lie, to make things easier for him while he was gone, but she couldn’t. “You know I can’t. They’ll be gone. I’m sorry.”
His grip tightened, not enough to hurt her, just enough to reveal his frustration. She watched his eyes darken and braced herself for his next ploy, which had to be playing on their growing feelings. He’d beg her to do it for him, say that if she cared about him at all, she’d wait.
But he didn’t. He released her, his anger apparent in the abruptness of his movements when he bent to grab his duffel and, a moment later, strode out the door.
Throat aching and eyes burning, she took a shower and got dressed in comfortable clothing, equally suitable for hanging around a surgical waiting room and casing a marina. They’d transported Brian from the care facility to a private hospital outside of Boston, so she headed there first. On the drive, she played music loud enough to prevent thinking, and when she arrived at the hospital, a buttload of paperwork took over that task.
She cursed under her breath when half the papers they’d given her slid out of the broken clipboard onto the floor. She gathered them up and tried to put them back in order, glaring at the last blank one. She could swear she’d already filled this one out, but maybe they just all asked the same freakin’ questions. She scribbled the same answers and finally carried the mess back to reception.
A few minutes later, Dr. Langstrom came out to the waiting room. “Brian is doing very well today,” she assured Reese, as if he could be “doing” any differently than any other day. “He should have no problems with the procedure itself. The outcome, of course, could be anything, but the relative risks are as low as they can be.”
“Can I see him?” she asked.
“Of course. The nurse will take you down now. I’ll talk to you when we’re done.” She patted Reese’s shoulder, her smile polite but her eyes alight with excitement, no doubt imagining the accolades she’d receive if this went well. Reese didn’t care about her motivation, since the goal was the same.
The nurse who led her through the corridors told her how well he’d traveled. “He’s really a model patient,” she said, and Reese stifled an hysterical giggle. “He’s a vegetable!” she wanted to yell. How could he give them any trouble?
Brian looked the same as always when they reached his bedside. The nurse pulled the privacy curtain, closing out the efficient bustle in the pre-op area outside it and leaving them alone. Reese sat in a chair next to the gurney, took one of his hands in hers, where it lay cold and limp, and looked into his blank, staring eyes.
“This may be the last time I see you.” Her voice rasped, her eyes as dry as her throat. “I made a lot of progress last night, but I don’t know if I can come near you after this without interfering with your stimulator. If the surgery works.” She stifled the conflicting emotions roiling through her. The vital signs monitor above her head didn’t react—no buzzing, crackling, or popping. “I loved you, Brian. I did.” When the words came out in past tense, something settled inside her. Truth, uncomplicated by guilt and indecision. “No matter what my failings, my dependencies, I did love you. And I will avenge you, somehow. Someday. Maybe not the way I originally intended, but it will happen.” She kissed his forehead, wishing she could get something back. A squeeze of her hand. An eye blink. Foolish. Of course, he didn’t move.
She made a few silent promises, to him and to herself. The surgery was the right choice, no matter what the outcome. But fulfilling her obligations to him afterward didn’t have to mean taking up where they’d left off. That realization, that she had more options than she’d allowed herself to consider, removed a significant amount of guilt from the weight on her shoulders.
She set his hand back on the bed and rose with a deep breath. At least she’d kept the electricity at bay. That was something. She nodded to the nurse when she left the cubicle and followed her to the lounge, where she was left alone to endure the long, tortuous wait.
Chapter Nine
Hours went by. Reese dozed, drank coffee, went outside to check for messages, and answered questions Sarah had texted her. Finally, she spotted Dr. Langstrom coming down the hall, beaming.
Reese rose from the hard padded bench she’d been sitting on. “How is he?” she asked as soon as the doctor was close enough.
“I’ve never had such a complex surgery go so well. It was like clockwork. He’s resting nicely. We’re moving him to recovery, and then to a regular room in a few hours, once we’re sure he’s shaking off the anesthesia.”
“And the procedure?”
“Was a success!” The doctor grinned, but when Reese’s eyes widened, she hastened to say, “I mean the implant was successful, and it’s connecting to the proper channels. But we won’t know the preliminary results for quite a while. He might not fully wake for days, and every patient responds differently, as we discussed.”
So the limbo went on. “Thank you, Doctor. Can I see him?”
“Certainly.” She turned and motioned to a nurse at the nearby station.
The woman had apparently been waiting for the summons, because she bustled over and nodded at Reese. “Follow me.”
The doctor walked with them halfway down the corridor, then peeled off to go t
hrough doors marked “Authorized personnel only.” The nurse led Reese to a small room, obviously meant to be transitional. “Go in when you’re ready. You have five minutes.” She returned to the nurse’s station.
Reese hesitated, watching her husband through the glass. He looked like any other patient coming out of surgery, covered to the chin in a white sheet and blue blankets, his upper body slightly elevated and his head bandaged. But something was different. She didn’t know if it was her imagination, but he looked more animated. He didn’t move, not even a flicker of facial muscle, but he looked…less slack. And his eyes were closed, she realized. She hadn’t seen him with his eyes closed in all these months.
Hope blossomed, the most positive emotion she’d had about Brian since the crash. What she’d realized hours ago held true—what had happened between them as husband and wife didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was his recovery, for himself and his own future.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on closing off her body to all electricity, then gently opened the door and walked in. Brian didn’t move, not even when she took his hand in hers.
“Brian, it’s me. It’s Reese. Can you hear me?” He didn’t move, but she hadn’t expected him to, since Dr. Langstrom had stressed that changes would take time. He was still affected by the anesthesia, too. “I think I’m only allowed in here for five minutes at a time. You look great.” She swallowed. “I’ll be back tomorrow, and you should be in a regular room by then. Maybe you’ll open your eyes and see me.”
She stood for a few minutes, watching him, wondering what would happen tomorrow. In their first meeting about the surgery, Dr. Langstrom had described a gradual awakening, more pronounced each day as they “tuned” the stimulator. Right now, closed off as she was, she couldn’t even sense it. Maybe it was deep enough and small enough that she never would. More reason to hope.
A nurse peered in and softly told her she had to leave. Reese kissed Brian’s forehead and left. By the time she reached her car, she’d transitioned her focus to the next step.
Casing the marina in Chelsea.
Despite her arguments against getting Griff so deeply involved, she hadn’t defied his wish for her to wait because she wanted to do this alone. She didn’t. She really wished he were with her. It had only been half a day, and she missed him desperately. He hadn’t called or texted, and she hoped the trial was going well.
The marina was on an offshoot of Mystic River, which flowed into Boston’s Inner Harbor. It was a small facility, just a handful of docks, with a large apartment building across the street. She arrived at dusk, blending with the people arriving home from work and parking in the apartment building’s lot without anyone paying attention to her. She walked purposefully out to the street and across to the marina. Because of the satellite imagery Griff had printed for her, she was able to slide into a stand of trees overlooking the boats where she could watch, if she was lucky, mostly unobserved.
There was only one entrance to the docks, with one long, main pier leading to three perpendicular docks with several slips on each. According to Griff, Alpine Nirvana was tied at the end of the farthest dock. Naturally. So how was she going to get out there?
Using a small pair of binoculars, she watched the marina from the stand of trees. The whole reconnoitering process was difficult. She didn’t want to be caught studying the boats or the people, so she could only get the close-ups in short scans. She did discover that the gate to the dock required a key, and even without the binoculars, could see well enough to be confident no one was around Alpine Nirvana. There’d been no movement onboard in over an hour, no people on the boat’s deck, nor swaying or rocking of the boat itself, except what was generated by the wakes of other slow-moving boats heading out into the open water.
It would be best to wait until full dark. She might be able to get over the gate, as it didn’t seem very high, and security overall was lax. There was no guard on duty now, though there might be one after hours. She’d go get something to eat and come back when it was late and hopefully no one would be around.
But then she got to the parking lot of the marina and caught her first break.
Skav was pulling in.
That changed everything. If he was here now, alone, someone else had to be coming soon. And since he’d said he was meeting Big K, it must be him.
Anticipation sang in her blood, but she kept her wits and walked at right angles to where Skav parked, hands stuffed in pockets, head down so the brim of her baseball cap hid her face. He headed straight for the dock, so she changed direction and followed, far enough behind that she thought he wouldn’t spot her. With the sun nearly down and shadows lengthened over everything, she wasn’t easy to see, anyway.
She couldn’t believe her eyes when he pushed open the gate without stopping. It banged back into place, bouncing once.
It wasn’t locked after all. That made things easier.
Skav reached the main dock and disappeared around a yacht. She dashed out from between parked cars down to the gate, eased through, and walked as quickly as she dared across the wooden slats. Her footsteps echoed, amplified off the water and the smooth boat hulls. She stopped and peered around the corner, trying not to act fishy. She could hear the faint echoes of Skav’s footsteps as he passed the second set of slips and headed for the third. Following him ended up being no problem, angles and hulls serving her need for cover. Even if he spotted her, Skav would never recognize her with no makeup, dressed in a windbreaker, relaxed jeans, and the ball cap.
She had to balance the fear that she would miss something with her determination not to be caught. Twice she almost ran into people coming off the shorter docks onto the main one. One young woman glowered at her from behind her golden tan and her perfectly wind-tossed hair. Dammit. Reese decided not to do anything stupid, now that someone had seen her well enough to potentially describe her to a sketch artist.
By the time she got to the right slip, Skav was out of sight. But there was the boat she’d seen in the yard back at The Charms, looking smaller now that it floated in the water instead of resting on a trailer high off the ground. Every other window to the salon was open and voices wafted her way, but she couldn’t make them out.
She hesitated, then risked climbing onto the boat, moving slowly and trying not to make her weight shift the vessel. Her heart pounded as she glanced around again to make sure no one was watching.
“…Outside, it’s so damn hot in here.”
Shit. They were coming on deck! She jerked open a cabinet under a bench seat and almost wept with relief that it was nearly empty. She crammed herself inside and slid the door closed just in time. She peered through a sliver-sized gap onto the unlit deck, but neither man was in her line of sight.
“I drove out here for nothing?” Skav whined. “I thought he was meeting me here, and we’d take the boat to the Vineyard.”
“I don’t know where you got that idea. This was an errand, nothing more. You brought the money, for which Mr. K will be grateful.” There was a clink like ice in a glass. Reese recognized the voice as belonging to the suit who’d bought the photograph. That balanced the disappointment of learning that Big K—or Mr. K—wasn’t here. This guy was clearly someone higher up the food chain than Skav and the other scumbags.
“When will he be back? I have stuff to talk to him about.”
Me too. She held her breath in anticipation of the answer, and hoped it would help her avoid sneezing, too. Her nose began to tingle from the fishy-smelling dust in the cabinet, and she had no room to rub it.
“Mr. K will be significantly delayed,” the cultured voice said.
“Well, shit.”
Reese echoed the sentiment.
“I’ll wait.”
Ugh. She was so bent in half, her extremities had already fallen asleep. How long could she stay in here without killing tissue? On the other hand, she was so close! She’d gladly lie stuffed in here for two days to be able to face Mr. K.
�
��There is no point in waiting, I’m afraid.” A pause. “Mr. K will no longer be using this boat. It has been sold.”
No! Her heart sank. This couldn’t be another fruitless path. But Skav kept whining, and it became apparent he didn’t know about the raid. But the suit did, and neither he nor his boss was happy with the fuck-ups.
Don’t be a moron, Skav. Don’t you watch TV?
But the idiot got more belligerent and the suit got colder and calmer, and she knew what was about to happen. Ah, hell.
A breeze kicked up across the water and came through the crack, stirring up the dust. She stifled a cough, aching to rub her nose. Tingling grew into burn, built toward the mother of all sneezes. She flared her nostrils, but the sensation got worse. Dammit, she was going to sneeze.
She didn’t.
But her cell phone rang.
…
The footsteps on the deck stopped dead. Reese tried to get her hand on the phone but the cramped quarters didn’t let her. How stupid was she? No one hid with their freaking cell phone turned on! But she’d not only been stupid, she’d been sentimental. The phone was on because she was hoping Griff had left a message while she was studying the boats from the trees. She’d thought she was out of stealth mode, heading to her car, and had totally forgotten to turn it back off when she spotted Skav.
“It wasn’t mine,” Skav said, sounding less sullen and now slightly scared.
Her phone rang again. Drain it. The command cut through the panic, but it was too late. Before she sucked the battery dry, the phone rang a third time, giving the men on deck plenty of opportunity to pinpoint her location.
“I am aware that it was not yours. It was not mine, either, which means someone is hiding under there. Get them out.”
She was so screwed. A hundred excuses ran through her head, all ridiculous. They’d never buy that she was searching for something, or lost her pet, or was a kid who’d been denied a trip with her parents and was stowing away. Plus, Skav would recognize her. She had only a split second to come up with a plan before the door slid sideways, banging her knee and then practically slicing her toes off when he shoved it all the way open.
A Kiss of Revenge (Entangled Ignite) Page 15
