by Fiona Quinn
“We had Dave stretch the truth at this bit. He said Maria Rodriguez was there trying to kidnap the children. Dave didn’t say that you had been the target all along. He didn’t tell them how I was on scene, too. Instead, he told how Maria was holding a knife to Ruby. Said that you talked Maria out of taking the children – convinced them to take you in their place, because Iniquus would pay a lot of money to ransom you, and that you were a much better ‘get’. Then Dave told how you let them tie you up and put you in a van, and you were driven away. And of course, that was the last we heard of you.”
“That’s horrible.” My hands were fisted at my forehead. “Dear god, Ruby’s mom and dad must be out of their fricking minds, thinking I sacrificed my life for their kids.”
Gater chewed on his inner cheek and considered me. “Everyone feels terrible,” he said, his voice gruff. “Everyone was shocked.”
I held his gaze. Processing. Realizing that Gater must have taken all of this on his own shoulders, since he was there. But it wasn’t Gater’s fault. None of it. Only mine.
“And they don’t know I’ve been found?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Nope. Can’t tell them because of Omega.”
Ah. Somehow I had managed to push the idea of Omega from my thoughts. And here it was again, front and center.
“When I took the pups over, I told Justin I was going out on assignment,” Gater said. “And we put Clay in your house. Seems to make everyone feel better when there’s an Iniquus man in the neighborhood.”
“No doubt.” I inhaled as deeply as my aching ribs would allow. “Do you know when they’re going to move me?” What I really wanted to know was when I was going to be able to move again. Traction sucked!
“It’s gonna be another few days. I don’t know if you can feel it, but you’re lying on a sand bed.”
My brows shot up.
“The mattress is full of little beads,” Gater said. “And there’s a fan blowing to keep the beads moving around. That’s to keep you from getting bed sores and having circulation problems, clots and stuff, from lying still for so long.”
“I’m being saved by sleeping on a sand bed?” I offered up a bemused smile. “That’s ironic as hell. Isn’t it, Gater?”
“Pretty much, ma’am. But I think this is better.” He looked up as a nurse announced herself at the door and walked in to check my IV and put meds in my line. “At first, they were gonna put you in a bed that sandwiches you between canvas.” He raised his voice a little. “And they were gonna flip you, every two hours, like a pancake.” He grinned over at the nurse, who snorted at the image he had painted.
She leaned over me. “We were having trouble keeping your temperature regulated. Probably because of your weight. And your blood pressure has been on the low side. Not unusual following a cardiac episode. So we brought the oscillating bed in from the burn unit.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” I said.
The door clicked shut as she left.
“Where will I be moved?” I asked Gater.
“We’re debating that from a strategic point of view. We may take you to Striker’s house. He thinks you might heal better there.”
I knew that Striker had a house built on a secluded piece of land on the Chesapeake Bay, but I had never seen it before.
“It’s listed in a corporate name for security sake - no one can track the house to him, so it’s a good choice,” Gater explained. “Very safe location, and easily defended.”
“Not the Iniquus barracks?”
“Wherever you end up, you’re gonna need a nurse and a physical therapist, and depending how you heal, maybe some other kinds of support,” he said.
Fear raced across my skin. Striker hadn’t given me much in the way of particulars about my injuries. He had glazed over the information when I had questioned him. Was he keeping something horrible from me? “Depending on what? Do they think that I’m going to be disabled?” Panic warbled my voice.
“Lynx, shit, I didn’t mean to rile yah.” He glanced toward the door. “That damned nurse is gonna come back in and yell.” He focused back on me, his eyes sincere. “The honest truth is you were bad hurt. They’re not sure yet what all is going wrong with you, and they don’t even want to speculate. They want to go slow and see how you do, one step at a time.”
My lids were wide and unblinking. “What are they concerned about, Gater?”
Gater went silent, looked back over to the door again, probably hoping someone would come in and yell at him to be quiet and not upset me or maybe just to field my questions.
“I’m sorry to put you in this position, Gater. But please, please tell me what their concerns are.” I reached out to him.
Gater picked up my hand. “They haven’t tried to get you to eat nothing yet because they’re not for sure that your digestive tract is gonna be able to work.” He dipped his head and was looking at me from under his lashes. “They’re debating whether or not to give you a feeding tube in your stomach. Dehydration and heat led to you having a heart attack. They don’t know how much damage is gonna be permanent yet. There’s your head, and your neck. You aren’t paralyzed or nothing, but you might have some mobility trouble. Coordination trouble.”
“My head?” That was my big question. What if I couldn’t puzzle anymore? I’d lose my job – no more Iniquus, no more team.
“The doctors are real pleased you can talk. And that you seem to think reasonable well. You can remember things and all — recognize people. Your short-term and long-term memory’s intact. You aren’t forgetting vocabulary words. Those are big things, they say.”
While that all sounded good, I think if the doctors truly knew what was going on in my brain, they might not be as cheerful. It was as if my thoughts were greased, and they’d slide out from underneath me when I tried to put any weight on them.
Gater waited for me to look at him again. When our eyes met, and he knew I had refocused, he continued. “When we brought you in, they prepared us for worst case. Given the extent of your injuries, and the time you spent in the heat, they said you might not be able to speak no more or recognize us.”
I gripped Gater’s hand tighter at the thought of not knowing him. That idea physically hurt. Gater squeezed back.
“The doctors thought you might be paralyzed from the shoulders down. So when you held Striker’s hand right off, we were happy,” he said.
Exhaustion blanketed me. The meds the nurse put in my line must be having some effect. “And now?” My lids were getting too heavy for me to hold open.
“As far as going forward, it’s an unknown.” Gater stroked a soothing hand down my arm. “Too early to tell. You lost all your fat and muscle. So for sure, you’re gonna be weak as a kitten. You have to prepare yourself that this is gonna take a long time.” Then he reached for my other hand and clasped that one, too. “You’re not alone in this. We’re family. We’ve got your back. And you never got to worry about that.”
“Of course not.” I offered him a dopey smile. “I won’t worry about it at all. I’ll just take one day at a time. I’d rather be here, broken, than in that prison, whole but alone.” I was slurring now, and I felt a little drool pooling at the corner of my mouth. “I guess it’s all perspective, isn’t it?”
He lowered his tone to just above a whisper. “Yes, ma’am.”
I closed my eyes – just for a minute. Just a little rest
While Gater sat quietly on my bed holding my hand, I nodded in and out of wakefulness. But something irritating was on my face and kept me from truly falling asleep. I itched horribly. I reached up to claw at my eyes and nose. Gater pinned my wrists to the bed, and my brain snapped. I sprung fully awake. Ready for battle. Screaming, “Maggots. Get them off me.” I struggled against Gater and my traction unit, trying to thrash myself free. Gater swung his head to look behind him.
I heard, “I’m coming! You’re having a reaction to your meds. I’ll get you fixed up in a second.” I saw blue cotton hospit
al scrubs and turned terrified eyes back to Gater.
“Get the damned maggots off my face. They’re eating my skin.” I screamed and yanked my noodle-like arms, trying to wrest them away from Gater’s grasp.
Gater leaned in close and blew lightly over my cheeks and forehead. It made the crazy sensations stop. I could feel the sedation kicking in. There was a click of the door from someone coming into my room. A smile traced over my lips. “Mmmm. I like that, Gater. Please don’t stop.” That’s when I saw Striker’s face over Gater’s shoulder, and he didn’t look happy.
Six
Morning came. I only knew it was morning because they told me it was. I didn’t have a window in my room. There was only one way in, and one way out, and it was guarded by two of my team members at all times. Deep was in my room with me.
Deep stood smaller than most the men on our team. At six feet of lean, hard muscles, his small stature was only by comparison to the rest of Strike Force. Deep’s Italian heritage was obvious in his raven hair and tanned olive skin. His long eyelashes and up-to-no-good smile made him the object of adoration to the women who landed - by accident or calculation – in his path. Deep was telling me a story about his new nephew when Striker tapped on the door and came in.
“Striker, what’ve you been doing?” I asked as he moved around the bed and into my line of sight. Oil streaked across Striker’s face, and it looked like he’d rolled in a dust bin.
“I was out looking for you. Deep, you’re dismissed. I want you in the rack, getting some shut eye.”
“Sir.” Deep reached out and rubbed my hand. “See you later.” Then he left.
“And? Any success finding me?” I offered up a sarcastic smile.
Striker gave me a two-dimpled grin in return. “Nope. Nobody found you. Nobody found any signs of a plane crash.” Striker stood where I could see him, but well away from me. “When I came back to base, I made a show of talking with the other men running the recovery effort.” Striker pulled an olive-green bandana from his pocket and swiped his face. “We’ve agreed that even if you’d been supplied, there’s no possible way you could have survived this long in this weather had you made landfall. And since your call came in at the far reaches of the cell tower range when you were still over the Gulf, between the wind, your electrical problems, and your lack of fuel, we have to assume you never made it to shore.” Striker stuffed the bandana back into his pocket. His face was no cleaner than before he had wiped it. “Their experts concluded that, since no further cellphone pings were picked up, indicating you were flying closer to safety, you must have gone down over open water. The Coast Guard is looking for wreckage. Someone should find some soon.”
“How’s that?” I reached an arm out to him.
But he shook his head at me. “I’m filthy and your immune system is down. I don’t want to expose you to anything,” he said. “Our team flew all the plane sections that didn’t show signs of ground impact out to the Gulf two days ago. We buried the rest of the plane at the crash site. The FAA informed Mexico and Belize we’re looking for Cessna pieces.”
“And when they find them?” My eyebrows knitted together despite the bandaging.
“It will confirm that you crashed in the Gulf and perished.”
“Striker, no. This is ridiculous. Can’t we talk to Omega and straighten this out?”
“Omega is contracted. We aren’t sure who hired them.”
“Can we ask Frith?”
“He says he doesn’t know who initiated the case. We can’t negotiate with Omega. They aren’t the primary, and they may not even know why you’ve been targeted. We have to get the contract rescinded to get you away from Omega. When you’re stronger, we’ll figure out how and why someone thinks you’re a public enemy.”
“Shit.” My hands made fists against my thighs.
“You made the national news yesterday,” Striker said. “They used your real name, though, India Sobado. You’ve caught media attention: why would a 21-year-old girl be flying a plane through a tropical storm?”
“Good question,” I said.
“Here at the base, they’re lowering the flags to half-staff. They’ll be saying a prayer in your name at mess tonight.”
“The doctors and nurses know differently.”
“In this part of the hospital, they’re used to this kind of thing. The medical staff here has higher clearance rankings and understand how to keep their mouths shut. When you came in on the gurney, I was lying with you - we had a blanket up. No one saw you coming in; they saw me.”
“Go back to the news. They’re reporting me dead?”
“They’re reporting that a mayday was received from you during the storm, and that search efforts have been fruitless. They’re repeating the conjecture that you went down over the Gulf. And they’re asking boats to keep an eye out for parts from your plane.”
“My friends and family will think I was killed in the crash.” My voice was whisper thin. I couldn’t imagine the grief this was causing.
“Lynx, right now we don’t have a lot of options. I wish we could have had a victory parade, announcing you were found and safe, but Omega is too formidable to play around with. You’re too fragile.” Striker stood, hands on his hips, leaning his weight onto one leg.
“I wish I knew what the hell I did wrong.”
“I doubt it’s something you’ve physically done. My guess is it’s something you know.”
“What could I possibly know that they want to silence? It must be really bad. And here’s the thing, I’m the Puzzler. The information comes to me, then I hand off the results to Command. Whatever it is I know, or have done or seen, it’s not just me. Others would have had access as well. Did Jonathan Frith explain?”
“He’s not directly in the loop. He came across this accidentally and did a little digging on his own.” I could see Striker being patient, repeating the same information that I had asked again and again, and would keep asking until I could hold it in my memory bank. I blew out another sigh. I needed to get off my damned back and on to this case. I wanted to let everyone know I was okay. My emotions thrust me forward, wanted me to leap into action. Frustration at my restraints made me claustrophobic and angry. Since there was nothing I could do about it now, I figured my best choice was to change the subject.“Is something else wrong? I’m surprised you came in looking like this.”
“Nothing’s wrong. Everything took a little longer than I expected, that’s all. I’m going to shower in your bathroom. It’s a big day for you, and I wanted to be here for it.”
“More information, please.”
“They’re going to try to get you to eat.”
As if on cue, the nurse came in with a jar of baby food. She stood at the end of my bed and held it up for me to see — Beeches Stage One Oatmeal.
“Oh, HELL no.” I yelled when I saw that. “Oatmeal, rice, and beans will never pass my lips again.” These three foods were the only ones that showed up on my prison tray. Nothing else. Ever. From February until July. I sealed my mouth tightly so she knew I was serious. The nurse turned on her heels and went right back out again.
Striker grinned broadly, dimples flashing. “Say it like you mean it, Chica. I bet you were hell on wheels when you were three-years-old.”
“Yeah, I don’t mean to be childish, but no. You know?”
“Got ya. How about some good news?”
“Finally. Yes, please.”
“Pablo’s family is all set up in their new life in Florida. Randy and Axel arranged visas for the family. Franco’s got a job as a custodian at the Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando. That’s where Pablo is a patient. They specialize in pediatric heart patients.”
“Oh, awesome. And Elicia? Does she work there, too?”
“Elicia stays with Pablo during the day, and her mom is keeping their apartment. It’s just a short walk to the hospital.”
“And Pablo’s surgery?”
“Still on track.”
“You have to t
hank everyone for me. Please.” Even with the beads circulating beneath me, my bottom had gone numb. I tried squeezing and releasing my fanny muscles, but there wasn’t much for me to work with.
“In that same vein, Elicia and Franco want you to know they’re praying for you every day, and send their love.”
“You let them know I was alive?” I gave up on the isometrics and tried wiggling my toes instead.
“It was a little touchy on how to handle that. Franco and Elicia don’t know your real name. Apparently, there wasn’t a file on you at the prison. When Randy and Axel were down in Honduras, everyone who knew of you referred to you as Santa Blanca.” That got me another Striker grin. “Randy told the family you had disappeared on assignment, and no one knew where you went, or if you were okay. He said that Iniquus only found out about Pablo because we received a letter, asking for our help with the family. When they left, Randy and Axel asked that if anyone were to contact them about you, to please let us know immediately — we’re anxious for any word of you.”
“You think someone could figure out that they’re here in America?”
“No. Just covering all the bases. We needed to let them know there are still some very bad men out there who want to hurt you.”
Anxiety attack. I white knuckled the bed rail.
“Chica, take a deep breath. Try to relax. You’re safe. You’re getting the help you need. Pablo is doing well. It’s looking very good for their family. We’ll win.”
“How do you know that?”
Striker moved closer. “Because we’re the good guys, and the good guys always win.”
He was close enough now that I could smell him - dirt, aftershave, and conviction. “Okay. We’ll run with that story line. Are Randy and Axel coming here?” I asked.
Striker shook his head. “They’re going after Hector, now that we know the van’s license plate.”
“You’re sure no one knows about Pablo’s family?” I was suddenly scared for them – didn’t want them sucked up in the vortex of craziness that seemed to constantly pull me towards its center.
