26

THE AFTERMATH

Despite a lifetime spent bending society’s rules and treating government regulations more like guidelines than requirements, I’m a fairly peaceable person. My friends and I don’t carry firearms on the job, and we operate under the premise that no prize is worth harming another human being. We deal in commodities, in replaceables—in the things in life that shouldn’t matter but that people tend to pin their hopes and dreams on anyway.

That being said…

“I’ll kill him.” Even though Simon’s car has stopped, the locks are still activated, so I start rolling down the window. “I’ll wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze until there’s nothing left. I’ll stab him with a pen until he’s more blood than skin. I’ll rip out his fingernails and his teeth and his testicles until he begs me to send him off into the sweet bliss of death.”

The locks pop open. “Don’t forget the eyes,” Simon says. “Everyone always forgets the eyes.”

My laugh is shaky, but not as shaky as my legs as I climb out of Simon’s car and dash toward the emergency room doors. “You don’t think he’s here, do you?”

“Who? Leon?” Simon is barely half a step behind me. “No, they’ll have taken him into custody by now.”

“Damn.”

“Don’t worry, Blue. We’ll get our chance. He can’t stay locked up forever.”

It’s a strange moment of solidarity, the pair of us standing on the threshold of New York-Presbyterian Hospital as we picture various ways in which to end Christopher Leon’s life, but the blood-soaked thirst of my rage has been the only thing keeping my other emotions at bay. Now that we’re here, with the bright lights of the hospital overhead and the efficient movements of the medical staff around us, it’s difficult to keep a grip on my anger. I’m slipping, swirling, sinking—and the one man I can count on to pull me back up is bleeding out on a gurney somewhere inside.

“He’s going to be okay, right?” I ask, unable to take that first step inside.

“I don’t know.” Simon’s face is a hard mask as he pushes me through the doors. “All they would tell me is that Leon shot him in the back.”

I don’t know enough about anatomy or modern medical care to know what that means, but the pit of my stomach doesn’t like the way it sounds.

“Excuse me,” I say to the first person I see in scrubs. “My husband was brought in for a gunshot wound. How do I—”

The look on the young man’s face confirms my worst fears and adds a few more on top. “You’ll need to take a seat in the waiting room. Someone will be with you shortly.”

“Yes, but I need to see him.”

“I’m sorry. It’s standard protocol. I’m not allowed to tell you anything more.”

“Because he’s dead?”

He neither confirms nor denies it. “Have a seat. I’m sure the surgeon will be out to speak with you as soon as he can.”

Surgeon? The closest I’ve ever come to a surgeon was the time Riker got a bad stomachache when we were seventeen. We thought it was appendicitis and came up with a plan to discreetly leave him at the hospital doors under an alias, but it ended up being nothing more than a twenty-four-hour flu. And a good thing, too, because Riker was trying to convince Jordan to remove his appendix so he could avoid being put in the system.

The second medical professional in scrubs is equally unhelpful. “I’ll tell you exactly what the last person told you—you have to take a seat and wait. I’m sorry. We’ll give you more information as soon as we have it.”

Simon and I have no choice but to comply, if only because the woman firms her stance and glares until we choose a pair of plastic waiting room chairs. I force a deep breath even though the constriction of my lungs sends me into a whirl of panic. The smallest crawl spaces in the dingiest holes have nothing on this moment.

He’s dead, he’s shot, he’s gone.

All Grant wanted was for me to be safe and happy, but instead of giving him that, I forced him to let me interfere. I put that bullet in his back—as neatly as if I’d pulled the trigger myself. I’m the worst wife a person could ask for.

“Okay, Blue.” Simon’s crisp voice is like a slap to my cheek. “How do you want to play this?”

“Play what?”

The look he gives me conveys his opinion on my intellect. “You broke into the Federal Bureau of Investigations because you felt like looking at a case file, but you’re going to take a nurse’s word for it that you can’t go any farther than a hospital waiting room?” He blows out a puff of air. “I repeat, how do you want to play this?”

Even with my heart struggling to beat in its constricted knot, a smile lifts the edge of my mouth. Of course. When have I ever let an authority figure stop me from doing exactly what I want?

I hadn’t been aware of casing the room when we walked in, but it appears my instincts took on the task for me, because I have the hospital security figured out almost instantly. “Okay, did you notice that the nurse had to use her badge to get past those double doors over there?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s where we need to go.”

“Thank you. I figured that much. Did you have an actual plan for getting through them?”

No, but I’ve always been good at thinking on my feet. And since the alternative is to sit here in the agony of the unknown with Simon for company, I don’t hesitate to do just that.

“This man has a gun!” I cry, pointing an accusing finger at Simon. “He brought a gun into the hospital!”

It takes a second for the people around me to respond and a second longer for Simon to realize what I’ve done. Despite an initial indignant outburst, he proves himself a good sport and lifts his jacket to flash his holster—as well as the fully legal firearm carried within it. A few panicked screams confirm my accusation, and much to the hospital’s credit, a security guard appears out of nowhere to take him down.

Simon commands the guard’s full attention as he shows his credentials, pausing only to make sure I successfully lift the man’s badge before I go. My pickpocket skills are a little rusty, but I manage to unclip it and push through the dispersing crowd before anyone is the wiser. A quick swipe of the card and a slip through the door later, and I’m on my way.

It’s not as triumphant a success as I hope, and the buoyancy of sneaking past armed officials doesn’t last longer than the first nurses’ station. There’s something about hospital professionals, with their hushed tones and the knowing glances, that turns me into a blubbering child.

“Excuse me, can I help you?” The nurse who catches me sidling down one of the hallways speaks in the requisite hushed tone, which doesn’t do much to bolster my confidence. “Are you looking for someone?”

Since it’s not likely I’m going to find Grant in this maze of clinical fluorescence on my own, I aim for a friendly smile. I miss.

“An FBI agent was brought in for a gunshot wound,” I say through quivering lips. “Do you know where I can find him?”

The nurse looks carefully for someone to share a knowing glance with, and I can tell I’m about to be escorted back to the waiting room. I take her hand and squeeze it. “Please. I know you’re just doing your job, and there are a lot of people here who need you, but the man—Grant, Grant Emerson—he’s my husband. No one will tell me anything, and I need to know…”

My voice cracks, and I don’t finish. I need to know if he’s dead. I need to know if I’ve killed him.

Human kindness isn’t something I’m so accustomed to that I can always recognize it at a glance, but I see something close to absolution in the sympathetic flash of her eyes.

“Sure thing, hon,” she says and squeezes my hand back. She doesn’t let go, either, leading me around to the side of the desk so she can punch a few keys on the computer and look him up.

“Okay, it says here he’s out of surgery, so that’s a good sign. Gunshot wound to the right flank, clean entry and exit, no organ perforations. Those are also good signs. Oh dear, let’s see…”

I don’t breathe, waiting for the bad news to hit.

“Ah! There he is. They took him down to recovery a few minutes ago. You should be able to see him shortly.”

I blink, dazed. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.” She releases my hand, shaking hers to get the blood flowing back to it. “And if he’s half as strong as you are, I wouldn’t be surprised to find him up and walking by tomorrow. Come on. I’ll take you.”

If someone asked me to retrace my steps through the maze of that hospital at a later date, I doubt I could do it. The journey only takes five minutes, but my relief and anxiety swirl together in such an overwhelming mass of emotion, I see nothing but a blur of eternal gray and white.

“Here we are,” the nurse says kindly as we approach a door marked Recovery. “They don’t usually let spouses in there, but I assume you’ll find a way in no matter what.”

I’m confused until she gently lifts the security guard’s badge from my hand. In my rush to find out what happened, I forgot I still had it clutched in my fingers.

I don’t have a chance to thank her, because my husband—my poor, bandaged, hooked-up-to-a-monitor husband—chooses that moment to blink blearily up at the doorway.

“Penelope?” he asks. His voice is slurred and his eyes—those sharp, dark eyes that see everything—are impossible to read, as always.

I’ve never seen him so vulnerable, and it almost shatters me. Grant is the strong one, the good one, the dependable one. It’s the foundation on which our entire relationship rests, the truth that drives me crazy and anchors me at the same time. He can’t break, because I need him to keep me whole.

“He shot me,” Grant mutters. “The bastard actually shot me.”

“I know,” I say and rush to his side. “I heard.”

And then I promptly burst into tears.