Chapter 48
“The bruising on your chest is likely going to get worse and it’s going to look mighty ugly before it heals, but nothing’s broken. I suspect that you might also have a mild concussion, which means you need to be diligent. If you get any severe headaches over the next few days, I want you to come back here to see me.” The doctor pointed at her head. “We put dissolving sutures in your hairline so when that heals, you shouldn’t be able to see any sort of scar.
Alex nodded and then regretted it. Her neck throbbed.
“Thank you,” she said. Alex was desperate to get out of here. She’d been in the hospital for just over two hours, undergoing x-rays done, brain scans, getting stitched up. And during that time, she had no idea where AA or Con had gone.
Or if they were okay.
Alex started to walk around the doctor, but he stopped her with a severe look.
“Ms. Frost, I strongly recommend that you take it easy. Stay off your feet.”
“Noted and thanks.”
The man frowned as she left the examination room and stepped into the hallway.
“Your partner is two doors down,” the doctor said after her.
Alex thanked him a third time and entered the room that he indicated. She was surprised to find Con sitting up and arguing with a doctor who was at least twice the age of the man who had treated her.
“I’m fine. This is ridiculous. I’m—” Con stopped when he saw her. This drew the doctor’s gaze as well.
“Are you Agent Striker’s partner?”
“I am.”
“Then maybe you can talk some sense into him. He’s severely dehydrated and exhausted. We need him to stay overnight for observation.”
“I’m fine ,” Con protested.
He looked much like he had in the desert. Except there was a level of lucidity in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.
But Alex knew that even if the man had been bleeding out, the only way that the doctor would get him to stay here, in this place, would be to slap cuffs on him.
And that fell outside the man’s purview.
She placated the doctor with a smile.
“I’ll do my best.”
The doc saw right through her and frowned. Shaking his head, he left them alone. Alex waited for the flapper-style door to stop swinging before addressing her partner.
“How are you holding up?”
Con’s dark eyebrows inched closer together.
“Me? What about you? How are you doing?”
Alex shrugged.
“Nothing’s broken.”
They stared at each other awkwardly, and then Con began removing the IV port on the back of his left hand.
“Con, we should—”
“I’m so sorry, Alex. I should never have left you.”
Alex felt her shoulders sag.
He had left her.
The man looked down, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m sorry. I really am. I shouldn’t have left you. I promised to stay by your side but…”
The man’s words stung. Edward had nearly killed her, had planned on killing her.
If AA had been unconscious or worse, she’d be dead right now.
This wasn’t the time nor the place to air their grievances, but Alex was helpless to contain her emotions.
“Why? Why didn’t you come after us? Why didn’t you chase Edward like we did?”
Con’s lips pulled back.
“I—I—Alex, I saw her .”
“Saw who?”
“Val. My twin sister. She was there . She was the one in the video and she came back.”
Alex was shaking her head without even realizing it.
She sighed heavily.
“You were exhausted. Not in your right mind. There’s no way that—”
—your sister is still alive.
Alex stopped herself. They both knew the stats, the reality of a woman going missing and not being seen for a month, let alone a decade.
“I know, I know . But I’m telling you, I saw her .”
“Con…”
“No,” he said forcefully and then coughed. He roughly yanked the IV out. “I know what you’re going to say. And I am sorry for leaving you. But she was there. Valerie was there . I swear to you.”
Alex knew that just because you saw something didn’t make it real.
Two days after her mother had passed, two days during which she and her father had been inundated with condolences from dignitaries, politicians, friends, people she’d never seen before and robbed her of her sleep, her mother had come to her.
It seemed more real than any dream.
Heather Striker stared down at Alex, a smile on her pretty face.
“You’ll be okay, Alexandra.” She was the only one who called her that. “You and dad are going to be okay.”
And then she was gone.
This comforted her and for a while, Alex believed that this interaction had actually occurred. As she aged, her opinion changed.
She shared her father’s newfound belief in the afterlife, but she didn’t think that the dead could return to earth.
Not even to console a sad, lonely child.
Alex was at a loss for what to do next. Pacifying Con probably wasn’t a good idea. But she didn’t think that arguing with her partner was in his best interests either.
In the end, she chose the path of least resistance.
“Did you get a make and model of the car she was driving?”
“I think it was a Camry. Pale blue. The license plate number…” Con strained. “I don’t—I don’t remember. But… but…”
Alex put a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s okay, it’ll come back to you.”
Con sighed.
“Where’s AA?”
“Here… somewhere.”
Together they found the police chief in a similar room on the same hospital floor.
Unlike Con, AA was sleeping soundly. Alex suggested coming back later, but Con rejected this idea.
When they entered the room, the man opened his eyes. When no recognition swept over the man’s face, Alex feared the worst.
Then the man grinned, the corners of his white mustache lifting.
“I need a drink,” he said gruffly.
Alex let out a nervous laugh.
“I guess you’re going to be okay, after all.”
AA winced as he lifted his right arm, showing off the plaster cast.
“Broken wing, but it’ll heal. You guys?”
“Fine,” Con said quickly. “I want to thank you, Art. You saved Alex’s life.”
The man in the cot shifted uncomfortably.
“Just doing my job, I guess.”
“No, that wasn’t your job,” Con countered. “That was my job.”
This was met with dead air. AA eventually broke the silence.
“What… what happened to Edward?”
Alex pictured the man with the bloody shirt lying on his back, Con kneeing on top of him.
Strangling him.
Killing him.
After calling 9-1-1, it took the cops eighteen minutes to arrive on the scene.
The ambulance, twenty-one.
Neither she nor Con mentioned the incident while making their report and Alex doubted that the ME would notice the bruising on Edward’s neck.
Even if he did, would it matter?
Edward would have died from the bullet wound regardless. It had severed his aorta.
“He’s dead,” Con replied with zero emotion.
AA closed his eyes for a moment and Alex prepared a consoling statement in her head.
In the end, there was no need for it.
“Good.”
Alex didn’t share the chief’s opinion.
She wasn’t happy that Edward was dead. Alex didn’t feel sympathy for him, the man had, after all, pointed a gun at her and planned to use it, but even after everything that happened, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was still something amiss about this case.
Con reached out and squeezed AA’s hand, the one not wrapped in a cast.
“I owe you one.”
AA offered a weak smile.
“More than one, Con. More than one.”
They exchanged appreciative nods and left the man to do what all of them desperately needed to do: rest.
In the hallway, Con pressed his forehead against the cool tiled wall.
“Con?” Alex asked.
“We need to go see Marcus.”
Alex wanted to put this off for as long as possible, but she knew that just tearing the band-aid off in one go was the best approach.
How would the Special Agent in Charge react?
They’d solved the pirated films case, they’d discovered damning videos of Martin and Adon, and when Alex had the time to review the other movies, she knew that she’d find something on Thomas and Charles, too.
They’d solved Martin’s murder.
Con pulled away from the wall and turned his gaze in her direction.
Alex recalled a thought she had what seemed like years ago, but what probably been just a few hours: If Con found his sister’s bones, would it break or heal him?
“But don’t worry, I told that asshole he could wait until tomorrow. And when we do talk to Marcus, I want you to tell him the truth, Alex. I want you to tell him everything.”