Chapter 25
My dad drove with one hand steady on the wheel, his other resting near the gearshift. His focus never wavered. I looked at him, unable to breathe. Aiden hadn’t moved. Not once.
“It’ll be okay,” my dad said, his gaze fixed on the rain-slicked asphalt stretching ahead of us.
I swallowed hard. My dad was always calm in a storm.
He was a big man, a miner, with the faintest hint of an Italian accent that lingered from my grandparents.
His hair was jet black streaked with gray, and he had the shoulders of a linebacker, even in his late fifties.
He was solid, steady—the strongest person I knew besides Aiden.
“Now, what happened?” my dad asked quietly.
I told him everything. The tunnel, the explosion, the collapse. He didn’t interrupt and only nodded when I finished. “Did you see any wounds to his head?”
“I didn’t.” My voice broke.
My phone buzzed with a text from Sheriff Franco.
The helicopter had to put down in Timber City.
Doctors would evaluate Aiden there and decide whether to drive him to Spokane.
I typed back, asking if Aiden had regained consciousness.
The sheriff replied that he hadn’t heard, but he was still on the road, probably only a few miles ahead of us.
We reached the hospital in Timber City just as another crack of thunder rolled through the sky. The parking lot glistened under the floodlights, water swirling around the drains. I ran inside beside my dad, the smell of antiseptic and wet pine greeting us in the sterile air.
I wasn’t surprised to see Aiden’s team already in the waiting room.
“Saber,” I called, spotting him first. Rain dotted his dark hair. “How is he?” I asked, breathless.
Saber shook his head. “We don’t have any word yet. No news.” His faint Spanish accent thickened more than usual.
A few of his team members sat clustered in the corner. Chelli, the lone woman, gave me a tight nod. She was small and blonde, compact muscle in motion. I’d once seen her dive through a window and come up rolling, ready to fight. Her expression now was pure concern.
My dad’s hand landed gently on my shoulder. “Come sit down.”
I followed him to a row of plastic chairs that creaked under our weight.
More people began filing in—my family, some of Aiden’s friends, even townsfolk from Silverville.
Everybody liked Aiden, even though he’d been quite the rebel when he was younger.
The Silverville deputies leaned near Sheriff Franco against the walls, silent and watchful.
Deputy McCracken approached, dirt still on his boots, his hair plastered from the rain. “Heard anything?”
“No,” I said, looking around. “Will you please make the sheriff sit down before he gives himself a heart attack?”
McCracken shook his head, eyes wide. “I’ve tried. The guy won’t listen.”
I sighed. “Why are men so stubborn?”
“Couldn’t tell you that, Anna.” McCracken gave a quick grin before stepping back.
Time stretched. My sisters arrived with more cousins in tow. Then the Basanelli family came in force, crowding the room. The fluorescent lights hummed, and the smell of coffee from the vending machine did nothing to help the weight pressing on my chest.
After an hour I couldn’t stand it anymore. “I can’t breathe,” I said to Dad. “I’m going outside.”
“You want me to come?”
“No, thanks.” I stopped by the sheriff on my way out. “Sheriff.”
Franco looked up, lines of exhaustion and pain carved into the sides of his mouth. “What can I do for you, Anna?”
“You can sit down,” I said. “I can’t worry about you and Aiden at the same time. It’s too much.” My voice cracked.
He blinked and then sighed. “Well, geez, if it’ll make you happy.” He limped toward an empty chair and dropped into it, not quite hiding a groan.
“Men,” I muttered and pushed through the doors.
Outside, rain hammered the pavement. I stood beneath the overhang as water poured in sheets off the roof, hitting the concrete with a steady hiss. The air smelled of ozone and pine needles crushed under tires.
My sisters followed, flanking me like sentries.
“He’ll be okay,” Tessa said, her gaze fixed on the storm.
“I hope so,” I whispered. “He didn’t move, Tess.”
Donna slipped an arm around my shoulders. “It’s Aiden.”
Yeah. It was. In my mind, he was invincible. Nothing got to Aiden.
“I couldn’t move him,” I admitted quietly. “I tried.”
Rain battered the parking lot, thunder rolled again over the mountains, and I stood there between my sisters, waiting for the first sign that he’d made it through.
“He is solid muscle,” Tessa said, nudging me gently. “You like that, remember?”
“Yeah, but I wish I could’ve moved him faster,” I mumbled. My throat ached. “I don’t even know what his injuries were. He just didn’t move. He’s in surgery, and I don’t even know what they’re operating on. Something must have broken inside him.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. The storm had quieted some, but rain still sheeted across the parking lot, pooling around the yellow lines and reflecting the flashing hospital lights. The mountains beyond Timber City were lost in a smear of gray.
A silver truck rolled to a stop near the overhang, headlights cutting through the downpour. The driver’s door opened, and Cormac Coretti jumped out, striding toward us. Water streamed from his coat and hit the pavement in steady drops. “I heard Devlin got hurt,” he said.
“Yeah,” I answered. “What are you doing here?”
He shook his head, rain dripping from his hair. “Rumor has it the tunnel beneath the carousel gave out.”
I blinked, caught off guard. “You knew about the tunnel?”
“Yeah. I was going to search it tonight for the boxes.”
Donna’s mouth tightened. “How did you know about that? Did you set the dynamite?”
“Of course not.” Cormac lifted both hands, palms open.
His greenish-blue eyes were clear even in the gray light, and the rain didn’t seem to bother him, even as it plastered his hair flat against his head.
“I’ve been researching all of Silverville,” he said.
“Might’ve hacked into the CCTV feed nearby. ”
“So you knew about those tunnels?” I asked.
“I suspected,” he said. “I was planning to look tonight, and now I’ve heard all about them. Did you find the boxes?”
Fire lanced through me. “Why?” I demanded.
He raised a hand. “I’m just asking. I know there’s no word on Devlin yet.”
“How do you know that?” Tessa asked sharply.
Cormac’s mouth twitched. “I know things.”
Donna crossed her arms. “You know things. You find things. Who the hell are you?”
“I’m just somebody who wants to help right now,” he admitted. “Did you find the silver nugget boxes?”
“Yes,” I said before I could stop myself. Both of my sisters jolted. I looked between them, realizing how far my thoughts had drifted. “I forgot all about finding them in the tunnels. We threw them in Dad’s trunk.” None of the day even seemed real. “All I could think about was Aiden.”
“That’s what you should be thinking about,” Donna said, her voice edged with loyalty and frustration.
The rain picked up again, hammering against the metal awning. The smell of wet pine filled the air, sharp and clean.
The hospital doors opened, releasing a puff of warm, antiseptic air, and my cousin Rory stepped out. “Hey, I just wanted to check on you.” He stopped short when his gaze landed on Cormac. “Cormac?”
Cormac blinked once. “Rory.”
I looked from one to the other. “You two know each other?”
In a weirdly synchronized move, they both shoved their thumbs into their jeans pockets.
“Nope,” they said together.
I glared at my cousin. Rory was the one of six boys from Uncle Buddy and Aunt Yara, who’d recently adopted Violet. Nobody really knew what Rory did for a living, but the family rumor leaned heavily toward the CIA.
I turned to Cormac. “Are you with the CIA?”
“Nobody’s with the CIA,” Rory said quietly, his focus still on Cormac. “What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for the silver boxes,” Cormac replied with a small smile.
Rory’s brow rose. “For the reward money?”
“Yeah, that’s what I do. I find things now.” Cormac’s expression didn’t change, but I swear, his aura appeared. Strong, green, and dotted with champagne bubbles. Magical?
I shook my head. Was I losing it? I didn’t see auras.
Rory gave a slow nod. “You always did have a talent.”
“What the hell is going on?” Donna burst out. I jumped a little. My sister never swore.
Rory rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “We might’ve worked together at one time,” he said. “But we don’t anymore.”
So Cormac wasn’t CIA now. Maybe he really did just wander around finding lost things.
“I’m somewhat of a private investigator,” Cormac said. “But yeah, I find things.”
“It always was your gift,” Rory agreed. He looked between us, then back at Cormac. “Why are you standing here now?”
The rain didn’t seem to bother Cormac a bit. “I heard Devlin sustained an injury and that the boxes might’ve been found.”
“You didn’t hear the boxes might’ve been found,” I snapped. “I didn’t tell anybody.”
“Yeah,” Cormac said, smiling faintly. “But I suspected. I suspected the tunnels, so it figured.” He sobered. “How’s your boyfriend?”
“We don’t know yet,” I said quietly.
Rory glanced toward the hospital doors. “Hey—the doc’s coming out.”
I pushed away from my sisters and ran inside. The hospital lobby glowed under pale lights, smelling of bleach and wet wool. I spotted Doc Springfield stepping through a side corridor, his white coat damp around the edges. He looked more like a kindly Santa Claus than a trauma doctor.
“Doctor?” I gasped.
Doc Springfield cleared his throat. “All right, everybody take a deep breath,” he said, his voice calm but carrying. The waiting room quieted, every eye on him. “Devlin’s out of surgery.”
I blinked. “What does that mean? What was wrong with him?”