Chapter 5 #2
Ellen closed her eyes, trying to remember. It was all a blur. Getting out of the taxi, being slammed, shouts…shouts.
“Several men there. Yes.” Her voice came out a weak croak. What else? “A—a truck. Someone opening the back of a truck. Not a truck, a van.” It was all such a blur. Voices, shapes…
She opened her eyes.
“Yeah.” Harry Bolt’s deep voice was hard, rough. “They were going to take you away in that van. I got a chance to look inside it and there were restraints in there. Meant for you.”
Ellen’s heart skipped a beat at the thought of being in the hands of Montez’s men, in handcuffs.
“Did they follow you? Do they know where I am?” Ellen pushed the words out through the tightness in her throat. Maybe this Harry Bolt wasn’t after her, but Montez’s men were.
Silence. Nicole looked away uneasily. Harry Bolt just stared at her with his fierce eagle gaze. Finally, he stirred. “They’re dead,” he said roughly. “No one’s coming after you, not any more. Not ever again.”
Ellen tried to rise on her elbows but she couldn’t.
She couldn’t hold herself up and felt panic rising at her inability to move.
She was trapped in this house, with people she didn’t know.
Her voice rose in panic. “He’s smart. He’ll have followed you, somehow, they could be coming right now, they could—“
“No,” Bolt rapped out sharply, scowling.
“No one’s coming. We left before the police came.
I used a cold gun, untraceable. I blanked out all the security cameras beforehand.
Even if by some chance one of the men saw my license plate and called it in, and there really wouldn’t have been time, it belongs to a shell company it would take a team of forensic accountants a year to trace down.
You’re safe now and you’ll stay that way. ”
He stated it like a law of nature. Gravity pulls toward the center of the earth. The sun rises in the east. You’ll be safe here.
She twisted slightly, and pain shot through her shoulder. A reminder that ‘safe’ was a relative term.
He noticed and reached for a bottle of pills on a table nearby. He took a pill, poured a glass of water from a pitcher and slid his hand under her head.
“Painkiller,” he said. “It’ll take effect in about ten minutes.” He lifted her easily, somehow not hurting her.
Ellen met his eyes as he gently eased her head back on the pillow. She was so weak it frightened her. Maybe she wasn’t in any immediate danger, but if she were, she’d be utterly helpless to defend herself. She needed help to swallow a pill.
It had to be asked. “What…what happened to me?”
Bolt’s mouth tightened into a grim line.
Grimmer line. “You were shot, but thank God it was only a ricochet. Gave me a hell of a scare there, for a moment. You lost some blood but it wasn’t life-threatening.
If it had been, I’d have had to take you to a hospital, and you can be sure Montez is monitoring all of them.
And anyway by law, hospitals have to report gunshot wounds.
I’ve had extensive medic training and I had everything I need here.
You won’t have the most beautiful scar in the world, but you’re going to be fine.
Maybe later, you can have plastic surgery on the scar. ”
Ellen shook her head, her hair rasping on the pillow. That wasn’t important.
“How—" She coughed, to loosen up her throat. “How long ago? How long have I been…out.”
Harry’s mouth grew, if possible, even grimmer, long grooves appearing in his cheeks. “Three days,” he said, the two words falling like stones out of his mouth.
He looked…something. There was some strong emotion there. Anger? At her? Had she been keeping him from something important? Was he mad because she might have put him in danger? She couldn’t tell at all what he might be feeling, only that whatever it was, it was strong.
Nicole looked at Bolt then back at her. “He hasn’t left your side for three days and three nights,” she said softly. “He patched you up and stayed with you. We all offered to help but he refused.”
“All?”
“Me, my husband Sam—you met Sam at the office—our housekeeper Manuela and the third RBK partner, Mike. You haven’t met him yet.”
Nicole’s voice was as calm and smooth as if they were at a tea party and she were describing the guest list.
“We all said we’d be willing to stay with you.
You developed a high fever the first night.
Very high. Luckily antibiotics took care of that.
You drifted in and out of consciousness.
Harry stayed right here. Except for going to the bathroom—" Nicole pointed to a door in the corner. “He hasn’t budged from that chair in three days.”
There was no answer to that. Ellen was mulling that piece of information over in her dull, sluggish mind when Nicole’s face changed.
It was remarkable. Where before she’d just been this beautiful woman—okay, the most beautiful woman Ellen had ever seen up close and not on a screen—all of a sudden she smiled brightly and became even more gorgeous. She simply glowed.
Ellen had a limited field of vision. But the reason for Nicole’s blinding smile walked up to her, put a big arm around her waist and bent to kiss her.
For the first time, Ellen noticed something about the way Nicole moved, a heaviness around the belly. She was expecting. And by the way her husband kissed her, it was a happy occasion.
Ellen’s mom had had a couple of pregnancy scares while Ellen was growing up and it had been anything but an occasion for rejoicing. Usually because the man in question was already across the state line and Ellen’s mom didn’t know how to take care of herself and Ellen, let alone another kid.
But this guy looked like he was going to stay, and was really happy about the pregnancy.
Sam Reston. The man Kerry had trusted to get her away safely. The man who’d saved Kerry’s life. The man she said Ellen could trust.
A tiny lingering tension left Ellen’s body.
There was still a question mark against Harry Bolt, but Nicole and her husband Sam felt safe.
Reston’s head lifted and his eyes met his wife’s. He smiled, a secret smile just for the two of them. For an instant, they were encased in a cocoon of love, the outside world completely forgotten.
Oh, man. A pang of…what? Jealousy? Longing? Whatever the emotion, it hit Ellen squarely in the chest. She was really weak, that’s why tears pricked her eyes.
But still. She’d never loved anyone like that and no one had ever loved her like that. She’d never even seen that kind of relationship. Her mom had specialized in deadbeat boyfriends who were mainly out for a temporary bed-mate and often just a bed.
Must be nice to be loved like that, she thought.
Reston turned to her and smiled. It transformed his rough face and made it almost…handsome. She wondered if a smile would do that to Harry Bolt’s face, even though he looked as if he’d never smiled. Not once in his life. As if his face would crack if he smiled.
“Hi.” Reston bent over the bed so she could see him more clearly. “Welcome back. We were a little worried, even though Harry here is a really good medic. He took good care of you.”
Her eyes slid over to Harry Bolt. Maybe. Was she expected to say thank you?
“So…we’re okay here?” Ellen desperately tried to read Sam Reston’s eyes. They were dark and featureless, except when he looked at his wife. Then they burned. “Nobody can find me here?”
“Yeah, you’re safe,” he said.
“She needs a little more reassurance than that.” Nicole jabbed an elbow into her husband’s side. He looked as thickly muscular as Harry Bolt. He probably could barely feel the jab. “My husband here tends to be…protective of me. I don’t think he’d let me be here if he felt there was any danger.”
“Damn straight,” Reston growled. “There isn’t anything that can lead Gerald Montez to here and it’s going to stay that way.”
For how long? Was she just expected to stay here—wherever here was—forever?
It was too much. Her body didn’t have any energy left, not for speculation, not for hope, not even for fear. There was simply nothing left.
She closed her eyes, murmured, “S’all right,” and heard a rushing noise as the world went black.