Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Nelly
Floydene Blatch has come to see me at the hospital.
But she didn’t bring flowers or sneak me any decent food.
I can hear her in the hallway, arguing with a nurse.
She’s here to check on my status, and to grill me.
Fortunately, the hospital staff knows how to do their job and enforces my request to not have any visitors.
After Georgeanne escaped, everything happened so fast that I was taken to the hospital in the back of an ambulance without a chaperone.
But now I’m stuck in a hospital bed with the scariest, meanest sister-wife waiting out in the hallway.
“You are welcome to sit in the waiting room until she’s discharged, but if you’re not immediate family, I can’t let you in,” I hear the nurse say.
Floydene has that snippy tone that I’m so used to hearing as she replies, “I suppose I’ll have to. The elders won’t like to hear this.”
The nurse isn’t having it with Floydene’s superior attitude. “If you attempt to enter her room again, I will call security.”
I love it when a big fish is put in their place once they’re outside the pond. What can I say, I’m a petty bitch and I’m enjoying this.
“Get changed. Let’s go,” Special Agent Carl says, appearing out of nowhere with a duffel bag.
“Where did you come from?”
“Do you really need me to explain how to sneak in and out of a hospital?”
I guess not.
“I’m not ready to go yet.”
Concern clouds his face. “What’s wrong? Are you actually hurt?”
“Well, yes!” I say. “I was stabbed, remember?”
“The file says it didn’t hit any major organs or arteries. You’re fine, agent.”
Damn. I hate that he’s right. I’m perfectly fine. As fine as I can be with six stitches in my side. Which, for a trained agent such as myself, is more fine than a civilian.
“True, but I want to listen to the nurse yell at Floydene again.”
“Carter,” he hisses in a hushed tone.
I roll my eyes and shuffle out of bed. “Give me your bag of tricks and I’ll get changed.”
I touch the wound on my stomach as the SUV pulls up to what’s supposed to be my “safe house.”
The Bureau has arranged a rental room for me to lay low in the wake of Georgeanne’s escape.
Special Agent Williams surveys the dilapidated house.
“What a shit hole,” he grumbles. “Why don’t I get you a room at the hotel where I’m staying in Bozeman?”
I glance up, and I have to agree it’s a shit hole.
But no, I don’t want to go to Bozeman.
I’m told this place is the most secure spot in the county, outside of the church.
The guys who live here are armed to the teeth, and there are cameras everywhere.
The doors are steel, and the inside walls are solid concrete.
Best of all, it looks like a meth house on the outside, which definitely keeps random visitors away.
“It’ll have to do for now,” I say, scanning the rusty carport, the dirty Blazer, and the rebuilt classic car.
As for the church elders, they think I’m recovering from my stabbing in an isolated room at the hospital because I’ve contracted an infection.
In truth, I need to stay out of the crosshairs, for fear of retribution for letting Georgeann escape.
That prisoner did stab me good and hard before she ran away, but it was a good puncture once the blade sank through my bullet-rated vest. I make a mental note to order a new vest that also protects against blades pushing through the fibers.
The official story given to the elders at C.O.C.K. is that I’m on medical leave and that my doctor has ordered no visitors and no stress. That gives me enough cover to leave the hospital—again—without suspicion when Carl picks me up.
“You keep your wire on at all times,” Carl warns me.
“I will.”
He shoots me a look, and we both know what he’s getting at.
We make a plan to touch base again in a few days, and I go inside the safe house through the back door.
Joaquin is big and not the friendliest. Quite the opposite of the men I usually meet in Darling Creek. Not a whiff of cowboy about this guy. He’s clearly not from here, because he’s neither a cowpoke nor a polygamist.
If the Bureau hadn’t already told me everything about him, I would wonder what the hell he’s doing in Darling Creek. But this hit man doesn’t need to know I know everything.
“Your keys,” he says after giving me a quick tour of the most depressing set of rooms I’ve encountered outside of the cult compound.
He gives me a rundown of the house rules, and that’s when I meet the other housemate, Jefferson, who, thanks to the Bureau’s dossier, I also know is a local bounty hunter.
There’s a woman snuggled up next to him on the green sofa in the office/front room. She seems skittish, and her head is buried in Jefferson’s shoulder.
I don’t want to know what’s going on there, so I don’t ask any questions and instead turn my attention to Joaquin.
“Thanks,” I say. “You don’t happen to have a first-aid kit here, do you? I gotta change a bandage.”
The woman on the sofa attached to Jefferson stirs, but I ignore her.
“Do I have a bandage?” Joaquin laughs, pushing back from the desk and going to a footlocker in the corner. He kicks the lid open with one oversized boot.
I marvel at the contents. “You rob a hospital or something?”
The man on the sofa murmurs to his girlfriend, “What is it, Georgie?”
Georgie. He said Georgie.
But no, that can’t be who I think it is.
But when I see the girl’s face, I know it’s her.
My prisoner.
Georgeanne.
Quickly, I turn away and focus on Joaquin. I don’t need her staring and figuring out who I am. In the meantime, I need to find a new safe house before I get taken off this assignment. Before she blows my cover.
Joaquin roots through the state’s largest first-aid kit, then helps me replace my bandage over the stab wound.
All patched up, I thank Joaquin for his help and pull out my phone to text Carl.
“Wynella?”
I wince. This isn’t good.
Finally, with a sigh, I turn around. “Yep.”
The girl eyes my tight jeans, boots, and low-cut top. I look different, but there’s no point in denying it.
“Care to explain yourself?” Georgeanne asks.
“No,” I answer.
“You two know each other?” Joaquin and Jefferson say at the same time.
I’ll let Georgeanne answer that, but she’s suddenly gone mute.
“Wynella?” Joaquin pipes up. “That’s not the name I have on the paperwork.”
Of course he doesn’t, because that’s not my name.
“What are you doing here? What’s going on?” Georgeanne asks.
“I’m just in town to run some errands,” I say.
“Bullshit,” the girl says, surprising me with her salty language. She goes on, “Why are you dressed like that? Where’s your chaperone? Why in the hell is Joaquin giving you keys?”
I go on to explain, “I have special privileges. The less you know about it, the better.”
“Again, bullshit.”
This isn’t working. This is very, very bad.
I turn to Joaquin. “I gotta go to my room and rest up.”
I’m about to head down the hallway and out of sight, but Georgeanne calls after me.
“Why did you leave the cell door open?”
I pause. Shit. Finally, I admit, “Because it didn’t matter. Your dad was on his way to pick you up.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone I stabbed you?”
The men erupt in surprise.
“Little Georgie stabbed you? No way!” Joaquin exclaims. “Wait, don’t say anything else yet. I’m going to pop some popcorn.”
Just then, the back door opens and closes. And that’s it for me. I dart out the front door, nearly killing myself on the busted concrete steps, but managing to jump over the gap at the last second, landing on the grass.
I consider saying the safe word for Agent Carl, which signals that things have gone south and he needs to get me.
But I don’t.
Against my better judgment, I text Jake.