17. Elijah
I’ve never been a fan of hospitals. Even before I’d been in one the first time, there was just something about the stark white walls and the overwhelming smell of cleaner that grated against me. So, by day three, I’ve gotten enough of a handle on my pain that I’m ready to go home.
Andie is asleep in a chair in the corner where she’s been nearly every day since the attack. Apparently, Michael took the cat back to his place, and with the clothes Lilly dropped off, Andie hasn’t had to leave my side.
I won’t admit it out loud, but having her here has meant more to me than anything.
The door opens, and Doc slips in, his graying hair wild as though he’s been running his hands through it. Then again, he’s always looked a bit like Albert Einstein to me.
“Elijah, good to see you awake,” he says with a smile.
“Can I leave now?” I ask, bypassing all greetings.
“You don’t like our food?” he asks, gesturing to the uneaten sandwich on the tray in front of me.
“Not even a little.”
He chuckles. “Well, I’m going to say yes. You can go home, but I’m going to order bed rest. At least, for the time being. In a few days, you can get up and try to move around, but you need to let your body heal.”
“I’ll be fine.” I sit up and suck in a pained breath when my abdomen aches with the movement.
Doc doesn’t say anything, just arches a brow.
“See? Fine,” I growl.
“What are you doing?” Andie rushes over to my side, her soft hands on my arm. “You need to stay in bed. Doesn’t he need to stay in bed?” she asks Doc.
He chuckles. “I feel good about leaving you in her care,” he says. “Bed rest for him. At least two days of only being on your feet for a max of thirty minutes a day. After that, you can move as needed. No stairs though. You’re going to need to find somewhere else to stay.”
“Okay. No stairs. Got it.” She chews on her bottom lip. “Felix said the windows for Gran’s house have been installed. But?—”
I know what she’s thinking. The guy in custody hasn’t said a word. No matter how much they’ve tried to sweat him out. He hasn’t rolled over on anyone and hasn’t even called for a lawyer. Given that two of them got away, we’re not safe at Edna’s house. Not yet.
“I have a house we can go to,” I tell her.
“No stairs?” she asks.
“No stairs.” I turn to Doc. “When can I get out of here?”
“Bed. Rest, Elijah. I mean it. You can get up for thirty minutes a day, and they don’t have to be all at the same time, but you need to take it easy so you don’t tear anything. Two days. Bed. Rest. Then easy movements. They removed nearly a hundred metal shards from your gut. Don’t play with this one, Elijah.”
“I understand,” I tell him. “And I promise not to break your rules.”
“Then you can leave in just a few. They’re drawing up your discharge paperwork now.”
Relief floods me. “Good.” I start to reach for my phone but hesitate when another wave of pain washes over me. “Can you hand me my phone? I need to check in with Lance.”
“I can.” Andie retrieves my phone and offers it to me.
“What’s up?” he asks, answering on the first ring.
“Doc’s letting me out. Think you can give us a ride?”
“Be there in thirty.”
I end the call. “He’ll be here in half an hour.”
“Then I’ll go check on that paperwork.” Doc smiles at me then Andie before leaving.
She comes around to stand in front of me and crosses her arms. “This feels too soon.”
“It feels like it’s been forever,” I counter.
“Elijah, you were nearly blown up.”
“I’m still breathing.” I lean back in the bed, trying not to look too relieved that the pressure is off my stomach. “Besides, this recovery is nothing like the last one.” The moment the words are out of my mouth, I want to kick myself. I don’t talk about it with anyone…ever. So why I blurted it out now, I’m not sure.
“This has happened before?”
“Sort of.”
“The burns on your side.”
I crack open an eye and stare up at her. The blankets are pulled up to my abdomen, but just enough of the scarred flesh from the burns remains in view. “Yes.”
“Did it happen while you were in the Army?” When I don’t answer, she sighs. “You know everything about me, Elijah, and I know very little about you.”
“Everything?” I ask, meaning it as a joke.
“Yes. I haven’t hidden anything from you.”
I know she’s right. About her honesty and my lack of being forthcoming about my own past. “I told you it’s from an IED.”
“How bad?”
I sigh. “It was hidden beneath the sand and blew up when we drove over it. I was on the side of the truck that hit it, so I got most of the burns. It ate away at my side and left me full of shrapnel and bleeding to death on the side of a road. Michael and Lance were there too, and both were injured, but we were the lucky ones because we walked away.”
“Oh—Elijah.”
I shake my head, uncomfortable with the turn of conversation. “Lance held back the enemy fire when they came for us, but hearing the dying cries of my brothers—” I suck in a breath. “I haven’t forgotten them.”
“I am so sorry, Elijah.”
“It happens in war. Good men die. Lesser men survive.”
“You are not a lesser man,” she says.
I turn my attention out the window. “Some would argue.”
“Had you not survived that day, I wouldn’t be alive today.”
“You don’t know that.”
She closes the distance between us and cups my face. Her touch is tender, and it warms a part of my heart I hadn’t realized was cold. “I do know that,” she says, “and I need you to know it too.”
The expression on her face is so intense, so unguarded, that it steals the breath from my chest. Which, given the collapsed lung I suffered from due to the explosion, is probably not a good thing. My gaze drops to her full lips, and I can’t help but wonder how they might taste.
Andie’s breath catches, and I see the same attraction burning inside of me reflected in her gaze.
She leans in.
My heart hammers.
“All right, who needs a ride?”
Andie pulls back so abruptly it leaves me wondering if I’d imagined her standing that close to begin with. I turn to Lance. “As soon as they get me discharged, we will.”
* * *
The closest safehouse to Hope Springs is about fifteen minutes outside of town, situated right on the beach. It was the first house Knight Security purchased—under a separate LLC of course—and needed to be completely renovated from top to bottom.
Thankfully, Lance has a buddy who lives in Boston and runs his own construction company. They had the place up and running within a few months, and we’ve used it off and on for clients who needed a safe place to get away until the threat was neutralized.
A metal gate opens when Lance presses a remote, and we take the short driveway to the house. Blue shutters contrast against white siding, but it’s the bright red flowers in the boxes that catch my eye.
I’d forgotten Edna helped me pick them out at the beginning of spring.
Grief sneaks up on me, pain that has me closing my eyes until I can swallow it down. In the craziness of the last week, I’d nearly forgotten that she was gone. What kind of person does that make me?
“Here we are.” Lance puts the car into Park and gets out, then opens the door for me. Before he can offer me assistance, I climb out and lean against the car to catch my breath.
Andie takes my arm, looping it over her shoulders without waiting for my approval, and begins walking. The grin Lance shoots me is one massive “I knew it was more than you thought it was,” and I wish I could knock the smile off his face.
Of course, I wouldn’t because I love him like a brother, but the fleeting thought is there.
“This is beautiful,” Andie breathes as we enter the house. The amount of natural light is beyond breathtaking, especially since someone was here, adding personal touches to the couches and stocking the glass refrigerator.
“Eliza brought some food out while we were waiting,” Lance says. “She’s going to bring out some dinners as soon as she finishes prepping them. The word lasagna was thrown around a time or two.”
“That’s so kind of her. She doesn’t have to do that,” Andie says.
“She likes to.” Pride laces his tone.
“Well, we really appreciate it.”
I don’t miss that Andie answers for me, nor can I ignore the twisting in my gut that comes like a warning. We’re getting too close. Things are getting too complicated. I need to pull back. Need to put distance between us.
But as she guides me over to the couch and helps me sit, I realize just how deep I am. Because she only stopped touching me seconds ago, and I’m already desperate for her touch again.
Lance’s cell rings. After working with him for as long as I have and serving alongside him before this, I can read the shift in his body language as he listens to the call. The way he stiffens and his brows draw together.
Something is wrong.
“Thanks for letting me know.” He hangs up and faces me. “The guy we had in custody is dead.”
“Dead?” Andie chokes out. “How? He was in jail?”
“The sheriff sent him to county, hoping it would get him talking, and three inmates jumped him in gen pop.”
“Gen pop?”
“General population,” I answer. “How big is this thing?” Between the guys jumping us at the lighthouse and now this, I’m starting to think there’s a whole lot more to it than we thought.
“I don’t know,” Lance admits as he shoves his cell back into his pocket. “But either his murder is one massive coincidence, or?—”
“There is a lot more at play than we thought,” I finish. When confusion sets in, my general rule of thumb is to go back to the beginning. I need my laptop. I try to stand, and fresh pain sears my abdomen.
“Whoa. Sit,” Andie orders.
“I need my laptop. We need to go back to the beginning.”
“It’s in the office,” Lance tells me, gesturing to a bedroom right off the main living room. It’s where we set up surveillance when we’re here. “But you need rest, Elijah.”
“I can get rest when this is over. Right now, Andie is in danger, and we need to figure out why.”
“Not just Andie,” he says.
I narrow my gaze and cross my arms. “Being in the wrong place at the wrong time doesn’t make me a target.”
“No. But this does.” He reaches into his back pocket and withdraws an evidence bag that he hands me.
I reach inside and withdraw a cell phone. Going through my usual steps, I check the calls first, notice a bunch to and from the same number—likely another burner—then move to the messages.
TARGET: ELIJAH brEETH. KNIGHT SECURITY. TAKE HIM OUT. LEAVE THE WOMAN ALIVE.
It seems so surreal. So completely outrageous that, for a moment, I wonder if it’s not Lance and Michael messing with me. Except, logically, I know they wouldn’t. Not with this. “They were after me.”
“This time. Yes,” Lance says.
“But why? What could I have possibly done to draw attention like this?”
Andie crosses her arms, walls back up. It’s a defense mechanism and one she wields with the precision of an expert assassin. Kill all feelings. Leave no weakness. It would be impressive if I weren’t already so on edge.
“I’m not sure. But I’m wondering if this has something to do with Edna.”
“Edna?” I nearly laugh. “There’s no way she could have been involved in anything like this.”
“My gran wouldn’t be wrapped up in anything that would lead to murder,” Andie adds.
“It’s unlikely, I admit that, but—” Lance sighs.
“We need to investigate every possible lead,” I reply, knowing he’s right. Investigations hinge on collecting every fact. Not just the ones that seem plausible. “But it’s not her.”
“Do some digging. Find me facts,” he says. “Until then, you’re both lying low.”
“Is Aggie doing okay?” Andie asks.
“According to Michael, he’s the laziest cat he’s ever met.”
She smiles softly.
“He’s not here?” I’m surprised she let the cat out of her sight.
“No. We thought it best he stay with Michael just in case you both need to get out fast,” Lance says. “All right, I’m heading back in. I need to get some things handled back at the office. Call if you need me. Your cells are off and in the office safe, but the landline is secure.” He gestures to a phone on the kitchen counter.
“I know the drill,” I say, honestly agitated that I’m the one forced to remain inside. I don’t do well with inaction, and while I normally love the research side of things, this time, it’s personal.
This time, I want to be out on the front lines.
Even if, given that someone wants me dead, that’s the last place I should be.