Chapter 53
FIFTY-THREE
Maddy kept Lachlan’s head in her lap to protect it from banging against the deck each time they hit a wave.
She wasn’t sure how long the trip took, but by the time they reached Skeleton Island and Grey slowed the boat, she was barely able to make out the humpback mandible arch standing above Whalebone Cove.
Her muscles were rigid, convulsive shivers ripping through her. She was vaguely aware of the boat stopping. Of people rushing onboard and gathering around them.
Someone pulled her to her feet and turned her around. “Mads. Mads, look at me.”
Slowly, she focused on the man in front of her. “B-Blaine.” Her voice was barely a whisper. She was so cold. So tired. Just wanted to close her eyes and sleep.
“Yeah, Mads, it’s me. Let’s get you out of here.”
He’d said almost those exact same words to her when he’d carried her out of that prison in Syria.
He scooped her up and stepped off the boat. Started running.
Wait. “No.” She shook her head. “L-Lach…”
“Grey and Rafe have him.”
He can’t die. He can’t die.
Everything blurred out around her as Blaine rushed her past a crowd of people. Lights and colors all swirled and blended together. She started to fade out. Welcomed it and the escape from the cold.
She was laid down on her back. Strangers started talking to her. She was too numb and confused to answer them.
Scissors cut off her sweater. She yelped when someone moved her broken wrist, the sharp, searing pain momentarily snapping her out of the icy fog trapping her.
But the exhaustion and shock were too strong. Deep like the ocean, pulling her under.
She faded in and out of consciousness after that, the wail of a siren shrill in the back of her mind. Then there were more lights. More people talking to her. Poking at her. The sharp, prolonged sting of a needle in the back of her hand.
“Ow,” she said with a frown, still shivering. She groaned in relief when someone put a warm blanket over her. And slowly, slowly she felt another warmth creeping in, spreading through her veins.
Gradually the shaking eased. The fog retreated. She blinked. Squinted to protect her eyes from the glare in the unfamiliar room.
“Maddy?”
She looked up at the person standing at her bedside. A woman. Light brown skin. Dark spiral curls. Dark, liquid eyes. “Yes?”
“I’m Doctor Naya Patel. I’m a radiologist. How are you feeling?”
“Cold.”
“Yes, we’re warming you up, but you look a lot better already. Can you tell me what happened to your left wrist?”
“Eve kicked it.”
The woman nodded. “I’m going to take you back for some x-rays, okay? We’re short-staffed, so I’m going to do them myself.”
“Where’s Lachlan?” She tried to push up on her right elbow, looking around. “Is he okay?”
“They’re treating him right now, but he’s in good hands, I promise.”
“Is he okay?” she repeated.
“I think he’s going to be.” Naya wheeled her out of the room, down a brightly lit hallway and into a dimmer room. Maddy’s wrist hurt so bad, and positioning it for the series of radiographs made it worse.
Dr. Patel studied the images, wrote her report, and came back to her.
“You’ve got a combined distal radius and scaphoid fracture.
It’s a high-energy injury, fairly rare, and complex.
You’re going to need surgery to stabilize the fracture sites.
I’m going to call ortho, see what they can do.
Hang tight.” She gave Maddy a smile and squeezed her shoulder on the way out.
Alone in the room, Maddy’s eyes flooded with frustrated tears. When the doors opened again and Blaine came in, the tears spilled over. “I need s-surgery.” On top of everything else she’d just gone through, that’s what set her off.
He came straight to her and took her good hand in a firm grip. “I’ll be here. Don’t worry.”
“I w-want to s-see Lachlan.” Her voice wobbled.
Blaine pulled up a chair and sat down next to her bed. “He’s going to be okay, Mads, but he’s got a collapsed lung and a concussion. They put a chest tube in to reinflate the lung, and they had to drain some blood from his chest cavity.”
That sounded really serious. “I want to see him,” she insisted. “I need to see him. He needs me too.”
Blaine squeezed her hand. “I know. Can you tell me what happened first? I want to make sure I get on top of this and tie up any loose ends before they get away from us.”
The person in Turkey, he meant. And anyone else involved with this plot.
She told him everything, keeping it short because she was tired and scared and couldn’t concentrate for shit right now. “The account number,” she suddenly recalled. “I memorized it.”
“You did?” He whipped out his phone, typed it in as she recited it. “Mads, this is incredible. We’ll be able to mop up the rest of it with this.”
“She left the laptop behind. It’s still at the cabin, intact. And she had her phone on her when she…” Between those three things, hopefully the powers that be could unravel everything else.
“I’ll let Rafe know. But the FBI is gonna take charge of this real fast, and the CIA will be involved too. Also, we saw something from the air on our way to you that you need to see.” He found something on his phone, turned it around to show her.
The overhead shot showed Lachlan’s boat still a fair distance away from the one she and Eve had been on.
“Look left.” He zoomed in.
She gasped when she saw something moving under the water. Close enough to the surface that there was no guessing what it was. “That’s a mini sub.”
“It absolutely is. The timing of it being in that location is suspicious as hell. I’m not sure if Eve had lined it up as a getaway plan, but even if not, it’s definitely the kind of thing someone could use to slip between the islands without being seen.”
“Smuggling drugs.”
“Yep. Which would explain the money on those guys Rafe arrested, and what happened to Onyx.” He tucked his phone away. “Sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
He left the room and returned several minutes later with an orderly. “Mission’s green lit. Let’s do this.”
The orderly wheeled her out of the x-ray room and down the hall back to emergency. Maddy’s heart started pounding as she looked around. She spotted Grey standing at the end of a hospital bed. Looked past him through the gap in the curtains.
“Special delivery for Lachlan McCaffrey,” the orderly said.
Grey smiled at her and drew the curtain aside. Maddy sucked in a watery breath when she saw Lachlan propped up in the hospital bed with leads attached to his chest and a bandage covering his side.
His face was pale and covered in bruises. But his tired, weak smile was full of warmth when he spotted her. “Maddy.”
She bit down on the inside of her bottom lip to keep from crying. Sat up and leaned forward, reaching for him.
Lachlan curled an arm around her back and drew her to the left side of his chest, burying his lips in her hair. Maddy pressed her face into the side of his neck and closed her eyes, struggling not to cry again. He’d almost died. It scared her so much how close he’d come to the edge because of her.
His hand moved up and down her back. “I’m okay, sweetheart. Thanks to you.”
She shook her head. She’d been too weak to save him. “That was Grey.”
“She raw dogged it and jumped in without a flotation device to swim to you with a busted wrist,” Grey said.
Lachlan’s hand stopped on her back. “It’s broken?”
“Eve did it. I need surgery.” She didn’t want to let go of him. Wished everyone would go away and let them be alone.
“Speaking of that,” said a female voice behind them.
Maddy lifted her head as Naya came over to them. She smiled at Grey. Didn’t seem to notice the way he stared at her as she focused on Maddy. “I just spoke to ortho. They’re prepping an OR for you now.”
A lick of panic streaked through her. “Now?” She’d never had surgery before. Didn’t want to leave Lachlan yet.
She looked at Blaine. Too much was happening too fast. She didn’t know what to do. Couldn’t think. She shook her head, too overwhelmed to put her thoughts into words.
“Let’s give them a few minutes,” Blaine said, and drew the others away.
“Grey,” Lachlan said as his brother reached the door. “Get the lights.”
Grey hit the button and the lights shut off, plunging the room into dimness. That and the sudden quiet, and being alone with Lachlan, helped the panic subside.
She sighed in relief. Tucked her head back in the curve of Lachlan’s neck. He smelled like saltwater and disinfectant. She thanked God he was still here. “Thank you.”
“Better now?”
“Yes. My wrist still hurts though.”
He made a sympathetic sound and kissed the top of her head. “They’ll fix it soon.”
“How’s your head?”
“Sore, but I’ll live.”
Yes. That was all that mattered.
“Eve’s dead,” she said into the quiet a minute later. It was so much easier to keep it together when it was just the two of them alone with the room quiet and the lights off.
“I heard. God, I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
She frowned. “For what? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I shouldn’t have left you alone.”
“You couldn’t have known what would happen. Neither of us could’ve, and you had to go to work.”
He grunted. Ran his fingers through her hair.
“I shot her, but that’s not how she died. A piece of shrapnel hit her in the throat when your boat blew up.” There was a certain amount of karmic justice that her own bomb had killed her.
“Jesus. You okay?”
“Not really, but now that I know you’re going to be okay, I’m better.” She didn’t want to talk about what had happened anymore. Or about Eve. Or any of it. Didn’t want to think about the explosion and seeing him floating in the water. She would never forget it.
“I’ve never had surgery.” They would come take her away soon. She didn’t know what to expect, and there had been no time to process all this.
“Compared to what you just went through? Piece of cake. It’ll be like falling asleep. And when you wake up, it’ll all be over.”
“And you’ll be there when I wake up?” She wanted him beside her when she was that vulnerable. Because she knew he would always protect her.
“Right next to you,” he vowed, gathering her closer. “I’ll be the first thing you see when you open your eyes.”