Chapter 10
Chapter 10
“ A clean shot, through and through. No bone, no arteries.”
Ethan’s calm assessment broke through the haze. Leo wasn’t certain if he was trying to reassure Esther or merely stating a fact.
“There’s a lot of blood,” Esther said. Her voice sounded small, afraid, but not shaky. She wasn’t crying, wasn’t falling apart. In the distance, sirens blared, growing ever closer. Leo needed to wake up, but the pull of blissful unconsciousness was so strong. His shoulder burned like someone had stuffed a live coal in there. Going back to sleep would provide him blessed reprieve. But, no, he had something important to stay awake for. What, though?
“You’re going to be okay, Leo,” Esther whispered sweetly in his ear. Ah, right. Her. He forced his eyes open and tried to sit up.
Ethan’s hand was a weight on his shoulder, holding him down, holding him together. “Easy there, Marine. You have a bit of a hole in your shoulder. Stay still.”
“Ridge,” Leo rasped. His boss’s face popped into view above him, looking serious and concerned. “Need to talk to you. Important.”
“I have to stay and deal with the police, specifically to explain how my very pregnant wife is an expert marksman. I’ll catch up with you at the hospital.”
“Esther,” Leo rasped, but he was still talking to Ridge. Esther needed to be taken care of; Esther was being hunted.
“We’ll take care of Esther,” Ridge promised.
“I’m going with Leo,” Esther said, enough steel in her tone to make him smile. Not many people had the courage to stand up to Cameron Ridge.
Leo faded before he could hear the resolution to the conversation, but it must have ended in Esther’s favor because when the ambulance arrived and loaded him on the cart, she was beside him, quiet and intense in the background, her delicate features shrouded with worry. “I’m going to be fine.” He tried to say it in an assuring tone, but it lost something when it rasped weakly from dry lips.
“Sangfroid,” she whispered.
He smiled, wincing when his dry bottom lip cracked. “What’s that one?”
Esther reached into her bag, pulled out lip balm, and smeared it on his suffering lips. Knowing what a germaphobe she was, it was a big concession. “Coolness of mind, calmness.”
“The marines trained me well. You, though, you’re a natural, apparently.”
She shook her head hard. He wondered if she was about to crack, to break down in tears. The medics stepped between them, taking Leo’s vitals, starting an IV, asking probing questions about his health and allergies. Leo answered with clipped, one word answers, both because he was in pain and because he was worried. With him out of the game, what was to stop someone from getting to Esther? She was so vulnerable, so exposed.
He felt another flicker of amusement when they arrived at the hospital and the medics tried to steer Esther to the lobby.
“No, I’m going with Leo.” Her tone was quiet, resolute. Leo guessed they dealt with so many hysterical people her cool reserve baffled and disturbed them. Whatever the reason, she once again prevailed, accompanying him to his cubicle where they were left alone for the first time since the shooting occurred.
“Are you doing okay?” he whispered, fervent in case they were interrupted again.
“Leo, you’re the one who is shot.”
“Newsflash, kid, not my first time. It is your first time dealing with this stuff, though.”
“I’m not as delicate as you think I am,” she told him.
“I have never once thought you were delicate,” he said. Na?ve and wholly unaware of the world around her, yes. Delicate and weak, no.
“What can I get you?” she asked. “Our meal was interrupted. You must be starved.”
“I’m fine, Esther. Just…don’t leave my side, okay? I need you beside me at all times.”
“I’m always beside you, Leo. We’re practically a host and fungi by now,” she said. “Shark and lamprey, hippo and bird.”
“Holmes and Watson,” he inserted, smiling in amusement when she wrinkled her nose. For some reason she didn’t enjoy the comparison. He wasn’t certain if comparing her to Sherlock felt too elevated or comparing him to Watson felt too demeaning. Maybe both things. In any case, she was often swift to point out that, in their duo, he was the one who called the shots.
A nurse came in to redo everything that had already been done in the ambulance—vitals, history, allergies. She added more pain reliever to his IV, checked his wound, and told him the doctor would be in shortly.
An hour later, the doctor arrived and did a painful exam, probing the wound. Leo tried not to, but he couldn’t stop a few winces and gasps from escaping.
“Good news and more good news,” the doctor said, pushing the bright light away from Leo’s shoulder. “It went straight through in a clean shot, no fragments, no bone splinters, no arteries. You’re going to need physical and possibly occupational therapy and lots of it. And it’s going to hurt, but you’ll be fine. I’m so confident you don’t need surgery we’re going to skip x-rays. I do, however, intend to keep you overnight. You’ve lost a lot of blood, and infection is always a possibility. We have some antibiotics and pain reliever flowing in your IV. I’m going to put in my orders, and we’ll have you in a room in no time.”
“No time,” turned out to be three hours later. Ridge waited in his room.
“You’re starting to give off Colonel vibes,” Leo said. Their boss was well known for his near prescient omnipresence. He also had a habit of showing up in the most unlikely places in a timely manner.
Ridge smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment. How are you doing, Leo?”
“Fine,” Leo said. From a marine to a sailor, there was no other possible answer to that question. “How’s Maggie?”
“She’ll be okay. We’ve always talked about the possibility that she’d have to take a kill shot, but it all seemed theoretical, and certainly not something we expected in late pregnancy. But it was clear there was no other option.”
“There was no other option,” Leo said. “She saved lives,” his gaze darted to Esther, “I hope she knows.”
“She does, at least in her head. The heart’s another matter, but I’m hoping the baby’s arrival will help soothe things. The first kill is always the hardest, as you know.”
Leo gave a heads up nod in agreement.
“You said there was something you needed to tell me,” Ridge prompted.
Leo’s gaze darted to Esther again. She was curled in a chair, a too-thin blanket draped over her tiny frame. “They were coming for her,” he blurted. Esther might look fragile, but what he said earlier was true—she wasn’t a fading flower. And she had the right to know the stark truth of the situation.
“Whoever the guy was wasn’t very bright because he left the red dot sight on. If I hadn’t seen it…” he didn’t finish, but he didn’t have to. Esther might not be alive. In fact, they all might be dead. Just because he and Ethan had sensed danger at the same moment didn’t mean they would have been able to properly identify it. Lucky for them it identified itself in time to prevent tragedy. “Any idea who he was?”
“A merc. Blue’s working on who hired him.”
A trained soldier for hire wouldn’t come cheap. Not many people had that kind of bankroll. “He knew where we were. He knew where we’d be sitting,” Leo said.
“Yes,” Ridge agreed, not breaking eye contact. The foreknowledge smacked of a mole. “I spoke to The Colonel. We’ve arranged a safe house for when you’re out of here, which should be tomorrow, if the rumors are true. Esther is staying here for the night, I presume.”
“You presume correctly,” Esther said.
“Good. I’ll post a guard at the door. He reached into his pocket and deposited a set of keys on the table between them, along with a folded piece of paper. “A car and the address of the house. Check back in three days, safe channels.”
Leo gave him the heads up nod again.
Ridge turned toward the door and paused, his hand on the frame. “Take care of yourselves and each other. And I guess it goes without saying not to trust anyone.” He didn’t wait for a reply before easing out the door, leaving silence in his wake.
Leo stared at the door a long time after he left, thinking. When he said the last about not trusting anyone, why did it sound like he included himself?
“Do you want me to get you some food?” Esther’s gentle voice invaded his dark thoughts. He turned to survey her. She was still curled in the chair, looking more exhausted than he’d ever seen her. But of course her first thought was for him.
“No, you’re not allowed to leave my side, remember?” he said.
“They have this thing called delivery,” she said.
“Was that sarcasm?” he asked, aghast.
“Was it?” she asked, equally aghast. “It wasn’t supposed to be. It was factual information. I could have something delivered for you.”
Between the pain reliever and pain, he felt nauseated more than anything else. “I’m fine, but you must be starved.”
“I don’t eat as much as you,” she said. She tried to smile, but it looked a little wobbly.
“C’mere,” he said.
She stood and came to the bed, hovering uncertainly. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“It hurts more to have you far away,” he said, patting the spot beside him with his good hand. Even that small motion hurt his injured shoulder. Shoulder injuries took forever to heal, would impede nearly every movement for weeks to come. It would be an aggravating inconvenience when Leo needed to be at his best. Esther lay down beside him. Leo slid his arm around her, and she nestled into him as usual, pressing her nose to the little spot beside his collarbone that seemed to be on reserve for her.
“You smell like blood,” she noted, dispelling any notion that she enjoyed the comforting reassurance of his embrace as much as he enjoyed hers.
“Sorry,” he said, a bit snappish.
“I wasn’t complaining, merely stating fact. I spew facts when I feel self-conscious.”
“You spew facts all the time.”
“I’m self-conscious a lot,” she said. “Are you sure I can’t get you some food?”
“Why are you always trying to feed me, Esther?”
“It’s the only way you’ll let me take care of you,” she said.
He blinked at that. “That’s not true.”
“Yes it is. You do everything for me. You tell me where to go, when to be there, what not to say. You’ve been trying your hardest to try and make me normal, to help me assimilate, to teach me how to navigate the city and the new job. And on top of all that you protect me. You…” she took a shuddery little breath, “you take bullets for me.” She pressed her face to his armpit, nestling closer.
He smoothed his hand down her spine, wondering if she would cry. She shuddered a few times, but her eyes remained dry. “Esther,” he said at last, “I hate to bust up this little heroic picture you’re painting of me, but all those things you listed are in my job description.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t be thankful for them,” she noted, her voice muffled against his chest.
His hand smoothed up and down her spine, soothing her with a firm touch. Esther went boneless, melting into him, stretching as she sighed.
“We need to figure out who’s trying to kill you,” he said.
“Okay,” she replied sleepily, eyes closed.
“Esther, this is important,” he warned. “Too important for sleep.”
“I do my best thinking with my eyes closed.”
“No, you don’t. You’re falling asleep,” he accused.
“So sleepy, Leo. Next time someone shoots at us, let’s make it be in the morning,” she mumbled.
“Esther, wake up.”
“Mm.”
His finger skittered lightly on her forearm. She jumped away from him like she’d been branded, rubbing hard at the spot, scowling now. “What was that for?”
“To get you to wake up.”
“I’m awake, and I don’t know who shot you. Now what?”
“Now we plot our escape.”