Chapter 26
26
V iper called Roxanne on his way to the hospital to tell her they might not arrive that night. Lina had been conscious and talking when the EMTs wheeled her away, but he had no idea the severity of her injuries.
Roxanne, in her unique way, managed to get the full story from him. Not only that, in the ten minutes it took to drive to the hospital, she put an alternate plan in place. She and Klaus would fly up. Klaus would drive the car down, and she’d fly him and Lina back to Coos Bay. He expressed his misgivings about Klaus taking the Range Rover—Sam and Nest had managed to find them; it wasn’t a big leap to think the couple would recognize their car. Roxanne assured him, though, that Klaus could take care of himself—her words causing Viper to rethink what he knew about the butler.
In the end, he agreed. Getting Lina to safety was his priority, and if they couldn’t be at the Falcons’ headquarters, Roxanne’s was the next best option.
As he walked into the ER, he texted Mantis a quick update, promising to call as soon as he knew Lina’s status. Sliding his phone into his pocket, he looked for someone to help.
An older woman sitting behind a glass partition waved him over.
“I’m Jackson Bond. My girlfriend was brought in a few minutes ago by the EMTs,” he said. She motioned for him to sit, but he preferred to stand. She huffed an exhale, but began clacking her long nails on her keyboard.
“ID, please,” she said.
He handed over his driver’s license. She checked it against something on her screen before nodding and handing it back. “Tova will escort you. Ms. Kato is waiting to be seen,” she said, motioning for a young woman with jet-black hair, a nose ring, and black nails to join them. A minute later, they pushed through the doors of the waiting room into the emergency room.
Having spent too much time in hospitals as a kid, Viper hated them. Hated the noxious, antiseptic smell and underlying hint of rot and decay. Hated the incessant beeping of monitors and the squeak of shoes on the vinyl floors. More than a decade had passed since he’d last seen the inside of an ER, and yet the memories crawled under his skin, tightening his throat and triggering his fight-or-flight instinct. Flight wasn’t an option, so he shoved his anxiety into a little mental box and focused on Lina.
Lina, who lay quiet and small on a bed, eyes closed and covered by a blanket. He didn’t like that she was unattended, but at least that meant they hadn’t needed to rush her into any treatment.
He murmured his thanks to Tova, who nodded back, then, silent as a ghost, turned and left. Not knowing if Lina slept or not, he approached quietly, taking the seat beside her.
“I’m awake,” Lina said.
He let out a breath and picked up her hand. “How do you feel?”
“Annoyed.”
Not the answer he’d expected. “At?”
“Not jumping out of the way fast enough.”
“It happened too fast. At least you got enough out of the way that you didn’t take a direct hit.” His stomach churned at the words and the alternate ending to the situation that kept playing in his head.
“I waited too long,” she grumbled. “I wanted to see who was driving.”
It took a second for her words to sink in. “What the fuck, Lina!” he demanded, jumping to his feet. “You allowed yourself to get hit on purpose ?”
A nurse at the desk across the hall shot him a dirty look. He had enough presence of mind to also notice that she glanced at the security guard.
“I didn’t intend to get hit. Like I said, I misjudged his speed.”
Her quasi-rational response only fueled his anger. “And that makes it acceptable that you intentionally put yourself in danger? That you intentionally risked your life?” he demanded, his voice a harsh whisper.
“Stop looming over me,” she said. She hadn’t opened her eyes since he’d walked in, yet somehow, she knew that he stood, pressed against the rail of her bed, glaring down at her. Another surge of anger tore through him, this one a little less rational than the first.
“Then open your eyes and tell me why the hell you let yourself get hit by a truck. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is worth risking your life over,” he bit out.
She inhaled once, twice, then opened her eyes. “That’s not true. A lot of things are worth risking our lives over, and we’ve both done it time and again.”
“Are you trying to piss me off even more?”
“Is that possible?”
He ground his teeth together. The teasing glint in her eyes didn’t help. “Lina,” he growled.
She sighed. “I saw the truck coming. I figured it was either Sam or Nest or both, and I wanted to confirm. I intended to make it look like they hit me—or something close. Something that would make them think that they’d taken me out of the picture. At least, temporarily. I misjudged, and the final burst of speed took me by surprise. I’m sore and a bit banged up, but I’m fine.”
“Your hip,” he demanded. He’d seen the blood.
“They’ve got a bandage on it and are waiting for the doc to decide if it needs a couple of stitches. It’s going to be sore as hell, though,” she added. Her flat honesty took some of the wind from his sails. If she’d minimized her injuries, he wasn’t sure he would have kept control of his anger. Or fear.
“And your head?”
Her eyes closed again. He picked up her hand, the one he dropped when he’d risen. “They haven’t said yet. My guess is a minor concussion, and they’ll recommend rest, over-the-counter pain meds, and a day or two without electronics.”
The steady beeping of her heart monitor filled the silence. Its metronome-like cadence almost meditative.
He retook his seat. “Don’t ever fucking do something like that again,” he grumbled. Although, he knew full well that if a situation presented itself, she would. Her life, her training, her skills, and her personal ethics wouldn’t let her stand by if she could help.
“It was Sam in the truck,” she said. “Did you see Nest anywhere?”
He exhaled, resigned to letting his anger go, for now. “No.”
“They found us somehow and followed.”
“Yep,” he replied, his voice curt. She cracked an eye open, studied him, then closed it again. Internally, he sighed. “My guess is, they were watching the major intersections both south and north of Arch Cape. There are other roads that connect with the highway, but only one big intersection in either direction.”
She managed a small nod. “They saw us turn south from Highway 26 and followed us from there.”
“We can’t know for certain, but yeah.”
“They managed to find my grandfather’s estate. If they weren’t trying to kill me, I’d almost admire their skill.”
“Doubt it’s their skill that did it. We already suspected that whoever is behind this has deep pockets. He or she probably hired someone for the intelligence side of things while Sam and Nest are the boots on the ground.”
A beat passed before she nodded. “But why try to kill me? If they want the information my father left, leaving me alive is the best way to get it. They don’t even know what we have. Or if we have anything at all.”
“Maybe it started that way, but things have changed.” She opened her eyes, leaving them open this time. “They were following you at first. Maybe wanting to see what, if anything, you’d do with the map and money in the bag. If you’d done nothing, maybe they would have let it go.”
“But I ran,” she said.
“And showed up in Eureka obviously looking for something,” he said.
“And because I started looking into it, it became more expedient to kill me. Which means they don’t need the information for themselves.”
He nodded. “They needed it to die with your dad. To never see the light of day.”
She closed her eyes again and chuckled. “Too late for that.”
“Yeah, they probably think I’m your average biker muscle and you’re little more than a mousy CPA.”
Her eyes flew open. “I’m not mousy.”
He grinned. “I know that. You know that. Anyone who knows you knows that. But they don’t. It’s possible they found out you worked for the CIA, but if they did, as a CPA now, they probably assume you were a forensic accountant or something.”
“Accounting is very different from taxes.”
“It all involves money. To-may-to, to-mah-to.”
“You’re saying that to annoy me.” He remained silent. “So what now?” she asked. “They’ve obviously identified the car we drive. They’re probably watching the hospital as we speak. We’re not going to lead them to Roxanne, but I also don’t love the idea of driving any of the roads around here with a tail.”
“It’s taken care of,” he said before relaying the plan Roxanne put together.
“She’s crazy,” Lina said when he finished. “I kind of love her, but she’s crazy.”
He didn’t have time to agree as a doctor stepped into the room. Viper studied the ID hanging from her neck before rising and introducing himself.
“The police are here wanting to talk to you, Ms. Kato, but let’s get an X-ray of your hip first. We’ll do another physical exam related to your head injury, but based on the information from the first responders, I don’t think a CT scan will be necessary.” She eyed the two of them, then nodded. “Let’s get the show on the road and get you out of here as soon as we can.”