Chapter 8 #2
Leland pointed at her to bring the point home. “We can’t have you going out of communication for any extended period of time because we won’t know if you’re in trouble or not. If we don’t know, we can’t help,” he told her.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I hadn’t really thought of that. I left in a rush this morning, tired, kind of worn out after not sleeping great, and, to be honest, I didn’t give it a thought.”
“We saw that, so Burton followed you here this morning. So, our first priority is to keep you and Pamela and Talia and the triplets all safe and sound, taking things one day at a time,” he shared.
“Thank you all for that.” She nodded. “Now I have to get back to work.” After updating the notes on Talia’s file, she headed back down to the main nurses’ station, thinking it would definitely be a long day.
Burton walked into the hospital, his senses on high alert as he took a look around at everybody to ensure nothing was untoward as he headed up to Talia’s room. It was heartbreaking that they were still in this position, but even more so now that Sammy had been affected as well.
He and Anderson had a long talk about it this morning, agreeing that she needed to stay for as long as they could convince her to, hopefully until they got to the bottom of this.
The last thing they wanted was another victim, particularly when they already understood how challenging it would be to save Sammy if she wasn’t close by so they could keep an eye on things.
These men came after Talia, so they had no qualms about picking on women. And the last thing Anderson wanted was anybody else hurt because of this mess.
They also were trying to track down Tim’s family history, specifically any living relatives of Timothy Magnus. Apparently he had been adopted. Burton was pretty sure Talia had no idea—or, maybe even if she did, it hadn’t been presented as an issue at the time.
Right now, Burton wasn’t sure Tim would have even told her.
When she was in love and happy and everything was great, it all seemed like fun and roses, but now it was a whole different story.
Nothing seemed amiss here in the hospital, but Burton still raced up the stairs to Talia’s room on the fourth floor.
The hallway was empty, but he also knew that Leland would be inside the room. As he stepped in, he heard Leland talking to somebody, and he briefly got excited to think that maybe it was Talia. He raced forward only to see that Leland was talking on the phone.
Leland finished off the phone call. “Okay, Burton’s here now. I’m heading over, and we’ll start checking out the houses. I’ll give you an update later.” He hung up, looked at him, and noted, “You looked pretty excited there for a minute.”
“I thought there was good news. When I heard you talking, I hoped you were talking to Talia,” Burton explained, as he stared at the still unconscious woman.
“Not yet,” he said, “but it would be nice if she woke up right away.”
“It would be great if she did. Anderson is covering it well, as he’s focused on the babies, but he is still worried sick.”
“Talia waking up would change things completely,” Leland stated. “She will still need a lot of care, care that we don’t necessarily have available for her.”
“I was wondering about that,” Burton added, “the thought of her still being in pain and dealing with all the healing is pretty rough. Plus, she may need rehab, from what I heard.”
“Well, the pain meds will help with the first, and we’ll help her through rehab as well,” Leland vowed, as he packed up his gear. “By the way, I saw Sammy here about”—he looked at his watch—“maybe forty-five minutes ago. So chances are, you won’t see her for a bit.”
Burton nodded, then raised his eyebrows. “How did she look?”
“Stressed and running on empty. I told her that I would head over to her house today, and she gave me her key,” he shared, holding it up. “So, I will probably start there. I’m still trying to get an angle on why they would have gone to her place. I mean, what would they hope to hear?”
“If they saw us together, they might have understood that we were getting close,” Burton shared, with an embarrassed shrug. “I wasn’t thinking that anybody would come after her because of it.”
“Of course not. So, pillow talk, huh?”
“Careful what you say to her. She seemed pretty upset that anybody would think that,” he added, with a grin.
“So, we can take that to mean that a lot of people they deal with let loose their jaws all the time. Obviously they expect to be working with people who do. So keep that in mind.”
“Which means that they have that habit themselves,” Burton pointed out.
“And that is something else worth noting because, if one of them has loose lips, you can bet the information is available and out there. We just have to find it.”
“Ex-girlfriends, you’re thinking?” Burton asked, his gaze narrowing at Leland, thinking about what the options could be.
“It would certainly be one thread to tug. We just need to know who that would be, which won’t be the easiest thing to find out,” he said. “Have you got any info on Timothy?”
“Nothing so far.”
“What about Roger Colbert?”
“I don’t know the man. Anderson says that he’s a mainstay around this place and a bit of a womanizer because he’s that slick politician kind.”
“Right?” he said, a wolfish smile on his lips. “In that case, maybe we can roust up some old girlfriends of his and see if that was an issue.”
“Kind of an odd question to ask them though, isn’t it?”
“Won’t matter how odd it is if it gets us what we need to know.”
“Oh, I hear you. I hear you. It’ll just be interesting if they’re all about him or ready to spill some of the less savory details about the relationship.”
Burton pondered that for a moment. “I think it’ll depend on how Colbert left any of them.”
“Yeah, if it was a good parting, she’ll be happy and not want to talk, but, if he screwed her over or cheated on her or something else along that line, you and I both know women scorned are not to be messed with.”
“Well, here’s hoping that a woman scorned is somewhere in his life,” Burton stated, with a laugh, “because you’re right. That’ll backfire on him pretty-darn fast. And backfiring is just what we need right now.”
Leland packed up, grabbed his laptop bag, and added, “I’ll check this ward too and will let you know if I find out anything.”
“Good enough.”
With that, the two men switched off, and Leland headed down the hallway.
Burton settled into his spot across from Talia, then got up, walked over, picked up her hand, and told her all about the current events, and how everybody was pulling for her, was waiting for her to wake up, so they could bring her home to her family.
He wondered about bringing the babies in to see her, but, if she was coming back out on her own, then it would make sense to just let Mother Nature progress gently on her timing. Goodness knows, the woman had enough to deal with without coming fully awake, instantly worried about her triplets.
Even as he stood here and talked to her, he felt her, could almost see the seething awareness starting to surface.
When she moaned gently, he just patted her hand and whispered, “It’s okay.
You’re fine. Your babies are fine. We’re making sure all is well, so don’t you worry.
” Then he placed her hand down, gently kissed her on the cheek, and walked back over to take up his seat and to keep up his vigilance.
Now he turned his attention to researching Colbert and whatever he might have for a sordid love affair that they could exploit for information—and the sooner, the better, because the ante had been upped, and who the hell knew where this would end?