Chapter 4 #2
“I’ll get Steel moving. Which hospital?”
I flagged down one of the paramedics. “Where are you taking her?”
“Anne Arundel Medical.”
I repeated what they said.
“On my way. Brenna and Luke too.”
I climbed into the back of the ambulance and sat on the bench beside Emma’s stretcher. The paramedic was taping gauze over the gash on her forehead. When she looked up at me with tears running down her face, I couldn’t tell if she wanted to thank me or hit me.
I put my hand on her ankle because it was the only part of her the paramedics weren’t occupied with. It stayed there for the rest of the ride.
After they wheeled her past a set of double doors at the ER, they swung shut three feet from me.
I’d moved to a plastic chair with a sight line on both entrances. The habit was older than my career and impossible to break.
Each time I closed my eyes, I was in that car, with airbag dust hanging in the air and Emma slumped over the dash.
The waiting room doors opened. Atticus came in first. Brenna was right behind him, pale and tight-lipped.
Luke followed.
My jaw locked before I could stop it. He had every reason to be here.
Atticus sat in the chair beside me. “Updates?”
“Given her apparent injuries, my guess is they’re running a concussion workup and chest films. Nobody’s told me anything.”
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “What happened?”
“Brakes were fine through city traffic. Failed the first time she had to hit them hard on the highway. Whatever was done to that car was intended to hold until then. Steel will have to tell us the rest.”
“So the bomb was theater,” he said. “This was the real play.” He studied me longer than he needed to. “You kept her alive. Focus on that.”
I didn’t respond. She was alive, yes, but she was also in a trauma bay because I’d handed her the keys to a car I’d declared safe.
Brenna sat on my opposite side. “How are you holding up?”
“Fine.”
She didn’t push, which was exactly the right call.
Nobody spoke. Atticus worked his phone, and Luke positioned himself near the window.
Brenna stayed next to me without trying to fill the quiet, and I appreciated it more than she’d ever know.
My mind cycled between Emma’s warm forehead against mine on the side of the highway and the crunch of the guardrail made when we hit it.
One was the closest I’d come to telling her the truth since the night of the wedding.
The other was a sound I’d be hearing for a long time.
Eventually, Brenna rose and disappeared into the treatment area. I was surprised when nobody stopped her and wondered why I hadn’t done the same thing.
“She’s asking for you,” she said when she returned a few minutes later.
When Luke stepped closer, she glanced at him, then at me. “She’s asking for Kodiak,” she clarified. “Bay number twelve. Left side.”
The chair scraped the floor when I got up, and Brenna stepped aside.
I passed the same double doors that had closed on me an hour ago and counted until I reached her bay.
She looked vulnerable, lying on the gurney, with an IV running into her left arm. The gown hung off one shoulder, and the bandage on her forehead stood out stark white against her skin. When she saw me in the doorway, her tension eased.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.” I stood a foot away.
“You can sit down. I don’t bite.”
“Have they told you anything yet?”
“Mild concussion. Bruised ribs, nothing broken. I’ll be able to leave soon.”
I perched on the edge of the chair and gripped the armrests. She reached over, took one of my hands, and threaded her fingers through mine.
I held on harder than I should have—so hard she’d know I wasn’t planning to let go first. For a full minute, neither of us spoke. My mind raced, trying to remember the last time I’d been this still with another person.
“When you weren’t moving,” I said. “In the car, after we hit—” I’d spent years learning to debrief the worst days of my career in flat, detached sentences. I could describe firefights and failed extractions without my pulse changing. But telling her how I felt at that moment? Not a chance.
She squeezed my hand harder until I met her gaze.
“I’m okay,” she said.
“I know.”
“Finish your sentence.”
“I should update Brenna and Atticus.”
She released my hand slowly, one finger at a time, like she was making sure I registered what it cost her to let go.
“I won’t be long,” I muttered as I walked out.
Brenna was three steps from the doors when I came out. “How is she?”
“Nothing broken. Go see her.”
She was already moving.
Atticus was on his feet by the time I reached where he’d been sitting. I surveyed the area, but didn’t see Luke.
“I sent him to link up with Steel on the car,” Atticus said without me asking. “He’ll be more useful there. How is she?”
“A little worse for wear, but they’re gonna let her go soon. Then we’ll need a ride home.”
“When the time comes, Brenna and I will get you there.” Then he added, “Luke drove separately.”
Atticus made calls while I sat in the same plastic chair as before, staring at the floor between my boots and trying not to think about how much of an asshole I was for walking out of that bay without telling Emma how I’d felt when I called her name and she didn’t respond.
Eventually, Brenna returned, saying they were getting ready to discharge Emma. When I didn’t get up, she folded her arms and glared at me.
“What?” I finally asked.
“Go help her.”
I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut and do as she said versus ask why she couldn’t do it.
On the way to the bay, I prayed that Brenna had at least helped her change into her clothes.
She had. Not into what she was wearing during the accident, but in sweats I hadn’t noticed she brought with her.
“I, uh, hear you get to leave.”
Her expression was the same as when I’d left earlier.
“What I was about to say before…”
She folded her arms. “Yes?”
“I said your name, and you didn’t answer.”
Emma didn’t blink.
“It scared me.”
“If the situations were reversed, it would’ve scared me too.”
“It’s not a feeling I experience often.”
She smiled, and I caught her dimples. “Thank you for admitting it.”
“Don’t get used to it,” I said with a wink.
Once the paperwork was complete and an orderly arrived with a wheelchair, I helped her off the gurney. She put her hand on my arm and lowered herself until her feet hit the floor, then she stayed there for a second, with her weight on me, before she steadied.
She tried to convince the man with the wheelchair that she was capable of leaving under her own power. He ignored her and cited hospital policy.
When we came out the main door, Atticus and Brenna were waiting by the SUV. The orderly helped Emma stand, then returned inside.
“Hang on,” Emma said, stopping to pull her phone out. “I need to call my mom.”
Brenna touched her arm. “Do you want me to—”
“No. It has to come from me.” She pressed the screen and brought the phone to her ear. “Hey, Mom. It’s me. I’m okay, but I was in a car accident.”
She waited while her mother responded, then cut back in. “I’ve been to the hospital, and they discharged me. I have a mild concussion and bruised ribs. Brenna is with me.”
Like on her previous call with her mother, Emma winced and held the phone an inch from her ear.
“No. You do not need to come. The ER doctor cleared me.”
She closed her eyes and paused again.
“I know it’s a lot on top of the break-in, but I’m okay, and I’m going to stay with Brenna. She and I will ride into the office together tomorrow.”
Her mother said something that made Emma’s brow furrow.
“Mom. Please. I need you to hear me when I tell you I’m all right. The car is totaled, but I’m not.” She quieted, then added, “Yes. I promise I’ll call you tomorrow. I love you too.”
After hanging up, she kept her back to us for a few seconds, then turned around.
“She wants to come,” she said.
“Of course she does,” Brenna said.
“She can’t.”
“Let’s get you to Kodiak’s. After that, I’ll call her and say you’re sleeping.”
“Thanks.”
I guided Emma to the SUV and climbed in the backseat with her. She lasted all of ten minutes before the painkillers caught up with her. She fought valiantly against them. Each time her head dipped and her chin hit her chest, she’d snap upright like she’d been caught sleeping on watch.
“Let yourself rest,” Brenna said from the front seat. “We’ve got you.”
“I’m fine,” she mumbled as she drifted off again. I eased her into me, and within seconds, she was out.
We used a different route toward the bay. Traffic had thinned, but that didn’t stop Atticus from checking his mirrors at increased intervals.
We’d turned onto the road that led into my neighborhood when my phone pinged with a text from Alice.
“Pull over. We have a problem,” I said, keeping my voice low.
Atticus eased the SUV off the road.
“Alice and Tex picked up a short-range RF transmission coming from the property. The signal pattern is consistent with a surveillance drone,” I said, scanning the tree line.
The road to my house ran through a quarter mile of dense woods before opening to the waterfront, which made it harder to spot the device.
When I finally did, it was forty yards out, tucked into the canopy, where a low branch met the trunk of an oak.
It was small and matte black, positioned to disappear against the bark.
If I hadn’t been looking for it, I’d have driven past without a second glance.
“I see it,” I said.
Atticus put the SUV in reverse and eased backward down the road without turning on the headlights.
“We can’t stay here,” I said.
Once we reached the main road, Atticus swung south at a steady speed that wouldn’t draw a second look.
Brenna spoke first. “Any idea how long the drone has been there?”
“No way to know. Alice caught the signal, which means it’s active. It could’ve been sitting there since we left this morning.”