Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
The hotel room was quiet
No pounding adrenaline echoing in Emma’s ears. Just pure relaxation.
Cap’s hard-muscled legs served as her pillow. His heavy arm blanketed over her, and his hand loosely held her forearm. In his hold, she was safe even though she knew he slept.
After indulging in a few more minutes of the comfort of his hold, she slipped out from under his arm, careful not to wake him. When she sat up and looked at him, her breath caught. His skin was a grayish hue, and he was too pale for a man who insisted he was fine.
She watched him breathe. Looking for anything wrong.
Unease gripped her spine.
She brushed her fingers over his forehead. Damp. Cold. Not the normal warmth she expected.
“Cap?” she whispered.
No response.
She leaned closer, pressing her hand lightly against his chest. His breathing was shallow, uneven—like his body had forgotten how to pull air all the way in.
Her pulse spiked.
“Cap,” she said louder.
Gripping his shoulder, she shook him.
Nothing.
An eerie chill slid through her veins.
She shook him harder. “Cap. Wake up.”
His head rolled slightly to the side, lips parting on a weak exhale—but he didn’t open his eyes. Didn’t react.
Panic surged.
She shook him again.
“Oh, God.”
Her mind raced backward to fight with the Colombian, and Cap telling her about the slam into the corner of the kitchen counter.
Had that caused more than bruised ribs? Some sort of delayed injury. She remembered hearing this could happen with blunt force trauma. It happened to football players sometimes, and to people who’d been in accidents.
She grabbed Cap’s burner phone and pressed the nine, but stopped before she pressed one.
She stared at the numbers.
No.
Not yet.
Remembering that Cap had told her the police had gone radio silent, she realized calling emergency services could reveal their location. If the Colombian was still watching, listening, hunting…
Her chest tightened.
She needed help—but quiet help.
Her thumb moved, tapping redial.
The burner phone rang once.
Twice.
“Cap?” The chief’s deep voice sounded through the line.
“No, it’s Emma.”
“What’s wrong?”
Her voice broke. “It’s Cap. He won’t wake up.”
Silence on the line—then controlled urgency. “Is he breathing?”
“Yes. Barely. He’s cold. Pale. His ribs got bruised during the fight. I think something more is going on.”
“Okay,” the chief said. “Listen to me. Don’t move him. I’m dispatching an ambulance—no lights, no sirens. I’ll be there myself. Within minutes.”
Relief flooded her so fast her knees nearly buckled.
“I’m on my way now,” he said.
The line went dead.
Emma put the phone down and placed her hands on Cap’s clammy cheeks.
“Please wake up,” she whispered. “Please.”
His breathing stuttered.
Emma wiped sweat from his temple with trembling hands.
“Come on,” she begged. “Just open your eyes.”
His lips parted, a faint sound escaped his throat—but he didn’t wake.
The minutes stretched endlessly until finally a light knock sounded on the door. Through the peephole, she saw Chief Mertz with two paramedics.
She fumbled with the locks and opened the door.
The paramedics hustled past her and attended to Cap, checking his vitals and slipping an oxygen mask onto him.
Chief pulled the stretcher into the room and placed it next to the couch.
“BP’s dropping,” one paramedic said.
The other lifted his shirt. “Possible internal bleed.”
Emma’s heart lurched.
They lifted Cap onto the stretcher. He didn’t stir, didn’t acknowledge they were there. Nothing.
Chief Mertz lightly gripped her bicep and guided her along as they followed the paramedics and Cap out of the hotel, to the ambulance.
“I want to go with him,” she said to the chief.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t. You’ll ride with me. We’ll go to the hospital.”
She stared at the man through watery eyes.
“It’s safest for you,” he added.
She climbed into the chief’s squad, and they followed the ambulance eighteen blocks to the hospital.
No lights. No sirens. Would they be moving faster if they could use the emergency lights and sirens?
Was Cap stable enough not to move more quickly?
He must be, right? The chief and paramedics wouldn’t risk it unless they were confident another minute or two didn’t matter, right?
When they arrived at the hospital, she spotted a tall, slim man with a military-looking haircut. It took a second to register that it was Captain Tomie.
She walked directly into the secure emergency room area alongside Chief Mertz. Tomie was on her other side.
She darted her gaze around the area. A nurse’s station was in the middle of the room, surrounded by patient rooms. Some with actual doors, others with just curtain barriers.
The lights were bright, the equipment beeped, and it smelled clean.
She couldn’t see Cap. Was he in one of those rooms already?
An older gentleman dressed in blue scrubs approached them.
“Hi, Chief,” the man said, then looked at the captain. “Captain,” he added with a nod and then zoned in on her. “Miss.”
“Hi, Jerry. Where’s Cap? Captain Tomie needs to be with him at all times. No matter what.”
“I don’t know if…”
“At all times,” Chief Mertz interjected.
The man’s solid tone shone with authority.
“Understood,” Jerry replied as he gestured for Captain Tomie to follow him.
“I want to go, too,” Emma said excitedly.
Chief Mertz’s empathetic gaze met hers. “You can’t.”
“But…”
“Listen. Right now, you are safest away from him. And, well, he may wind up in surgery or something. We don’t know yet.”
She didn’t care about her safety; she wanted to be with Cap.
The chief pointed at a bank of four chairs. “Let’s sit and wait for Jerry to come back and let us know what’s going on.”
It wasn’t like she had a choice in the matter; she knew he had made up his mind, so she moved toward the chairs.
Emma wished she were as calm and collected as the chief seemed to be. But he was trained for this sort of thing, and she wasn’t. She was just a graphic artist. This kind of thing didn’t happen in her line of work. Or, her life. Until now, that was.
She nervously rubbed her hands together.
Chief looked at her. “We’ll know more soon.”
She noticed he didn’t sugarcoat the situation and tell her everything would be okay. His calm tone brought some comfort to her.
The chief stood, and she looked to see where he looked. Jerry walked toward them.
“Captain Tomie is with him. The doctor did a quick exam and is sending him for a CT scan.”
“So he’s alert?”
“Yes, he came around a bit in the ambulance, but he’s pretty groggy yet. The oxygen and fluids helped some.”
Jerry fixed his gaze on her. “He was alert enough to ask where you were. He’s worried about you. I informed him you were with the chief.” Jerry chuckled. “He said to tell you to do what the chief says and not give him any grief.”
With a sideways glance, she caught the chief’s smile.
“The CT scan, what are they looking for?” Chief Mertz asked.
“Ruptured spleen, maybe.”
“How bad is that?” Emma asked.
“Well, if it is that, and I’m not saying it is, sometimes it can heal on its own, and other times surgery is required. Again, we don’t know for sure if it is his spleen. The CT will tell us more.”
“Thanks, Jerry.”
“You bet.”
Jerry walked away and tucked himself behind the nurse’s station.
“Should we call his family?” Emma asked.
Chief Mertz seemed to debate the answer to her question.
“The danger is still real. If I call them and they come here, it could bring too much attention. Yet, it’s their son.”
The chief silenced and thought for a moment.
“I’m going to call Hunter. Figure out what to do about their mom and dad. See if we can’t inform them but keep them away. Though experience tells me there will be no keeping parents away from an injured child, even an adult one.”
Chief tapped his cell phone screen.
Emma stood next to him, listening to his side of the conversation with Cap’s brother. They spoke for a few minutes before the call ended.
Chief turned his attention to her. “Their parents are out of town. They’re up north visiting Cap’s Uncle Lee and Aunt Heidi. It’s about a three-hour drive away. That will buy us some time.”
“Huh?”
“In case the Colombians have eyes on them, they won’t lead them to us here for at least three hours.”
“They’re watching Cap’s parents?”
Chief shrugged. “They could be watching all of us.”
Emma sank back into her chair. Her shoulders slumped.
“I’ve put all these innocent people in grave danger,” she whispered.
The chief sat. “Listen, Emma, you didn’t do this.”
“I did. If I just hadn’t kept the bag from Jonathan and taken the charter, he might still be alive, Deputy Vanderwood wouldn’t be hurt, and Cap wouldn’t be here, in the hospital.”
“You can’t think like this. Sometimes bad stuff just happens to good people. That’s the reality of it.”
“Chief,” Jerry called out.
Chief Mertz stood, and Emma rose with him.
“They’re prepping Cap for surgery. His spleen is damaged. They think they can repair it, but they may end up removing it.”
Emma’s heart lurched into her throat.
“Is this a complicated procedure? What is the risk?” the chief asked.
“All surgery has a risk, but this procedure should go smoothly.”
“How long does the surgery take?” Emma asked.
Jerry looked at her. “Maybe a few hours. It depends on what the surgeon finds when he gets in there.”
“Tomie stays with him.”
“Understood,” Jerry replied and walked away.
Emma looked at the chief, needing any sort of reassurance that things would be okay. A hint of concern laced Chief Mertz’s gaze, but he stayed silent.
In the waiting room, Emma sat rigid in the hard chair with her hands clasped so tightly in her lap her fingers ached almost as much as her bruised feet. The air smelled of disinfectant and burned coffee.
Three steps away, the chief stood near the windows, phone pressed to his ear, posture straight, with a neutral expression.
Cap was in surgery.
The words emergency spleen surgery and internal bleeding replayed in her mind.
She closed her eyes and tilted her head back. When she reopened her eyes, she counted the white ceiling tiles, trying to distract herself from the guilt she felt for bringing this hardship upon Cap. She was her own worst enemy.
The chief turned, lowering his phone. “They caught him.”
“What?”
“The Colombian,” he said in a steady voice.
“How? Where?” One-word questions seemed to be all she could muster.
“A Brown County camera picked up the license plate and a sheriff’s deputy pursued at high speed. The Colombian lost control of his vehicle, and he crashed into a guardrail. He was pronounced dead at the scene.”
Relief hit her like a huge wave. Her chest loosened, and her lungs filled with renewed air.
“It’s over?”
“Yes.”
“Even without having found the drugs?” she asked.
“I believe so. There’s too much heat in this area for the amount of drugs that’s gone missing. Weighted against the dollars, the risk is probably too high for them to keep pushing.”
She nodded, but the chief’s affirmation didn’t bring comfort. Instead, it brought clarity. That danger may be over, but Cap still lay on the operating table.
“I’m going to call Hunter and let him know the family can come here now.” The Chief said.
Cap’s family. She stood no chance with Cap now. His family would never be able to forgive her for the danger she put him in. Not to mention the danger she exposed Cici and Hunter to by using them as bait on the charter boat.
Tears swelled in her eyes. Over. It was all over.
Chief crouched down in front of her. “Did you hear me? It’s over. There’s too much heat here for such a small loss of drugs. The Colombian was caught fleeing the area. I don’t think you’ll have any problems from here on out.”
“Okay,” she muttered.
The man stood but stayed close by.
She needed to get out of the hospital before his family showed up.
“I want to go home,” she stated.
Chief looked at her. His brows knit. “Without waiting to see Cap again?”
“Yes. I just want to get away from here. But I would like to leave him a note.”
She rose on wobbly legs and asked the nurse sitting behind the counter for a piece of paper and a pen.
Her hands shook so badly she could hardly hold the pen, let alone write legibly. Her stomach twisted at the thought of what to write.
She recalled the story Cap had told her about when Hunter had been hospitalized from trying to protect Hannah.
It didn’t appear that his family held a grudge against Hannah.
Maybe she overreacted, and his family wouldn’t hold Cap’s injuries against her.
She set the pen down and rethought her actions.
Then, she thought of Cap’s poor parents.
Having to go through this type of scare again.
It wasn’t fair to them. And, what if Chief Mertz was wrong?
What if the cartel still pursued her to lead them to the drugs?
Or, what if they wanted to kill her to tie up loose ends?
She loved Cap too much to put him and his family in that kind of danger.
Walking away was the right thing to do. She picked up the pen.
She closed her eyes, drew in a long breath, let it out slowly, then opened her eyes and put the pen to the paper.
Dear Cap,
I’m so sorry.
I’m struggling to find the right words, and there aren’t any to make this better.
I won’t be the reason you end up in the hospital again, or worse.
You got hurt, almost died, because of me, because you protected me, because you didn’t walk away when you could have, or should have.
I dragged you right back into the dangerous life you left.
I’m so sorry. But know that what I felt for you was real.
I believe that wholeheartedly. But love shouldn’t cost you your life. I couldn’t live with that.
Your family will be here soon to take care of you. I take great comfort in knowing you’ll be in loving hands. You deserve that.
Thank you for looking out for me when my world was on fire.
Please don’t come after me. I need you safe.
I will always love you.
Emma
She folded the letter and handed it to the chief. “Please make sure he gets this.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to give it to him yourself?”
“I can’t. Would it be possible to get a ride back to the hotel for me to get my things? And can I get my phone back?”
“Yes, I’ll call for an officer to come get you. How will you get home?”
“I’ll call my friend Morgan to come get me.”
Chief nodded and made his phone call.
He looked at her closely. “Are you sure?”
She nodded.
“I’ll walk with you to the exit.”
As she walked, she didn’t look back. She couldn’t. If she did, she might not leave. Loving Cap meant not endangering him anymore, no matter how much it hurt to leave him.