painted a sunny yellow, warm and inviting, quite unlike the gray drabness of the emergency rooms Taylor was used to.
Taylor badged the nurse at the front desk. “We’re looking for Peter Fitzgerald.”
The nurse took their credentials carefully, checking them against a notepad she had at her elbow.
“May I see your driver’s license, please?” she asked politely. Taylor nodded and dug her wallet out of her back pocket-a slim golf wallet she’d bought for her dad’s Christmas present several years earlier and instead confiscated for herself. It was easy to carry, and had only the essentials, a twenty, two credit cards, her license and insurance cards. She’d do anything not to be bulked down with a purse. Baldwin handed his own license over. The nurse compared that pictured against his FBI credentials, wrote their names down on a pad of paper, then handed it back and apologized.
“We were under instructions to double-check everyone trying to see Mr. Fitzgerald today.”
Taylor smiled and said, “Good. You did good. How is he?”
“He’s just out of recovery and back in his room. He’s up on the third floor, room 323. The doctor will be seeing him later today.”
“Did the surgery go all right?”
“I don’t know, dear. Why don’t you go on down and see him?” The nurse smiled kindly and focused back on her work.
Baldwin punched the button on the wall and the doors swung wide. They walked the long hallway to Fitz’s room in an uneasy silence. Before they reached the door, Taylor grabbed Baldwin’s hand.
“Have you ever thought about how easy it would be to kill someone in a hospital? That nurse did the right thing asking for ID, but she could be overpowered in a heartbeat. And once you’re past her, look out. You can go anywhere in a hospital without anyone giving you a second glance. It’s not safe, Baldwin. He’s not safe here.”
“Honey, I doubt the Pretender has any more interest in Fitz. His part in this is over-he’s suffered, and relayed the message to you. Besides, Lincoln is with him now. If you’re that worried, we’ll get a permanent guard on him, in addition to all of us.”
In her heart, she knew he was right. It wasn’t necessarily the Pretender she was worried about. The idea of Fitz, so alone, so hurt, missing his eye, missing his girlfriend, his life upended…she just didn’t want him to be by himself. Not now. Not when she couldn’t be there 24/7 to hold his hand and reassure him that everything would be all right. The Pretender was done with Fitz, but Fitz would never be done with the Pretender. Not while they both lived.
They took a few more steps, reached the door. She blurted out the question that had been on her mind all afternoon.
“Don’t you need to go back to Quantico?”
He stopped, and she saw something unrecognizable flickering in his eyes before he shook his head. “I’m going to take off a couple of weeks. Personal time. You need me right now.”
She watched him for any more signs of discomfiture, but he was smiling, the fear she thought she’d seen gone.
“Okay,” she said. She didn’t want to admit that she was relieved. She wanted him close. She wanted everyone close right now, where she could watch out for them.
The door to Fitz’s room opened and Lincoln Ross walked out, his dreadlocked hair subdued. He gave her a big hug.
“Hey, good to see you. Heard you had a rough go of it this morning.”
“You could say that.”
“I’ve got to run. I just got called out on a case.”
She felt her pulse quicken. “Anything I need to know about?”
“I don’t think so. We received a report of a body out in Percy Priest Lake.”
“Cold for swimming,” Baldwin said.
“No kidding.” Lincoln flashed them a smile.
“We need to get some folks to stick around for Fitz,” she said.
“Already done. I talked to Huston. She’s authorized a four-man shift. The first guy should be here any minute.”
“Thanks, Linc. You’re the best.”
He flashed her a gap-toothed smile. “Remember that come raise time. See ya later.” He loped off down the hall.
Taylor knocked on Fitz’s door softly, a warning so he could get himself together, then they entered the room. Fitz was lying in the hospital bed, quiet and drained. His good eye was closed. The missing eye was bandaged similarly to earlier in the day, but the dressing was clean and white.
“Hey there,” she said quietly. He wasn’t asleep, and turned to her with the ghost of a smile. His voice was raspy from the anesthesia.
“Hey yourself. What happened? Why am I in Nashville? I woke up and Lincoln was standing over me. Thought I was dreaming for a second till the fool opened his mouth.” He started to cough.
Baldwin got busy pouring Fitz some water, letting him sip it from a straw before he spoke more. The coughing eased.
Taylor pulled up a chair, touching Fitz lightly on the arm.
“First, how are you feeling? What did the doctors do?”
When he cleared his throat, it sounded like fabric ripping apart at the seams. “Damn anesthesia. I don’t know. It was a bunch of technobabble to me. All I picked up was that I’ll be able to get a shiny new eye in about a month. Seems everything went just fine.”
“Are you in pain?”
“Naw. I’m still high as a kite. I’m sure that won’t last forever. Now, what the hell happened?”
Taylor filled him in on the morning’s disaster. “We didn’t have any choice but to divert you here. I couldn’t take the chance that it was some kind of trap, some unfathomable grand plan… I’m still a little bit in shock.”
Fitz whistled. “Yeah, something didn’t feel right about the whole thing. I figured it was because of the drugs, but I could swear I’d heard Sansom’s voice before. And I mean before, before, while we were still on the boat. It didn’t make sense that she would be on the boat and be at the police station. I knew she wasn’t straight, but there was no way I could tell you. I’m so sorry. If I had, maybe none of this would have happened. I was so confused…”
She took his hand.
“Don’t do that to yourself. The fake agents had a very specific plan. If you’d said something, they might have killed us all and been done with it. Now that we’re safe and sound, can you talk about what happened? I could tell you were holding back in Nags Head, I just didn’t realize why. Now that we’re on the same page, do you feel up to giving me some more details?”
Fitz leaned his head back, the cheap, thin pillow crackling a bit as he sank in. He sighed, a deep, heavy, sad noise that made her stomach hurt.
“If you’re not ready…”
“No, it’s okay. I just miss her, you know? It’s my own damn fault it all went south.” Fitz’s voice was tired, quiet. “Remember we lost our impeller down in Barbados?”
“Yes,” Taylor replied. “You called because you thought you saw the Pretender near Susie.”
At the mention of her name, Fitz winced. “Yeah. Bastard bumped into her. She dropped everything on the ground. I was watching through the binoculars. Ass hole picked up the packages, handed them to her, then turned around and saluted me. He knew exactly who I was. Then he disappeared. The engine part came the next day-we made the repairs and started sailing north. He caught up with us in Miami. There were four of them, but they wore masks, those black things terrorists wear. What are they called?”
“Balaclavas,” Baldwin interjected.
“That’s it. But these had a skull printed on them, just the lower jaw and nose. Freaky-looking-like a skull with live eyes.” He shook his head, wincing slightly at what Taylor knew must be great pain. Emotional or physical, that was the question. She was worried about him. He didn’t sound right.
What he should sound like, she didn’t know.
“It’s my fault. I left Susie on the boat, went into the port for supplies. When I got back, they already had her
