or a very pregnant Bolinda.”
She smiled. “How very nice of them!”
“They like you,” he replied.
She flushed a little and laughed. “They don’t think I’ll curdle the milk?”
He shook his head. “We’re modern in some of our attitudes. No pitchforks and torches. Stuff like that.”
She did laugh then.
He drew in a breath. “At least you have a little more color today.”
“I’m feeling much better. I don’t know what they’ve been pumping into me, but it really has helped.”
“Any visitors? Besides us, I mean.”
“Just Carson.” Her eyes softened. “He came and sat with me for a few minutes.”
His face grew cold. He let go of her hand. “I just saw Carson. He didn’t mention he’d seen you.”
“He felt guilty because he left us alone in the house,” she replied, “and gave the man an opening to tamper with my meds.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That it wasn’t his fault, of course,” she replied. “I know you don’t like him,” she added perceptively. “But he’s not what you think. He’s a good person.”
He almost bit his tongue trying not to tell her some of the things he knew that Carson had done.
“How’s Mama doing?” she asked to divert him. “She seems okay, but she was very worried. And she’s still getting over Dad being shot.”
He lost his jealousy all at once. “She’s doing very well. That was an accident of fate. Your father was a cruel, vindictive man. We make our path in life, then we walk it. His ended as violently as he lived.”
She sighed. “I suppose so. It’s still hard.” She looked up. “Are your parents still alive?”
He shook his head. “Our mother, died some years ago. So did our father. It’s been just the three of us for a long time.” He smiled sadly. “You know, there’s nobody in the world who feels the same pride for you that a parent does, or the unconditional love you get. A parent will excuse things that the world won’t. I suppose we’re poorer for the lack of them.”
“I always hoped for a father who’d be loving and kind,” she replied sadly. “Mine was neither. I learned to stay out of his way almost as soon as I could walk. Mama took a lot of blows that were meant for me.” She closed her eyes. “My childhood was a nightmare.”
He smoothed his fingers over her soft hand. “I’m sorry for that.”
“Me, too.”
She wasn’t resisting so he linked his fingers into hers. It gave him a thrill, like parachuting from a great height. “Any other visitors?” he asked.
She smiled. “Not really. Just the sheriff’s deputy. He asked me a lot of questions for a report.”
“I guess Cody sent him,” he said.
“I guess.”
He glanced at the hall. Hospital workers were moving trays off some sort of mobile rolling cart. He grimaced. “I suppose it’s supper time and I have to leave,” he said reluctantly.
“They really have very nice food here,” she said. “Well, except for the gelatin.” She whispered loudly, “Can’t you please smuggle me in a steak?”
“I heard that,” one of the volunteers called through the door with a chuckle.
“Sorry. Couldn’t help it,” Merissa replied.
The woman came in with a covered tray and placed it on the hospital table that looped over the bed. “You’ll like this. It isn’t steak. But it’s good.” She lifted the cover.
“Roast beef!” Merissa exclaimed. “And carrots! I love carrots!”
“Her first solid food, I gather?” Tank asked the woman.
She laughed. “However did you guess? Only someone on a liquid diet would go all googly-eyed over carrots.” She rolled her eyes. “And there’s this, too.” She put fruit juice, milk and a small serving of vanilla ice cream on the tray.
“I’ve died and gone to heaven,” Merissa whispered.
“Not quite, but you came close, I hear.” The woman chuckled again. “Now you eat every bite, okay?”
“Okay,” Merissa promised.
Tank smiled at her. Odd, he thought, the way her voice sounded. It was familiar. He wished he could place it. He almost asked if they’d met, but it would appear as a pickup line, and he wasn’t doing that in front of Merissa.
The woman went out. Merissa enthused over the food. But when she tasted the roast beef, she made a face.
“How very strange,” she murmured.
“What?”
“I’m just paranoid, I guess, but it tastes a little funny. It smells like someone got happy with the garlic. I guess it’s just my taste buds,” she added, and started to fork it into her mouth.
“No.” Tank took the fork with the meat on it. He sniffed it. He frowned. He knew that smell all too well. He’d worked, very carefully, with a commercial grade of Malathion. First the capsules, now this...!
“You’re not eating that.” He opened his cell phone and called Cody Banks.
“Hi, Tank. How’re things?” he replied.
“Did you send a deputy to the hospital to question Merissa today?” he asked.
The other man laughed. “Well, not yet,” he said. “I mean, she’s barely out of ICU...”
That was when Tank remembered the voice on the phone. He’d called the surveillance company and talked to a woman about installing the security cameras. That was the voice. The woman who brought in Merissa’s tray. She wouldn’t be working in a hospital if she was an accomplice for the assassin who was after Tank, and that was who she sounded like.
“Tank?” Cody asked when there was a long pause.
“You’ll think I’m crazy. But can you send your investigator over here right now?”
“Why?”
“Don’t hang up. I think the assassin has an accomplice working here, and part of Merissa’s meal that the woman just delivered may have something in it. Something dangerous. It smells like commercial Malathion. We already know that was what was put in the capsule she ingested.”
Cody knew Tank. He wasn’t an alarmist. His word was good enough for the sheriff. “I’ll not only send him, I’ll come with him. Don’t let them take that tray away until I get there.”
“I won’t.”
He hung up. Merissa was listening, and she looked more nervous than ever.
“Cody didn’t send a deputy over here to see you,” he said. “Tell me everything you remember about the man.”
She frowned. “He was medium height, wearing a uniform,” she said. “He was wearing a bib cap. He seemed very nice. He asked about my mother, and remarked about how lucky I was to still be alive. He said the man probably hadn’t meant to kill me at that point in time, or he would have put a bigger dose of poison in the capsules. He said that perhaps he was waiting for just the right moment to erase me, when it would have the most impact.” She looked at Tank. “That’s a strange thing to say, isn’t it?”
Tank was really worried now. He wanted to go out into the hall and find that damned woman, tie her up, make her talk. He wanted the man, the rogue agent. He pulled out his phone again and called Rourke.
“You’d better come down here. Make sure my brothers are in the house with their wives and that Carson is with them.”
“I’ll do it right now,” Rourke said without a single argument.
“Rourke?” Merissa questioned.
He smiled. “He once fed a man to a crocodile,” he mused. “I’m hoping he hasn’t lost his touch,” he added, just in case that paisley-shirt-wearing snake was listening.
“Dalton!” she exclaimed. “Shame!”
He curled her fingers closer into his. “On second thought, maybe something more creative than a crocodile.”
